First Street Green

First Street Green with Superfront present:

Design Charrette | Competition
Public Summer 2013 Pavilion

Location: First Park @ 33 East 1st Street, corner of Houston Street and 2nd Avenue.
Date: May 19, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm

For more information go to http://newyork.superfront.org/

Please note that on Saturday, May 18th, 2012 there will be a Public Summer site visit of the Park at 11:00am. SUPERFRONT staff will be there to answer any questions.

The winning team will be given an honorarium of $500 and a budget of $1500 for additional supplies. The temporary outdoor installation will open on July 1st and will run until August 15th.

The charrette is aimed at (though not limited to) young designers five years or less out of school or under 35. You may participate as an individual or as a team of up to four people.

Jury includes:
Pat Arnett, Robert Silman Associates
Silva Ajemian, TODO DA, First Street Green
Jorge Prado, TODO DA, First Street Green
Keller Easterling, Keller Easterling Architect, Professor Yale School of Architecture
Juergen Riehm, 1100 Architect
David Turnbull, Atopia
Nicola Twilley, Edible Geography

WORKSHOP: MOVE TO HEAL 12-1pm
Jaime Ortega uses movement and somatic practices from both
western and eastern traditions to support healing processes and self
empowerment in this well-being workshop. Presented by Movement Research.

TOUR: HISTORY AND PROVOCATION: FIRST PARK 2-3pm
Meeting at Street Fest in front of New Museum, Silva Ajemian and Jorge
Prado lead a tour, discussing the urban history of First Park.

WORKSHOP: DREAM CITY MAP 3-5pm
Make your dreams a reality by putting them on First Park’s Dream City
Interactive Mural using paints, markers, and found materials.

EXHIBIT: DESIGN PROPOSALS FOR FIRST PARK 2-7pm
Master of Architecture students at The CCNY Bernard and Anne Spitzer
School of Architecture led by Bradley Horn and Elisabetta Terragni.

SCREENING: URBAN EXQUIS III 7:30-9pm
Ciotat Studio presents a multichannel video and sound installation that depicts
varying notions of public space in the contemporary city.

EXHIBIT: TERRY SMITH: CAPITAL REVISITED 11am-7pm
The Drawing Center sponsors Terry Smith’s new iteration of his 1995
architectural drawing “Capital.”

EXHIBIT: INFLUX IN FLUX 11am-7pm
Centre-fuge Public Art Project & Cre8tive YouTH*ink mural installations
by Sheryo & The Yok, Sofia Maldonado & Ray Smith and the Cre8tive
YouTH*ink Apprentices.

FSG events are free and open to the public.

There will be a short talk-back following the reading.

I Think About You All The Time uses a rigorous practice of improvisation to generate abstract movement material. Abandoning repetition, this piece puts two bodies in a number of different physical states which then allows an emotional context to appear.

I Think About You All The Time is presented as part of Play the Space, a series of site-specific performances in and around First Street Green Art Park curated by choreographer Eryn Rosenthal. The series takes its name from cellist Michael Fitzpatrick who says that when he performs, part of his objective is to “play the space”—to awaken the vibrational potency in the space where he is performing.
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Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith have been collaborating since 2006. Their latest evening length piece premiered in April at The Chocolate Factory. They have also shown work through The Tank, CATCH, Fridays at Noon at 92Y, LaMaMa Moves, Movement Research at Judson Church, and Performance Mix.

Molly Lieber grew up in Pittsburgh and graduated from Connecticut College. She currently dances for Keely Garfield, Juliette Mapp, Melinda Ring and Anna Sperber. She recently performed in works by Vanessa Anspaugh, Heidi Henderson, Jen Rosenblit, Eleanor Smith, and Katie Workum.

Eleanor Smith was born at home in Raleigh, North Carolina. She had performed works by Ani Javian, Molly Lieber, Miriam Wolf, and Katie Workum. She is currently dancing for Ivy Baldwin Dance and Molly Poerstel, and was a member of Juliana F. May/ MAYDANCE from 2006-2012. Eleanor was a 2010 Fresh Tracks recipient and had the pleasure of serving on the panel the following year. She was a Studio Series artist this past June. Eleanor loves working with Molly.

