Exponential Variety
Feng Jiang 江峰, Chelsea Smarr, Nola Sporn Smith, Aron Canter, Patrick Scorese
Feng Jiang 江峰
Eastern Body Diary
Eastern Body Diary explores the experiences of a young gay Taiwanese man seeking connection, community, and some fun in NYC. He finds he must struggle to navigate the minefield of a Western gay community where his body and existence is reduced to sexual as well as racial stereotypes and otherness.
Feng Jiang 江峰 is a dancer, writer, singer and actor. He obtained his BA in English and Chinese literature from National Taiwan University. As the 2015 recipient of the Government Fellowship for Studying Abroad from the R.O.C. government, he has resided in the U.S. since August 2016. Feng is a current graduate student of the inaugural MFA Performance and Performance Studies program at Pratt Institute. The fundamental inspiration for his work is love which includes the beauty and the complexities of it. The topics Feng elects to address in his work include gender, sexuality, sex, and race. He often draws from the different vocabularies of street, modern, and contemporary dance and movement. Feng creates artwork as a process for healing and questioning.
Chelsea Smarr
empty! Whos is it?
Chelsea Smarr, a harpist from Frackville, PA, whirls together an improvised cacophony of experimental compositions during her live performances. Smarr has gained recognition as a solo international touring artist, using a variety of guitar pedals and percussive elements to create textural soundscapes. Smarr has recently released an album with Guillermo Pizarro, a sound artist from Green Lane, PA, through their collective project, Asucré. Smarr has also recently collaborated with Charlie Davis, an avant-garde composer from Wilkes-Barre, in the recording of his upcoming Doghouse Charlie album. Her sounds have made appearances in a variety of places, including performances in Montréal’s Jacuzzi Club, the Delaware Water Gap's Deer Head Inn, which is the longest continuously running jazz club in the country, Kutztown University’s Planetarium, the Mauch Chunk Opera House, and as a regular staple of various annual arts festivals in northeastern Pennsylvania.
Nola Sporn Smith
Some/Sum
Nola presents sum/some, a new iteration in an ongoing series of movement-based performances and installations. This next chapter continues research into the insolent, the crude, the grimy, the private-made-public. Quickly shifting between improvised & set material, and engaging ruthlessly with the space at hand, the performer joins the audience in a state of confusion… we decide together how much to engage, and when to turn away. Pleasure and violence coexist as physical questions that may or may not be resolved.
Music by collaborator Betsy Soukup, a Detroit-based singer and bassist who has contributed sonically to a few previous chapters, and has been present either physically or in spirit for all.
Created and performed by Nola Sporn Smith
Sound and additional collaboration from Betsy Soukup
Nola Sporn Smith is a dance and theater artist from Brooklyn, NY. Nola has performed with cakeface, Stacy Grossfield, Kensaku Shinohara and others at venues including Danspace Project, The Queens Museum, Brooklyn Studios for Dance, HERE Arts Center, and CPR. She also works as an assistant director and stage manager for various downtown theater directors, and has been a guest artist at NYU and Queens College.
Aron Canter
The Graduate
Patrick Scorese
Two-Legged Effigy (Do You Remember Me?)
Laughter. Memorial exorcism. Candy. Disfigurement. Let the good times roll. A young man attempts the ritual culling of the scarecrow he’s become. He read about it in a book. His midwinter question: can one still be an effigy if they set themselves alight?
Conceived and executed by Patrick Scorese
Patrick Scorese (formerly Patrick Scheid) is a writer, performance-based artist, and historiographer. His work has been presented at theaters, galleries, museums, bars, parks, and street corners throughout New York City. He currently curates U.S.O.ver, the dissident vaudeville performance series, with his partner Allison Brzezinski and friends. Much more at www.patrickscheid.com