September 10–October 4, 2015
The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), New York’s premiere French cultural center, is pleased to announce the full program for Crossing the Line 2015, the ninth annual edition of its celebrated fall arts festival, presenting interdisciplinary works and performances by artists from around the world.
Select festival events include:
Joris Lacoste, Suite n°2 (US premiere)
Co-presented with the Hermès Foundation’s (Fondation d’entreprise Hermès) New Settings program
Thursday, September 10 & Friday, September 11, 7:30pm
FIAF Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street (between Park and Madison Avenue)
FIAF members 20 USD; non-members 25 USD
In Suite n°2, an uproarious and poignant concert emerges from the simplest of sources: the spoken word.
A group of five performers overlays and intertwines entries from Joris Lacoste’s Encyclopédie de la parole—a vast online archive of voice recordings—in a virtuosic performance that decontextualizes speech into iconic mementos of civilization.
Shezad Dawood, It was a time that was a time (world premiere)
Presented by Pioneer Works as part of Crossing the Line 2015
Opening: Friday, September 11, 6:30pm
Saturday, September 12–Sunday, November 1
Pioneer Works, 159 Pioneer Street (between Van Brunt and Conover Street), Brooklyn
Hours: Wednesday–Sunday, 12–6pm
Free and open to the public
British multimedia artist Shezad Dawood and the Red Hook community together imagine life after a monumental disaster.
The result is It was a time that was a time, an experimental post-apocalyptic film at the center of Dawood’s first major U.S. solo exhibition. Shot on the beaches of Far Rockaway, Coney Island, and Staten Island, this film investigates the lasting effects of Hurricane Sandy and envisions building a new society from the ruins of an environmental catastrophe.
Elana Langer: What I Live By
Beginning Sunday, September 13
For times and locations of What I Live By pop-ups, click here
Free and open to the public
New York-based artist Elana Langer considers the ultimate luxury in this life to be thoughtfulness and our ability to apply it to our choices. Her product-less brand, What I Live By, invites us to transform everyday accessories into affirmations of our truth by attaching the What I Live By logo to the things we already own.
Following the brand’s official launch, Crossing the Line will host What I Live By pop-ups at festival events and kiosks around the city. Stop by with something you own that represents your values, brand it with a What I Live By label, and share your story.
Miguel Gutierrez, Age & Beauty (NYC premiere)
Co-presented with New York Live Arts
Wednesday, September 16–Saturday, September 26
New York Live Arts, 219 West 19th Street (between Seventh and Eighth Avenue)
Tickets start at 15 USD
Astounding American performer and choreographer Miguel Gutierrez meets mid-life head-on in this wild and ebullient triptych that celebrates queerness, art-making, and mortality. Gutierrez explores the nostalgic past, the prosaic present, and the imagined future of a life in art in the New York City premiere of the complete Age & Beauty series.
Mazaccio & Drowilal
Opening reception: Tuesday, September 15, 6–8pm as part of FIAF’s Open House
Wednesday, September 16–Saturday, November 7
FIAF Gallery, 22 East 60th Street (between Park and Madison Avenue)
Hours: Tuesday–Friday 11am–6pm, Saturday 11am–5pm
Free and open to the public
By repurposing images from popular media, this caustic young pair of French photographers forces us to reconsider the subliminal messages we generally try to ignore. Creating deliciously ironic original images, they illustrate photographic clichés using strong colors and bold collages.
Curated by François Hébel.
Olivia Bransbourg: ICONOfly
Available beginning September 22
Copies of ICONOfly will be available at select Crossing the Line events.
Check fiaf.org for details.
Free
French art director and curator Olivia Bransbourg turns the obsessive attention of her cult magazine ICONOfly: diary of an accessory to one of New York’s most recognizable fashion statements: sneakers.
In this special edition of ICONOfly, artists, writers, historians, and designers will create original work considering how sneakers impact the journeys—physical, intellectual, emotional—we take through, in, and around New York City. Featuring contributions from Tom Sachs, Tatiana Trouvé, and Pierre Hardy, as well as Crossing the Line 2015 artists Gustavo Ciriaco, Andrea Sonnberger, Elana Langer, and Shezad Dawood, among others.
This edition will be launched alongside ATTACHE-MOI/IT WAS A TIME THAT WAS A TIME, a new perfume created in collaboration with British artist Shezad Dawood.
Jack Ferver & Marc Swanson, Chambre (NYC premiere)
Co-presented with the New Museum as part of the R&D Season, PERSONA
Installation: Wednesday, September 23 through Sunday, October 4
Performances:
Thursday, September 24, Friday, September 25, Thursday October 1 & Friday, October 2, 7pm;
Saturday, September 26, Sunday, September 27, Saturday, October 3 & Sunday October 4, 3pm
New Museum Theater, 235 Bowery (between Stanton and Rivington Street)
FIAF and New Museum Members 15 USD; Non-Members 20 USD
Installation on view during museum hours with admission.
American writer, choreographer, and director Jack Ferver and visual artist Marc Swanson take Jean Genet’s The Maids as a point of departure for a farcical attack on our culture of celebrity and greed. Ferver refracts Genet through many lenses, including the gruesome facts of the real-life murders that inspired The Maids; Lady Gaga’s infamous courtroom deposition speech; role-play; and a manic fantasy escape to the City of Lights.
Adrian Heathfield & André Lepecki, Afterlives: The Persistence of Performance
Co-presented with the Museum of Modern Art
Friday, September 25–Sunday, September 27
FIAF, Le Skyroom, 22 East 60 Street (between Madison and Park Avenue)
FIAF members and students 8 USD; general 12 USD
MoMA, The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2, 11 West 53rd Street (between Fifth and Sixth Avenue)
Information coming soon for MoMA event tickets
Artists, curators, and thinkers gather over three days to present talks and stage intensive conversations on vital issues for contemporary performance practice. Speakers include Matthew Goulish, Lin Hixson, Ralph Lemon, and Fred Moten, among others.
Ali Moini: Lives (U.S. Premiere)
Co-presented with New York Live Arts and the Hermès Foundation’s (Fondation d’entreprise Hermès) New Settings program
Tuesday, September 29 & Wednesday, September 30, 7:30pm
New York Live Arts, 219 West 19th Street (between Seventh and Eighth Avenue)
Tickets start at 15 USD
Iranian artist Ali Moini delivers a complex investigation of identity and oppression in Lives. The tension between his various selves–fictional, political, mythical, and real—becomes tangible onstage through a constrictive set, striking projections, and meticulous sound design.
Alessandro Sciarroni, Folk-s, will you still love me tomorrow? (East Coast premiere)
Co-presented with New York Live Arts
Thursday, October 1–Saturday, October 3, 7:30pm
New York Live Arts, 219 West 19th Street (between Seventh and Eighth Avenue)
Tickets start at 15 USD
Six dancers enter the stage and perform in hypnotic unison in Folk-s, will you still love me tomorrow?, the East Coast debut of Italian performance maker Alessandro Sciarroni. Precise, rhythmically pounding feet and a pair of lederhosen are the only recognizable relics of a centuries-old Bavarian folk dance that is reduced here to its most elemental form.
Working between dance, performance art, and anthropological ritual, Sciarroni deploys the body—in all its sweaty physicality—to push the limits of human potential in this visceral, mesmerizing piece.
For the full schedule of events, visit us at fiaf.org/ctl.
