Ain Gordon with Josh Quillen
CONDOLENCE Or A Rug & An Elf
Dec. 10 Stay Late Conversation w/ Carmelita Tropicana
2023: crematorium ashes arrive in a Ziplock bag, inside a plastic box, inside a cardboard box, all in a non-compostable tote emblazoned with an eternal flame. Eternal like the tote’s forever-synthetics or eternal like maybe grief? Via little songs & tales of a thrift shop rug, a garden elf, Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay, small-town England, 3 wedding rings, a single cufflink, and a glimpse of the stars, Ain and Josh mourn familial absences with bracing candor and silly detail.
CONDOLENCE marks Gordon and Quillen’s 3rd collaboration, their first was a New York Times Critic’s Pick, their second continues touring nationally. Together, this pair, born of different generations and rooted in different disciplines forge a highly personal, nearly fraternal, brand of sonic storytelling.Joining the development of this project is astrophysicist Dr. Amy Secunda. A Pick Up Performance Co. Production.
Writer/Director: Ain Gordon
Composer: Josh Quillen
Performers: Ain Gordon, Josh Quillen
Lighting Designer: Jennifer Tipton
Associate Lighting Designer: Krista Smith
Production Stage Manger: Ed Fitzgerald
Producer: Alyce Dissette
Supported by a 2023 Creative Capital Award, Howard Gilman Foundation, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and New York State Council on the Arts.
This work is supported in part by a commission from New York Live Arts’ Live Feed Residency program supported in part by Partners for New Performance, and by the Simons Foundation as part of its “Infinite Sums” initiative. For more information, visit infinitesums.simonsfoundation.org.
“[Gordon] haunts the margins of history…conjuring the sort of distant lives that don’t make it into textbooks, processed into oblivion by what he calls history’s ‘ruthless editing machine.’”
– The New York Times
