Center for Advanced Visual Studies
265 Mass Ave/ 3rd Fl
Cambridge MA 02139
Premiered at Performa '09
Tuesday, November 10
5:00 and 7:30 PM
Tisch School of the Arts, Michelson Theatre, Room 648
721 Broadway, New York
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Scroll to the bottom of the page to watch a video made by MIT students for Wendy Jacob's Introduction to Visual Arts (4.301) as a sketch for their house of cards sculpture that collapses and revives itself in collaboration with John Malpede's Bright Future's performance.
"Bright Futures" by John Malpede
Thursday, December 10, 2009
7:30 PM, doors open at 7:00 PM
MIT Media Lab Lobby
E15-229, 20 Ames Street
Cambridge, MA 02139
Premiered at Performa '09
Tuesday, November 10, 5:00 and 7:30 PM
Tisch School of the Arts, Michelson Theatre, Room 648
721 Broadway, New York
John Malpede’s new performance “Bright Futures” will be shown on the campuses of NYU as part of the Performa 2009 biennial, and at MIT in December. Malpede was in residence at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies during the early months of the economic crisis, and during this time he found and developed a pair of texts that provide the centerpiece of the performance. “Bright Futures’ is extrapolated from contradictory responses to the economic crisis,” Malpede writes. “The performance developed from a business school pep-talk for anxious future quants (financial engineers) and was paired with MIT economist Simon Johnson’s article “The Quiet Coup,’” which appeared in the May 2009 edition of the Atlantic Monthly. Malpede starkly contrasts these narratives, pinpointing the arrogance of Wall Street, its business as usual policies, and Johnson’s dark condemnation of the US financial oligarchy. Current assessments of how effectively the crisis has been dealt with, or not, will be integrated into the performance events.Performed by Malpede, Nell Breyer and Tanya Selvaratnam.
John Malpede promises a “100% non-threatening participatory event” where the audience reads text and the performers perform others. Readings and performers will bounce off of one another arbitrarily; unpredictable trajectories will afford glimpses of our possible financial futures. Witness and contribute to a project where Malpede remixes texts about the financial crisis.
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John Malpede directs, performs and engineers multi-event arts projects that have theatrical, installation, public art and education components. In 1985, Malpede founded and continues to direct the Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD), the first performance group in the nation comprised primarily of homeless and formerly homeless people. LAPD 's mission is to create performances that connect lived experience to the social forces that shape the lives and communities of people living in poverty. Malpede has produced projects working with communities throughout the US and in the UK, France, The Netherlands, Belgium and Bolivia.
In 2004 Malpede's project “RFK in EKY”, was produced by Appalshop, and developed with a host of community partners. This monumental, real-time documentary-style performance by a large community cast, sought to put an historical mirror up to present moment life in eastern Kentucky. RFK in EKY recreated Kennedy's original “war on poverty” tour in the course of a four-day, 200 mile series of events that included, performance, installations, and in-depth discussion of historic and current events and social policy. He involved a number of his closest artist/collaborators in elements of this project including, David Michalek, Harrell Fletcher, Henriette Brouwers and Sjoerd Wagenaar.
Malpede has received New York's Dance Theater Workshop Bessie Creation Award, San Francisco Art Institute's Adeline Kent Award, Durfee Sabbatical Grant, LA Theater Alliance Ovation Award, Individual artist fellowships from New York State Council on the Arts, NEA, California Arts Council, City of Los Angeles' COLA fellowship, California Community Foundation's Visual Artist Fellowship, 2007-9 fellow at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies and numerous project grants.
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A video made by MIT students for Wendy Jacob's Introduction to Visual Arts (4.301) as a sketch for their house of cards sculpture that
collapses and revives itself in collaboration with John Malpede's Bright Future's performance.