Eryn Rosenthal is a choreographer, performer, and playwright based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work with The Doors Project, a series of site-specific performances in doorways and thresholds around the world, recently opened the doors (literally) for First Street Green Art Park, where she was an artist-in-residence earlier this season. Last fall she premiered the series in Barcelona and Madrid, Spain, collaborating with architects, artists, activists and photographers on ways to rethink our relationship with public space. Eryn has won a Mellon Grant for work with Holocaust testimony, a Fulbright Fellowship to Spain, a Richter fellowship for work with performer/ playwright Anna Deavere Smith, and the Yale Dramat’s Best New Playwright Award. Her interview-based performance work has been the recipient of a Rice Foreign Residence Fellowship and the Open Society Institute President’s Grant to South Africa, where Eryn is currently collaborating with activists and artists on upcoming performances of The Doors Project. www.erynrosenthal.com

There will be a short talk-back following the reading.
Water, in a celebration of storytelling, explores the water crisis through the eyes of Sela, an Ethiopian girl on a journey to fetch water from a distant well. This family-friendly show takes a very real problem in many parts of the world—draught—and makes it accessible through storytelling, movement, folklore and a little magic.

Water is presented as part of Play the Space, a series of site-specific performances in and around First Street Green Art Park curated by choreographer Eryn Rosenthal. The series takes its name from cellist Michael Fitzpatrick who says that when he performs, part of his objective is to “play the space”—to awaken the vibrational potency in the space where he is performing.

SELA –Cristina Pitter
BO – Glenn Quentin
THE SUN, etc. – Monique Pappas
STAGE DIRECTIONS – Michael Gaines

Amina Henry is a playwright and teaching artist based in New York City. Her plays have been developed and produced in New York City by the Manhattan Theatre Source (EstroGenius festival), The Hive Theatre, the cell theatre, Bowery Poetry Club (Sticky series), The Producers Club, Shakespeare’s Sister Company, and The HERO Theatre; by Los Angeles’ Towne Street Theatre, and by The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where she was also a Resident Teaching Artist for three seasons. Amina graduated from Yale University and has an MA in Performance Studies from New York University. She is currently an MFA candidate in Mac Wellman’s Playwriting program at Brooklyn College, and a 2012-2013 Core Apprentice playwright at The Playwrights Center in Minneapolis. www.aminahenry.wordpress.com

Gretchen Van Lente (Director) is a freelance director and artistic director of Drama of Works, a multidisciplinary puppet theater. The company has received six Henson Foundation grants and toured internationally with award-winning shows over the past decade. Gretchen is currently earning her Masters in Direction from Brooklyn College. http://www.dramaofworks.com

Cristina Pitter (Sela) is a BFA Acting student at Brooklyn College. She is also a member of the Bats, the resident acting company at The Flea Theater, and a member of the Barefoot Theatre ensemble.

Glenn Quentin (Bo) was born and raised in Miami, FL. He attended New World School of the Arts and graduated with a BFA in Acting from Mason Gross at Rutgers University. Some favorite credits are Wake Up, Stone Cold Dead Serious, A Midsummer Nights Dream, You Can’t Die Here, The Empress of Sex and Sineater. Film credits: Recovering Undercover over Lover, Gold Fish and Christ Complex.
Monique Pappas (The Sun, and other characters) is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana. She is currently working on her MFA at Brooklyn College. Credits include Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Piano Lesson, and Taming of the Shrew. Monique is a member of Actors Equity.

Michael Gaines (Stage Directions) is an MFA Acting candidate at Brooklyn College.

