Fresh Meat

First produced in 2004, the Fresh Meat festival of works-in-progress provides residency, technical assistance and performance opportunities to artists working in theater, dance, music, puppetry, standup comedy and multimedia. The Fresh Meat festival of 2006 schedule is as follows:December 7th and 8thDance, Live Music, and ComedyRevealing Liz Sargent presents an excerpt from a new work to be presented by Danspace Project in May 2007. Revealing uses projection and two way mirror to take a look at the layers we create emotionally and physically. Featuring direction, installation and costumes by Liz Sargent, “live visual art” by Sarah Kipp, and performance by Djamila Moore and Marcia Johnson. Cymbalic LogicansFeaturing 50 cymbals suspended, mounted on stands, bowed, struck, danced upon, thrown or worn as armor, Cymbalic Logicians is a structured improvisation created and performed by percussionist Michael Evens and dancer/choreographer Susan Hefner. Video clips from the rehearsal process by Nelson Simon give a humorous glimpse into the performers’ zany real life relationship.Joe RandazzoAssistant Editor at The Onion, Joe Randazzo has been doing standup comedy for six years. He can be seen performing at some of the finer eating and drinking establishments below Houston Street in all of Manhattan. December 13th and 14thDance and PuppetrySternumPerformed inside the Chocolate Factory’s dilapidated elevator shaftway, Sternum, performed by Tara O’Con, encapsulates the struggle against the pull of gravity, achieving moments of stasis at once grotesque and beautiful. An Approximation of Lingual Aesthetics, Pt 1a Part classroom demonstration, part performance, this collaboration between performer/video artist Enrico D. Wey and choreographer Lucy Yim is inspired by the life of Karl Von Frish, who won the Nobel Prize for his elucidation on the behavior of honeybees. An Approximation irrevently merges von Frish’s scientific findings with the awkward machinations of two people who find themselves consumed by a single source of fascination–honey. Interlaced with found footage and text, a typical scholastic atmosphere soon slides off the scales as Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 are enveloped by a tiny obsession that puts their congruence at odds with one another. The Monkey MooA stylized vaudeville performance that incorporates physical theater, puppetry and live music, The Monkey Moo takes place in 1920’s Shanghai, a city of chaotic beauty with the smell of opium, crime, poverty, and life smeared with corruption and glamorous wealth. Drawing on her background in modern dance and mime, creator/performer Yoko Myoi constructs a character that is bi-sexual, bi-cultural and even bi-species. December 19th and 20thDance, Theater and Live MusicRed Fly/Blue BottleThis song cycle with video, created by composer Christina Campanella and playwright Stephanie Fleischmann, investigates the ineffable fallout of a secret war. A compendium of songs pieced together from found sounds and interwoven with a collage of tiny narrative films, Red Fly/Blue Bottle chronicles an odyssey of absence through a world that has shifted off its axis. Featuring video by Peter Norman and direction by Mallory Catlett.IsmPerformed right at the audience’s feet, this new dance work by Pele Bauch offers a rare up-close performance experience. Sliding along the floor, the dancers continually rearrange the audience seating; viewers find themselves inside the performance space, watching the dance unfold around them. Ism will premiere at Joyce Soho in June of 2007.Heather Christian EnsembleRigorously classically trained, Heather Christian’s plunk-prissy piano style is original. December 19th she will perform with cellist Trevor Exter, and the 20th performance will host the full band. What kind of coffin are you building?A new multi-channel interactive video installation by William Cusick combining audio, video and real time interactions using MIDI triggers. It will feature artists/programmers William Cusick, Ryan Holsopple and Alex Koch.