miffonedge vol 7

MIFFONEDGE Vol.7 invites us to expand our perceptions regarding disciplinary boundaries as we engage with six artists and multiple interactive performances. How does sensory memory influence our futures? What is the relationship between natural history, myth, and individual story?

We will take a ceremonial journey that blends nature, music, dance, storytelling and performance art. We will explore longing, loss, and vulnerability, we will experience a radical act of rebellion where the artist maintains agency while offering a platform to explore touch, and we will contrast digital and analog media with a modern, abstract visual take on the first Cape Verdean novel. With an incredibly experimental group of artists sharing deeply personal work, the 2019 program promises to be unforgettable.

Audrey Harrer Lavender

Audrey Harrer’s “Lavender” is a multi-sensory song cycle that celebrates how memory shapes and guides us. Audience members will receive a “Sensory Program” with six sealed envelopes that correspond with each piece. Surrounded by projections created by cinematographer Michael Pessah, Harrer performs her works on harp/vocals/electronics with cellist Jesse Christeson, complimented by dancers Lonnie Stanton and Tony Guglietti (choreography by Kristin Wagner and Tony Guglietti). From customized refreshments to essential oils to experiments with light, “Lavender” is a meditative journey that encourages audiences to place their own narrative in this immersive experience.in environments as varied as rock clubs, galleries, house shows, hospitals, studios, and recital halls.

Susan Bickford (stillness)18

A five-screen synced simultaneous projected video installation made from a ceremonial journey across a pastoral field to a spectacular lake. A group dressed in white led by a woman with a red umbrella walk slowly across the rolling fields and encounter nature, music, dance, storytelling, and performance art. Many of the scenes are ambient, trees, or water, until you see the actors move dreamily through. Run time 60 minutes.

Narcissa Gold

My Body is Your Body is Everybody is Nobody: Consent, Intent, & Boundaries

“Consent, Intent, & Boundaries” is a series of live interactive performances exploring specific methods of touch. Each performance will focus on two specific types of interaction: observing, caressing, squeezing, slapping, kissing, and washing. The rationale for each performance builds on the idea that people will attend multiple performances and become more comfortable with interacting with the performer. Touch work tests the boundaries of consent and comfort. Performances are fraught with power dynamics. Our society markets a woman’s body as a commodity to be protected, policed, covered, and used. The “My Body is Your Body is Everybody is Nobody” thesis is a radical act of rebellion where the artist maintains agency while offering a platform to explore touch.

Schedule

• July 13: 12:00–9:00 p.m. with opening reception at 8:00 p.m.

• July 14: 12:00–7:00 p.m.

• July 15: 2:00–7:00 p.m. with Narcissa Gold’s “Consent, Intent, & Boundaries” pt. 1 at 8:30 p.m.

• July 16: 2:00–7:00 p.m.

• July 17: 2:00–7:00 p.m. with Narcissa Gold’s “Consent, Intent, & Boundaries” pt. 2 at 8:30 p.m.

• July 18: 2:00–7:00 p.m. with Narcissa Gold’s “Consent, Intent, & Boundaries” pt. 3 at 8:30 p.m.

• July 19: 2:00–7:00 p.m. with “(stillness)” foraged hors d’oeuvres at 8:00 p.m.

• July 20: 12:00–7:00 p.m. with Audrey Harrer’s “Lavender” at 8:00 p.m.

• July 21: 12:00 p.m.–close

Portraits of Chiquinho

Inspired by the first Cape Verdean novel, this visual experience borrows its title from the African island on which it was filmed: the remote and deeply rural Ilha de São Nicolau, affectionately known as Chiquinho. The piece offers a modern, abstract visual take on the seminal contribution to Cape Verdean literature, written in 1936. It contrasts digital and analog media, optically alludes with an array of camera angles, and features aerial cinematography and Super 8 film. Emphasizing synchrony with music and punctuated by Portuguese narration, Portraits of Chiquinho invites the audience to explore the exotic, mountainous topography in both the visual and auditory realms. It brings to the screen a snapshot of Cabo Verde’s isolated communities, exposes stunning vistas viewed from a bird’s eye, and offers intimate images captured in the archipelago’s heartland. This experimental and dynamic work endeavors to be at once an authentic portrait of the people and geographic survey of the surreal landscape it spotlights.

Narration by Helton Carlos Gonçalves Ribeiro and Marilanda Silva Patrícia Fonseca Contina.

Heather Lyon Longing for Other Worlds

A two-channel, site-specific video installation incorporating video projection, props from the videos, and rope. Imagery from the video reveals a woman standing at the edge of a liquid nether space using simple repeated actions taken from daily life to explore longing, loss, and vulnerability.

Walking Backwards (Birger’s Walk)

Set in a 17th Century ropewalk in Karlskrona, Sweden, “Walking Backwards (Birger’s Walk)” takes the form of a video that braids together imagery from performers in the ropewalk and the surrounding landscape of southern Sweden. The text weaves together historical descriptions collected from rope makers, ropemaking manuals, and fragments from Xavier de Maistre’s 1794 Voyage Around my Room amplified and enlarged by a piece of original fiction woven within the fragments to create an account of a ropewalker whose lover is lost at sea.