Eryn Rosenthal (Curator) is a choreographer, performer, and playwright based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work with The Doors Project, a series of site-specific performances in doorways and thresholds around the world, recently opened the doors (literally) for First Street Green Art Park, where she was an artist-in-residence earlier this season. Last fall she premiered the series in Barcelona and Madrid, Spain, collaborating with architects, artists, activists and photographers on ways to rethink our relationship with public space. Eryn has won a Mellon Grant for work with Holocaust testimony, a Fulbright Fellowship to Spain, a Richter fellowship for work with performer/ playwright Anna Deavere Smith, and the Yale Dramat’s Best New Playwright Award. Her interview-based performance work has been the recipient of a Rice Foreign Residence Fellowship and the Open Society Institute President’s Grant to South Africa, where Eryn will soon be returning with upcoming performances of The Doors Project. www.erynrosenthal.com

Urban Exquis is inspired both by the cadavre exquis method of poetry, in which a collection of writers blindly contribute isolated words that together compose a poem, and by Gordon Matta-Clark’s 1976 film City Slivers, in which the artist depicts New York City through a collection of masked views that fill only a portion of the film frame. Urban Exquis consists of several short video slivers hat depict various urban environments. Like the word fragments in a cadaver exquis, each video sliver is composed by a different moviemaker, artist, or architect. Like the images in City Slivers, each video sliver is a vertically-oriented fragment of a conventional video frame that defies the conventional widescreen format of cinema. In both method and form, the installation challenges many assumptions regarding the relevance of cinematic imagery to urban space. Urban Exquis suggests that the identity of the city resides in simultaneity and adjacency, not in spatial and temporal unity. Like the city itself, it cannot be understood as a singular vision. It is fragmentary, elusive, frustrating, and (ultimately) beautiful in a way that eludes intention.

Ciotat Studio is an interdisciplinary design and research practice based in New York City. Its work includes examples of architectural and urban design, moviemaking, drawing, and writing. www.ciotatstudio.com

Akio Suzuki is known as a pioneer of sound art, but the breadth of his activities and the form of his works far exceeds the normal boundaries of sound art. It is perhaps more as a “quester after sound and space” that he has received the most attention from artists in many fields. Suzuki’s journey as an artist began in 1963 with a performance at Nagoya station, in which he threw a bucket full of junk down a staircase. The inspiration behind this performance— the idea that if one were to hurl an object down a well-balanced stairway, a pleasant rhythm might be the result— took the desire to “listen” as its subject. That desire to hear, to listen has remained the one constant in Suzuki’s stance as an artist. During the sixties, Suzuki’s sense of playfulness led him to undertake a series of Self-Study Events, where he explored the processes of “throwing” and “following”, taking the natural world as his collaborator. The experiences he gained in these events led him in the seventies to invent an echo instrument he named Analapos. The instrument’s structure resembles that of two mirrors facing each other, reflecting into infinity. As an extension of the principles underlying Analapos, Suzuki constructed the Hinatabokko no kukan (Space in the Sun) in 1988. This space consists of two huge parallel walls, in between which the artist can sit all day and purify his hearing by listening to the reflected sounds of nature. This space leads the artist to discover a new method of listening. Suzuki himself comments, “Sound, which had been conceptually imprisoned in various spaces, is freed to circle the world.”

Audio Visual Arts began at the end of 2008. The core interest of the gallery lies within the medium of sound with occasional shows featuring peculiar visual work. Past projects at AVA have featured sonic works and installations by Alan Licht, John Fahey (paintings), Seth Kim-Cohen, Eliane Radigue, Seth Price, Georgia Sagri, Michael J. Schumacher, Rolf Julius, Rhys Chatham, Sergei Tcherepnin, among others with a forthcoming show of new work by Akio Suzuki in October 2012. www.audiovisualarts.org

Michal Samama (Born 1977, Israel) is a New York based choreographer and performance artist. During the last ten years Michal created works in dance, theater and performance art and she is now focusing on the research and creation of movement based solo performances, involving video, photography and site-specific practices. Michal is a ‘Movement Research’ 2011-2013 Artist-in-Residence. She recently gained a ‘LiftOff residency’ at New Dance Alliance and has been a ‘The Field’ Artist- in-Residence (Fall 2010). Since arriving to NYC in 2010, her work has been presented at Dixon Place, Movement Research at Judson Church, Joyce Soho, Priska C. Juschka Gallery, Chez Bushwich and 92nd Street Y, where she also curated an interdisciplinary event in January 2012. In Israel her work has been shown in Suzanne Dellal Center, Tmuna Theater, Tzavta Theater and more. Her play was presented at ‘Act 2 Festival’ (Haifa, 2009). Michal studied dance and choreography at ‘Ha-kibbutzim’ Teachers College and then theater, writing and performance art at ‘Search Engine’, an Interdisciplinary Art Program, founded by Yasmeen Godder and Itzik Giuli. She has taught choreography in various schools in Israel and she is now teaching dance at the 92nd Street Y. www.michalsamama.com

Movement Research is one of the world’s leading laboratories for the investigation of dance and movement-based forms. Valuing the individual artist, their creative process and their vital role within society, Movement Research is dedicated to the creation and implementation of free and low-cost programs that nurture and instigate discourse and experimentation. Movement Research strives to reflect the cultural, political and economic diversity of its moving community, including artists and audiences alike.

