ITINERANT 2015
Performance Art Festival NYC November 12 – 21, 2015 at Multiple Venues

Friday, November 20th, 8 - 11pm at Glasshouse

Participating Artists:

Keijaun Thomas (United States), Anthony Wills Jr. (United States), Joaquin Calles Guzman (Cuba), Bobby English Jr. (United States), and Ray Ferreira (Dominican Republic).

Tickets are $10 at door, $8 advance

Organized by artist Hector Canonge

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QMAD, Queens Media Arts Development, a not for profit arts organization established in 2005, brings to New York City the Performance Art Festival, ITINERANT. This year’s festival, organized independently by artist Hector Canonge, will take place in local museums, galleries and public sites in the city of New York. ITINERANT 2015 will feature local, national, and international artists selected through an open call. Through performances and public actions, the festival explores the themes of “Race and Corporal Embodiments,” “Queering Gender & Identity,” and “Migratory Patterns.”

About the artists:

Keijaun Thomas, United States, “Distance is Not Separation,” 2015. Thomas creates live performance and multimedia installations that oscillate between movement and materials that function as tools, objects and structures as well as a visual language that can be read, observed and repeated within spatial, temporal and sensorial environments. Her work investigates the histories, symbols and images that construct notions of Black identity within black personhood. Thomas examines, deconstructs and reconstructs notions of visibility, hyper-visibility, passing, trespassing, eroticized and marginalized representations of the black body in relation to disposable labor, domestic service and notions of thingness amongst materials as a way to address blackness outside of a codependent binary structure of existence. Thomas earned their Masters degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Thomas has shown work both nationally and internationally in Los Angles, CA, Portland, OR, Chicago, IL, Boston, MA, New York, NY and Taiwan, Taipei, Paris, France and the United Kingdom.

Anthony Wills Jr., United States, “The Happiness of Schizophrenia,” 2015. Wills has been performing, choreographing, directing and creating art all his life and is the Artistic Director of Artistic Pride Productions, a collective of artists. Recent Theater credits include the Whipping Man (Shadowland Theater), Stockholm Savings (NY Fringe Outstanding Ensemble award) and numerous APP productions including Mule Variations, The Piano Has Been Drinking (not me) and The Eight Reindeer Monologues. Recent film credits include Rob in Kid Witness (with Susan Sarandon) and Richard in Casanova was a Woman. Theaters he's had the pleasure of working with include Aboutface, American Theater Co. (now American Blues), Black Ensemble, Culture Project, Gloucester Stage, Hypocrites, Journeymen, Lookingglass, Milwaukee Rep, New Harmony, Steppenwolf, Target Margin, Utah Shakes, and many others. Anthony is the author of several performance art pieces including A Proclamation of Emancipation, Strange People and 11 1/2 Pieces on Death, dying, life and Living (a comedy) and The Happiness of Schizophrenia, Eddie Falls, The Reincarnation of Eddie, What(?) and “Lot's Wife” (created with Local Infinities Visual Theater). He’s collaborated with a plethora of artists including William Pope L. (New Museum), Jonathan Van Dyke (Performa), Katya Grokhovsky (Art in Odd Spaces), done Marina Abromovic re-performances and shared a panel with Barbara T. Smith and Holly Hughes. Anthony is also a visual artist and member of Giovani’s Art group on Capitol Hill (DC).

Joaquin Calles Guzman, Cuba, “Postcard to My Father/ Postal para mi Padre,” 2014. Born in Cuba, Calles Guzman immigrated to the United States in 2007. He mainly works in video, performance, and installations exploring his own relationship with space, actual or implied, and both physical and spiritual. He also integrates personal visions of femininity, as a heightened and superior quality of being, but interpreted in its nurturing, expressive, emotional, delicate, and compassionate qualities often embodied in the male figure. He’s interested in creating ritualistic performances that generate physical/emotional transformation. Such performances/actions can be repetitive, violent, methodic, or haunting, but always deeply and painfully personal. Guzman holds a BA in Psychology with a minor in Studio Art. His installation “Alien” was chosen as the opening event for Hispanic Heritage Week in New York, and was exhibited in the Winter Center Art Gallery as part of the Open Space Project. Some of his video/performances have been featured in various juried shows in Millersville and York, PA.

Bobby English Jr., United States, “Blossoming Black Power: For Those Weeping,” 2015. English was born in Randallstown, MD in 1989. He studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and Studio Art Centers International in Florence, Italy. He received a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2011. English lives and works between Baltimore, Maryland and Petersburg, VA. Since his first exhibition in 2011, English’s work has been shown in major Baltimore galleries, and Art Basel Miami in 2011. His Mothership Connection sculptures and performances were the subject of much praise, and have been shown in multiple exhibitions nationally.



Ray Ferreira, Dominican Republic, “aquí(que?_ya.o)aquí|rr.eⁿtangl.d,” 2015. Ray Ferreira’s work is firmly rooted in examining how bodies (analogue/digital) operate as icons, symbols, and indexical tools, and how bodies function as surfaces that record, and transmit identities. Whether through the use of his body, or the incorporation of other bodies, he aims to construct spaces that allow for transcendence and critique while simultaneously deconstructing the performativity of the space(s).

About the festival:
ITINERANT was created in 2010 by artist Hector Canonge. The initiative was a small platform for Contemporary Performance Art, and had its origins in the monthly series A-Lab Forum that Canonge organized at Crossing Art Gallery in Flushing, Queens. Following the growing interest in Live Art, and the need to present Performance Art in the borough, ITINERANT was launched in 2011 under the auspices of QMAD, Queens Media Arts Development. In 2012, ITINERANT was recognized by the City of New York as the first Performance Art festival taking place in the five boroughs (Queens, Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn and Staten Island) that constitute the metropolitan region. Following the large scale venture in NYC, Canonge journeyed through Europe and Latin America creating, in 2013, the Spanish edition of the festival and calling Encuentro ITINERANTe, a parallel version of the festival with public presentations in various cities in the Southern Hemisphere.

Website: hectorcanonge.net/itinerant
Facebook: facebook.com/itinerantpafnyc
Blog: itinerantpafnyc.blogspot.com

Cover photo: Keijaun Thomas, courtesy of the artist for ITINERANT 2015.