Theater, Dance & Media welcomes performer and compost-lover Alex Tatarsky. Alex will share some ongoing research into mask performance and the connections between clowns and dirt clods – considering their shared choreographies of falling down and falling apart. An etymological foray, essay as sashay, clown talk in the abyss.
ABOUT ALEX TATARSKY
Called “a hilarious, finely tuned absurdist” (Theatre Jones) and “an East Village relic” (Vogue), Alex Tatarsky experienced fleeting fame as Andy Kaufman’s daughter and used to perform as a mound of dirt. They make performances in the unfortunate in-between zone of comedy, dance-theater, performance art, and deluded rant, sometimes with songs. They embrace the model of the clown as an antidote to despair, and a figure who keeps trying despite repeated failure.
Venues include La MaMa, The Kitchen, MoMA PS1, Gibney, AUNTS, Segue, Bronx Art Space, Judson Church, New Museum, The Glove, PSNY, and many bars and basements. Tatarsky has had the thrill of collaborating as performer and dramaturg with artists and ensembles including Trajal Harrell, Pig Iron, Lilac Co., Josephine Decker, David Levine, Aya Ogawa, Adrienne Truscott, Greg Zuccolo and Marianna Ellenberg. Writings on counterfeit poetics and grotesque politics have appeared in publications including The New Inquiry, Hypocrite Reader, ArtReview Asia, Folder, Viscose, and Vulture. They teach workshops on mask performance, holy fools, decomposition, and mistranslation.
Along with Ming Lin, they form one half of the poetic research unit Shanzhai Lyric and founded the fictional office entity Canal Street Research Association, currently in residence at PS1 as part of Greater New York. Tatarsky is honored to have been an artist in residence at Movement Research, Abrons Arts Center, the Independence Foundation, and the Pew Foundation. As curatorial fellow at the Poetry Project, they organized a performance-lecture series on the poetics of rot. Current research interests include bootlegs and compost.
Instagram: @tartar.biz / Website: tartsky.tumblr.com!