First Street Green with Caribbean Cultural Center, African Diaspora Institute, Columbia University, New York University, and The New School present:

Conference | Site Visit | Workshop
2012 IMAGINING AMERICA Conference
Linked Fates and Futures: Communities and Campuses as Equitable Partners?

@ First Park @ 33 East 1st Street, corner of Houston Street & 2nd Avenue, Manhattan
F train to 2nd Avenue; B, D, F, M trains to Broadway-Lafayette; B, J trains to Bowery and 6 train to Bleeker St.

Friday, October 5, 1 – 4 pm

FREE and open to the public

For more information please visit www.firststreetgreenpark.org or contact Ann Shostrom at 917.553.9035.

First Street Green will host a site visit “Common ground: creating dialogue through place-making”
for the opening day of the national conference, co-hosted by Caribbean Cultural Center, African Diaspora Institute, Columbia University, New York University, and The New School: Imagining America (IA), Linked Fates and Futures: Communities and Campuses as Equitable Partners?
Imagining America (IA) is a national coalition of 90 colleges and universities working at the nexus of publicly engaged scholarship and the humanities, arts, and design. For more information on the conference visit www.imaginingamerica.org.

Speakers include Jorge Prado, architect, co-founder of First Street Green and TODO DA, Lyn Pentecost, PhD anthropologist and Executive Director of Lower Eastside Girls Club; Wendy Brawer, eco-designer, founder and director of Green Map System; Emily Weidenhof, architect and urban designer, Project Manager, Public Spaces NYC DOT Division of Traffic & Planning; Jennifer Lantzas, Public Art Coordinator, NYC Department of Parks and Recreation; Laetitia Wolff, design editor, curator, founder of futureflair/expoTENtial, and director of desigNYC; Elizabeth O’Donnell, architect and consultant to artists for site specific projects, Associate Dean, Cooper Union, the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture.

Conference attendees will interact with community participants to explore place-making as a means to finding common ground. Guest lecturers will start the conversation by discussing goals and presenting strategies. Working within interactive groups, participants will transform the park both intellectually and experientially, and will map the results with drawings and writings. We will negotiate terms between the micro-local of the surrounding neighborhood and the macro-local of greater New York City. The act of place-making suspends preconceived notions of what a place is and makes room for new ideas of commonality and community.

“Our cultural group, since its founding, has been dedicated to Mayan dance and music, based in stories, legends, customs and the traditional dances of Chichicastenango. One of our objectives is to rescue, encourage and maintain our cultural traditions through the indigenous dance and music of our region and our Guatemala.”
Julio Mateo Tecúm, Director of Grupo Cultural Uk’ux Pop Wuj.

“UK’UX POP WUJ” = Kiché | UK’UX= Soul | Pop= Time | Wuj= Book
Soul of the Book of Pop Wuj Events | Sacred Book of the kichés.

Wendy Judith Mateo Barrios, Evelyn Omyra Mateo Barrios, Maria Calgua Ramos, Diego Sut Tecúm, Angel Remigio Canil Xirum and Julio Mateo Tecúm, from Santa Cruz del Quiché and Chichicastenango in Guatemala, will present a 70 minute program of dances, including the Mayan Kiché Courtship, the Dance of the Little Horse of Tzijolaj, the Blessing of the Mayan Altar, and the Dance of the Deer. The event will follow with an open workshop led by the artists, where they will share with the public the main elements of their dances, communicating the cultural meaning behind their steps as well as describing the research methods that have shaped their repertory.

Presented with the Consulate General of Guatemala in New York.