Studio Series: Keely Garfield
In Process Talks moderated by Lawrence Goldhuber and Janet Wong
Garfield’s works are meticulously organized and immediately disrupted. She crafts ritualistic and askew tales characterized by aching and ironic invention. Her “mini-epics” are like tumbling stones in an edgy, thrilling stream of consciousness where religion, politics, domestic life and sexuality are playfully articulated and warped. In her Studio Series showings, Garfield will show excerpts from a work-in-process titled Buzz Kill set to premiere in 2013.
In the 9th Century BC it was written in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishard, “This earth is the honey of all beings, and all beings are the honey of this earth”. The poet Virgil mused that bees must still possess a “portion of the divine mind” since the ancients believed them to be unchanged since the Garden of Eden. Perhaps sent by the gods to show us how to live in harmony and accord, bees are currently facing the greatest threat to their existence as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) decimates their broods. Since honeybees are the primary pollinators of many fruits, vegetables, flowers and plants, humans are also facing environmental and ethical challenges around the wide use of pesticides and the consequences of our disregard for the other life forms that we share this planet with. Buzz Kill forages links between the waggle and round dances of the honeybees, their industrious, cooperative societies, the honeyed results of their toil and the sting of breakdown in our own organizing principles.
Hailed as an artist working “at the height of her powers” (New York Times), Garfield now sheds her recent over-the-top works, adopting a plainer approach, a pared-down inventory and a new cast of characters. Embracing the optimism of empty space, Garfield presents scenes polished to reveal their essential crystalline nature, and redefines herself for the time being. Joining Garfield is a superb cast of movement mediators including Maggie Bennett, Molly Lieber, Saúl Ulerio, as well as long-time collaborator Brandin Steffensen.
The Studio Series offers an opportunity for research and development in a creative residency format, providing resources of time, space and a commission. The Studio Series is a research laboratory for physical explorations and new movement investigations with a focus on process, not final performance/product. The “performances” are intended to be informal public showings to share ideas with an audience in the intimate working space of the studio. Studio Series artists are curated internally by the Artistic Director in conjunction with Programming staff and guest curators from Urban Word NYC.
There is no late seating for all studio series showings.
Studio Series is supported, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the Jerome Foundation.
