Watchtowers: ArtSpeak
WHAT: Watchtowers: ArtSpeak! A sequenced performance art showcase of artists in response to the oeuvre of Francesco Clemente’s work.
WHEN: Thursday, August 8 7-9 p.m.
WHERE: Dallas Contemporary, 161 Glass Street Dallas Texas 75207
In order of appearance:
LGB, Kalvin J, Mz. Jolie, Nova, Gabby, Shandhra: Dallas Poetry Slam
2019 Dallas Poetry Slam Team performs highlights of their team performance work
Bio: Dallas Poetry Slam is a Dallas poetry organization in Dallas, whose motto is “One Slam, One Movement.” The group reflects Dallas’ vibrant poetry and arts scene and diverse population. DPS has hosted numerous regional competitions including the 2017 and 2018 Women of the World Poetry Slam. Established by Clebo Rainey, The Dallas Poetry Slam Organization has garnered awards as National Champions and three-time national finalists. Dallas Slam poets, Joaquin Zihuatanejo and Rage won the Individuals World Poetry Slam competition. Zihuatanejo also won the International World Cup in Paris. DPS poets contribute important educational outreach through Youth Poets, a project facilitated by Rage and Teri Odis. Sherrie Zantea is SlamMaster and CEO of DPS, and Individual World Poetry Slam Event Coordinator with Poetry Slam Inc. More can found on the individuals of the 2019 Dallas Slam Team at thedallaspoetryslam.com
Laney Yarber: Giving Up The Farm; Part 2-Skin Care
Laney Yarber performs a vignette history that fuses personal and Texas history, using props, composed interviews and storytelling audio elements.
Bio: Laney Yarber is a multi-award winning performance artist and patron of all arts. Her works have been funded by the Texas Commission on the Arts, National Endowment of the Arts and City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, among others. Her lifelong love of opera stages and studies with Robert Wilson; her early passion for the avant-garde inspired a sense of purpose and mission to create performance art. Her works weave together persona and place histories, free association, original script, movement, composed audio and visual surprises. Other works include Xstatic-The Reveries of St. Theresa; Readings; Exorcize It!; Subterranean Samba.
Randall Garrett: Un Corazón Dos Piezas
Garrett performs a travelogue drawn from his cultural and social interactions in Mexico City’s Neza barrio.
Bio: Randall Garrett is a Dallas-based artist whose performance work combines elements of theatre, body art, spoken word, objects, artifacts, and time-based media. The artist choreographs and participates in ritual performances that explore aspects of individual and cultural identity. Garrett has shown his work and performed in numerous galleries. He created “Seven Story Mountain”, a permanent sculpture on the banks of the Song Huong River in Hué, Vietnam. Among his collaborative spoken word projects, Garrett co-produced the Freefall Festival, a month long event, funded by the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs’ Cultural Vitality Program. He currently teaches as full-time faculty at Richland College in Dallas. Garrett is owner / director of Plush Gallery. In 2017, Garrett became part of a group of artists in Neza, a working-class barrio of 2 million people on the edge of Mexico City. He has since curated shows for Neza artists’ showcases in Dallas.
Tammy Melody Gomez: Malinche
Tammy Gomez performs an alternative portrait of Malinche, a Nahua woman from the Mexican Gulf Coast, who played a key role in the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, acting as an interpreter, advisor, and intermediary for the Spanish conquistador, Hernán Cortés. She was also purported to be his romantic partner.
Bio: Tammy Gomez is an award winning poet, multimedia performer, playwright and director. She has performed throughout the U.S., in Mexico and Nepal. Her poems and essays are featured in numerous collections and documentaries, including Yellow Medicine Review (2009); Women in Nature: An Anthology (Louise Grace Publishing, 2014); “Las Tejanas: 300 Years of History” (UT Press, 2003). Her staged works include She: Bike/Spoke/Love. She is founder of Sound Culture, an intermedia production lab for collaborative and individual creative expression and social justice literacy through stage performance, print, online, and neighborhood cultivation programs. Gomez studied with Chicano greats; Lorna Dee Cervantes, José Montoya, Raul R. Salinas, and Octavio Solis; has been artist-in-residence at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Urbana-Champaign, Texas A&M-Kingsville, and Headlands Center for the Arts (Sausalito, CA), and has received grants from Humanities Texas, the Ford Foundation, the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, the Puffin Foundation, the Writers’ League of Texas, Moonifest Foundation, and the City of Austin. She is an urban gardener who has not owned a car in over eight years, and bicycles everywhere
Abel Flores Jr: AFJ:Polar Self
AFJ appeals to the metaphysical elements of the self by capturing his persona between live video and human presence. By subsiding an attachment to identity, he invites higher consciousness to intervene through means of ritualistic movement and the natural elements: earth and air.
Bio: Abel Flores Jr. Abel Flores Jr. is a visual and performing artist. Originally a theatre actor, he pursued ritualistic performance at the University of Texas at Dallas. While studying under Thomas Riccio, he co-founded Riccio’s group Dead White Zombies with fellow alumni as a resident artist. In 2016, he co-founded the arts nonprofit, Artstillery, to empower marginalized peoples and communities through art projects, partnership, and advocacy. He has performed with other companies, bands, and festivals including Therefore, SUPERMOOK, Shakespeare in the Bar, Tropic Pictures, WaterTower Theater’s Out of the Loop Fringe Festival, Dallas Video Fest, and the Elevator Project at AT&T Performing Arts Center.
Rosemary Meza DesPlas: Too Angry
Rosemary Meza DesPlas performs feminist-centric spoken word infused with visual elements.Bio: Rosemary Meza DesPlas is an internationally acclaimed artist whose work has been shown in China, New York and Europe. Her spoken word performances are often presented in conjunction with her exhibitions. Her visual and performance work is used as a vehicle to discuss gender issues. She explore issues of disparity between the sexes within the context of dissonant relationships. The expressions on the women serve as a direct contradiction to the stereotypical character of the overwrought and hysterical female. Ultimately, her work is a series of contrasts. The contrasts revolve around the beauty and the grotesque in humanity. It seeks to address the invariables of the human condition: good & bad, body & soul and love & death. They constitute the very core of the human predicament.
