CalArts Center for New Performance

CNP celebrates "Follow the Artist" a new book celebrating 20 years of CalArts Center for New Performance.

centerfornewperformance.org/projects/follow-the-artist

“Follow the Artist” charts the deep, daring, and imaginative legacy of a place unlike any other – one committed to supporting artists, rather than their output. The work of CalArts Center for New Performance has resulted in heralded premiere productions, but more often the unseen – risk-encouraging workshops, exploratory artistic research, and forward-thinking initiatives. This visually lavish publication documents two decades of steadfast creative incubation and commitment to artist-driven experimentation, featuring an astonishing array of seminal, seasoned, and emerging artists from the greater CalArts community.

Featuring newly authored essays and reflections from creative makers and thinkers, including Yareli Arizmendi, P. Carl, Marissa Chibás, Nataki Garrett, Daniel Alexander Jones, Douglas Kearney, Joanna Klass, Natalia Korczakowska, Stan Lai, Anne LeBaron, Carey Lovelace, Juan Meliá, Deborah Paradez, Travis Preston, Jin Qiu, Carl Hancock Rux, and Judy Yin Shih.

Designed by Jessica Fleischmann, Still Room

CNP presents “HA-M-LET” in China this month, first at the Shenzhen Contemporary Theatre Biennale, and then at the Zhejiang Culture Theatre.

centerfornewperformance.org/projects/ha-m-let

The current tour continues CNP’s relationship with Chinese festivals and artists. CNP Executive Artistic Director Travis Preston serves on the Artistic Committee of the Wuzhen Theatre Festival, where he directed the CNP world premiere of “Fantomas: Revenge of the Image”. Festival Director Stan Lai wrote and directed the CNP world premiere of “Nightwalk in the Chinese Garden” at The Huntington Botanical Gardens.

“HA-M-LET” is a multilingual, multimedia performance housed within a projection cube. Themes of madness, deceit, and familial conflict take digital form as artist/performer Peter Mark grapples with tumbling thoughts and images that reach a vivid state of saturation. With materials sourced from Shakespeare’s play, internet culture, home videos, and 3D animation, the interwoven imagery morphs between landscape and body, narrative and biography – shifting at a rate that pays homage to Hamlet’s own velocity of thought. The artist’s Brazilian parents appear in the roles of King, Queen, and Ghost, rendering a conflict both textual and real – simultaneously liberated and confined by layers of media.

It may be summer, but CNP is already back on the CalArts campus, continuing development of a thrilling new work entitled “Augustine Machine ou Encore Une Nuit d’Insomnie”.

Travis Preston (CNP’s Executive Artistic Director) leads a creative team of students, faculty, and alumni from across the institute in a new devised project. Using the history and origins of hysteria as an entrypoint, the ensemble examines the breadth of possibilities of the human body. A visible alphabet of dance, video projection, and collage become tools for physical expression. The company moves through Hysteria, Ecstasy, and Revolt in this metaphorical testament to the collective experience.

Developed in the U.S. and France, “Augustine Machine” features creative contributions from Amanda Shank, Marie Darrieussecq, Tom Gunning, and more.

centerfornewperformance.org/projects/augustine-machine