New Blue

When I was a fairly young film geek, my dad and stepmom gave me Manny Farber's classic collection of film writing, Negative Space.

I enjoyed a lot of it, but was often hung up by his negative opinions of films and filmmakers I held dear, who he could slight greatly with a brief, cutting remark. So I didn't go back to Farber much for years. Eventually, I did, at an age where I could defend, in my head at least, the artists I loved from Farber's disapprobrium while appreciating his insights, which were great.

His most famous essay, "White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art" is one of the great statements of 20th Century criticism, and I can't recommend it highly enough (even if it too slams artists I revere - the argument is sound, if I think his examples are sometimes off).

Manny Farber died yesterday at the age of 91. The film geek world mourns.

A great overview of Farber and the many reactions to his death (and details of his life and work) can be found HERE at Movie City Indie.

Girish Shambu wrote a piece over two years ago on Farber's most famous essay HERE, and while he has the same problem with some of Farber's distastes for his favorites that I do, he starts a good discussion on the essay (with lengthy quotes) that continues into the comments.

Paul Schrader, film critic-turned-filmmaker, owns a painting by Farber, Untitled: New Blue, and made a short film about it, its creation, and Farber (backed by one of my favorite Philip Glass piano pieces, "Wichita Vortex Sutra"), which can be seen at his site HERE.

. . . [what] termite art aims at: buglike immersion in a small area without point or aim, and, over all, concentration on nailing down one moment without glamorizing it, but forgetting this accomplishment as soon as it has been passed; the feeling that all is expendable, that it can be chopped up and flung down in a different arrangement without ruin.

Final Weekend for Three GCW Shows at The Brick

Here's the final promo email which I just sent out to the GCW list.

Anyone out there want to be on the mailing list and isn't getting these? Let me know - some of you may be getting them bounced because a) they're sent by BCC; b) they're sent from AOL; c) both of the above.

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You're getting this because you are on the GEMINI COLLISIONWORKS/Ian W. Hill/Berit Johnson email list - if you wish to be taken off it, please reply with REMOVE in the subject line.

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Oh, and -- if you've seen any of these plays, or plan to, please be aware that all three are registered with

THE NEW YORK INNOVATIVE THEATRE AWARDS
http://www.nyitawards.com/

and 25% of the judging for the awards is based on audience reaction. If you've seen the shows (or once you have seen them) PLEASE go to the site listed above to register and vote for our shows!

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ONE WEEKEND LEFT!
SEVEN PERFORMANCES LEFT!

THE TRIO OF GEMINI COLLISIONWORKS PRODUCTIONS AT THE BRICK ARE ALMOST GONE . . .

LAST CHANCE TO SEE . . .

Spell

a play by Ian W. Hill
" . . . like a wall-sized Brueghel painting, a sight to contemplate."
- Ellen Wernecke, EDGE

ONLY THREE PERFORMANCES LEFT!

Wednesday, August 20 at 8.00 pm
Saturday, August 23 at 4.00 pm
Sunday, August 24 at 8.00 pm

The story of a woman in trouble. Locked inside a cell (which might, or might as well, be her mind), an American woman who has committed a horrible, murderous act for what she considers patriotic reasons, but which she can only vaguely remember, is interrogated by military and medical figures as the voices in her head try to defend or attack her. A meditation on - among other things - whether violence can ever be justified, and if so, what limits are there?

with Olivia Baseman *, Fred Backus, Gavin Starr Kendall, Samantha Mason, Iracel Rivero, Alyssa Simon*, Moira Stone*, Liz Toft, Jeanie Tse, Rasmus Max Wirth, and Rasha Zamamiri.



Everything Must Go (Invisible Republic #2)

a play in dance and speeches by Ian W. Hill
ONLY TWO PERFORMANCES LEFT!

Thursday, August 21 at 8.00 pm
Saturday, August 23 at 8.00 pm

A play in dance and fragmented businesspeak. A day in the life of 11 people working in an advertising agency as they toil on a major new automobile account, interspersed with backbiting, backstabbing, coffee breaks, office romances, motivational lectures, afternoon slumps, and a Mephistophelian boss who has his eye on a beautiful female Faust of an intern. The day is comprised of endless awful business jargon interspersed with outbreaks of the musical-theatre inner life of the characters to a bizarre mix of musical styles and artists from the 1920s to the present

performed and choreographed by Gyda Arber, David Arthur Bachrach*, Becky Byers, Patrick Cann, Maggie Cino, Tory Dube, Sarah Malinda Engelke*, Ian W. Hill, Dina Rose*, Ariana Seigel, and Julia Sun.



Harry in Love
A Manic Vaudeville

a comedy by Richard Foreman
"In terms of skill and command, Hill and his company are in peak form here. I'm not sure that you'll ever see a Foreman play so successfully and accessibly mounted outside the Ontological Theatre."
- Martin Denton, nytheatre.com

ONLY TWO PERFORMANCES LEFT!

Friday, August 22 at 7.30 pm
Sunday, August 24 at 4.00 pm

Harry Rosenfeld is a big, neurotic, unnerved and unnerving man who believes his wife, Hild a, is planning to cheat on him (and he seems to be right). His response: drug her coffee and keep her knocked out until her paramour goes away. The plan works about as well as should be expected and, over several days, a number of people – the paramour, a doctor, Hilda’s brother, and an "innocent” bystander - are sucked into Harry's manic, snowballing energy as it becomes an eventual avalanche of (hysterically funny) psychosis. Who wrote this crazed farce? Well, before he became known as the writer-director-designer of his groundbreaking and legendary abstract stage spectacles, Richard Foreman was seen as a promising playwright in a more, shall we say, traditional mode, writing “normal” plays with standard structures, characters, settings, and events, unlike those that he was to become known for from 1968 onward.

with Walter Brandes*, Josephine Cashman*, Ian W. Hill, Tom Reid, Ken Simon*, and Darius Stone*.

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ALL SHOWS:

designed and directed by Ian W. Hill
assisted by Berit Johnson

at
The Brick
575 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn 11211
½ a block from the Lorimer stop of the L Train / Metropolitan-Grand stop of the G Train
www.bricktheater.com

All tickets $15.00

Tickets available at the door
or through www.theatermania.com
(212-352-3101 or toll-free: 1-866-811-4111)
Want to see all three shows for the price of two? Preorder them here:
https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/store/122

* Appears Courtesy of Actors Equity Association

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hope to see you at the shows, and thanks for your continued support,

Ian W. Hill, arts
Berit Johnson, crafts
Gemini CollisionWorks

Gemini CollisionWorks is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Gemini CollisionWorks may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

https://www.fracturedatlas.org/donate/1394

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Ian W. Hill/Gemini CollisionWorks online:

blog: http://collisionwork.livejournal.com
images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/geminicollisionworks/
info: http://www.myspace.com/geminicollisionworks
store: http://www.cafepress.com/collisionworks