Lobby TALKS Performing Arts – Visual Arts

The second in our Lobby TALKS series, Performing Arts – Visual Arts, moderated by Jen Joy with panelists Trajal Harrell, Maria Hassabi, Michael Mahalchick , and Jenny Schlenzka .

Have a Listen

Lobby TALKS creates a forum for open and in-depth discourse on contemporary issues in dance and performance. Organized around specific themes, each meeting uses as a starting point one or more of the artistic investigations, methodologies, and motivations that can be seen in performance today. Subjects will be investigated, challenged, and considered by an invited group of artists, critics, and theorists, and is open to all who would like to join the conversation.

Biographies:

Trajal Harrell’s choreographic works have been seen at The New Museum, Danspace Project, Dance Theater Workshop, The Kitchen, PS122, Art Basel-Miami Beach, The Margulies Art Warehouse, and internationally at Melkweg (Amsterdam), CNDC Angers, The International Contemporary Dance Conference and Performance Festival (Bytom, Poland), In Transit Festival (Berlin), PRISMA (Mexico City), and upcoming at Working Title Festival (Brussels). He remains active in many artist-led curatorial and publishing initiatives at Movement Research and Danspace Project; and in 2008 he was appointed as co-artistic mentor for that year’s DanceWeb program at Impulstanz Vienna International Dance Festival. He has created four evening length works: Notes on Less than Zero (2004), Showpony (2007), Quartet for the End of Time (2008), and Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church (S) (2009). This latest work will be re-presented in 2010 on January 7th and 8th at The New Museum. Most recently, he was featured as performer and artistic assistant in Meg Stuart’s Auf den Tisch and worked as choreographer and dramaturgical assistant for visual artist Wengachi Mutu’s Stone Ihiga —- both projects for Performa 2009.

Maria Hassabi is a director/choreographer/performer. Over the past decade, Hassabi’s work has been presented in the US at venues such as PS122, The Kitchen, Dance Theater Workshop, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, The Joyce Theater, and Ballroom Marfa, in Texas. Internationally, she has been featured at festivals such as ImpulsTanz Vienna, In-Presentable Festival Madrid, TSEH-Springdance/Dialogue Moscow, Musée Géo Charles in Grenoble, France and European festivals in Sarajevo-Herzegovina, Cyprus, Greece, and Portugal. She is a recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, 2009 Grants to Artists Award.

Jenn Joy is a PhD Candidate in Performance Studies at Tisch School of the Arts/NYU and teaches at Pratt Institute and Rhode Island School of Design. Her writing has been published in Movement Research Performance Journal, Studies in Gender and Sexuality, Dance Theatre Journal, TDR, Women and Performance, Contemporary, and NYC: Das vermessene Paradies Positionen zu New York (Haus der Kulturen Welt/Theater der Zeit). She has collaborated as a dramaturge with Chase Granoff and Jeremy Wade. From 1997-2000, she founded and directed jennjoygallery in San Francisco.

Michael Mahalchick is a multidisciplinary artist represented by CANADA.

Jenny Schlenzka is the Assistant Curator of Performance at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, where she co-organizes the Performance Exhibition Series as well as the Performance Workshops. She was born in Germany in 1978 and holds a Master’s degree in Cultural Studies.
Chase Granoff (Coordinator) is a Brooklyn based dance artist. He has worked as a dancer with many choreographers including RoseAnne Spradlin, Jeremy Wade, Beth Gill, and Daria Faïn. His choreography has been presented throughout NYC and has toured to Limerick, Berlin, and Prague. He has collaborated extensively with Jon Moniaci. Chase co-curated Live Sh– at the Chocolate Factory with Chris Peck. He initiated and curates Lobby TALKS at Dance Theater Workshop. He recently premiered The Art of Making Dances at The Kitchen and published in collaboration with Jenn Joy a book of the same name. He will soon teach and curate for Daghdha in Limerick, Ireland.