DRAMA OF WORKS School of Puppetry

For only $150 you can spend every Monday evening of the month from 7-10pm in our studio under the tutelage of me, Artistic Director Gretchen Van Lente learning first-hand about the art of puppetry.
It's work out as a kind of mini-puppet lab - we spend the first half of each Monday doing mini-workshops and then the second half is free play puppet fun!
Please email me if you are interested in joining us or have any questions. Also, please note that we will continue these indefinitely, so let me know if are interested in future classes!

The DOW School of Puppetry
August 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th and 31st
7-10pm
320 Dean Street, 3rd floor, Brooklyn
$150 (due at first session)

I've been meaning to post these videos for months, but just never got round to it...

Late last year, I was immensely flattered when John Reaves, Alyce Dissette and Hal Eagar asked me if I would be interested in collaborating with photographer Janet Sternburg in creating a multimedia exhibit for the Seoul Institute of the Arts.  Of course I said yes, and by January 2009, I was getting deep into design research.

As part of this process I tried to identify a good transparent projection screen.  In the end we didn't go with this kind of projection design, however, without going into too much detail about why, here's some rough video tests I did.  Apologies for the shaky handheld camera (I was in a rush, and working by myself), but hopefully these videos might be a resource for someone else doing similar research.  

This one shows tests with an acrylic screen made by Da-Lite.  I wasn't too impressed with this one... Low contrast, and didn't deal with ambient light very well. This product definitely wasn't going to be good enough to show Janet's photography on...
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Summer Sublet Series

DEADLINE: May 15 at 6pm.

OPEN CALL for brand-new hybrid performance series

1 week 4-5 performances June-August.

for more info : HERE Arts Center

A Show Of Hands, A participatory public art project

DPI resident Ed Purver invite you to submit what you want to tell the world, and he will join hands with your idea.

This is a rare chance at participatory architecture, Ed and his cast of hands translate positive sentiments into gesture, and then silently shout it from the windows of buildings.

The piece is best described by any of the photos, on the site or here, and for the best explanation of the participation see the submitted messages section of the website, and view some of the "video translations".

Then keep and eye out for larger than life limbs.

InLight Richmond (Richmond VA), Sept 25-27 2009

DUMBO Art Under The Bridge Festival (Brooklyn NY), Sept 25-27 2009

Art In Odd Places (New York City), October 1st -18th

Though I bet down to see a show there much more rarely than I would like, I'm always glad to see a NY theatre surviving if only for a little longer.

I was going to school at Purchase College and working on various "traditional theatre" pieces up on theatre row in 1994 when I took an internship with Robert Lyons at the Ohio theatre. I learned a little something about how to manage a theatre, but mostly I saw what moving, shaking, dealing, and luck it takes to keep a small theatre going in NY, and more excitingly I got introduced to the NY theatre scene which really interested me artistically much more than what I was getting at school or in the uptown theatre scene.
And based on what Robert saw in me he sent me over 3 blocks to HERE arts center to meet the folks at Gertrude Stein Rep. which seemed like home, and morphed over the next 15 years into Digital Performance Institute, where you still find me. 

Since April 16, Michael Chladil has been in residence at the Digital Performance Institute working on rope&pulley - digital media control system. What began as further development of drawing with audio has turned into a hand-cranked, human-scale drum machine.

Michael will give a wrap-up of the trajectory the residency took and a demonstration of the machine he built.

Anyone interestied in attending this should contact hal @digitalperformance.org

Anonymous Ensemble: Wonderland
PERFORMANCE: July 8-11 7PM $15
Ohio Theater
66 Wooster Street

Based on Alice's Adventures

Written and Directed by Eamonn Farrell,
Music by William Antoniou

Featuring: Jessica Weinstein, Meghan Williams, Janelle Lannan, Will Antoniou, Liz Davito, Josh Hoglund, Matt Mager, Elisa Pupko, Kelly Shaffer and Cory Antiel

From the creators of THE BEST,
Wonderland is conceived as an electronic music-infused, multimedia-fueled journey through the destruction of a songstress, Alice’s, self identity.

For the past month I’ve been working on a hand-cranked beat sequencer.  This device grew out of a bunch of ideas I’ve had while working on my residency at DPI.

In short, the sequencer consists of two large, concentrically-mounted wooden wheels.  One of the wheels rotates on an axle and the other which has sixteen sliding levers attached to its face remains stationary.  As the front wheel rotates, a switch mounted on its back is depressed by levers on the back wheel which have been pushed toward the wheel’s center.  Each time the rotating switch strikes a lever, a sample is triggered on the attached computer.  It is possible to play repeating sequences of samples by rotating the wheel at a constant rate.

The following video shows the operation of an early cardboard prototype:
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