6th Annual Transmodern Festival - Live.Art.Action

Adam Good is a writer and performance lecturer from Washington, DC. Through diagrams, lectures, and prototypes, he explores the Realm of All Relations (the ROAR), quantum semantics, object-oriented thought, and radical recombinance. He thinks about thinking, a lot. Some of his lectures are available here: http://www.errationality.com/?page_id=6. He has collaborated with Kate Porter on “I Know Where We Are: An Interface in Three Movements” (http://tinyurl.com/ahxsun). He posts his diagrams here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/asgood/. He is a member of the research collective WE ARE SCIENCE! with Jon Lee and other humans. He sends a shout out to post-it notes.

Alex Worthington is a Baltimore based artist who resides in Waverly in a big drafty house with other women as crazy as herself. Alex considers Baltimore her hometown but grew up in Tennessee. Alex is a self-taught artist who began focusing on illustration but now mainly focuses on sculptural installations. Alex aims to create a vernacular that combines the eerie magic of the enclaves she encountered throughout the foothills of the Smokey Mountains with the disparate enchantment and attitude of Baltimore to express a modern tale that meditates on issues of race, class and gender through the symbolism of familiar relics. She is currently obsessed with the formation of sugar crystals known as rock candy.

ALTERED STATES, Curated by Jamillah James for Frontier Projects

Sunday April 5th, 2009
LOF/T Load of Fun Theatre
120 W. North Avenue
Directions
Tickets: $5
Doors Open: 8 pm, Performances begin at 9 pm

Live Performances by Lexie Mountain Boys, Soft Circle (ex-Black Dice/Lightning Bolt), Blues Control (Siltbreeze Records, Brooklyn), Ra Khuit Noor, and New Jedi Order.

Altered States examines the history of collective action, originating in the 1960s with communalism (made families in hippie and freak subcultures), and avant-garde performance, where elements were borrowed from traditional rituals and ceremonial spectacle. This rubric for performance and artistic practice champions a freedom from creative, economic, and social constraints, and de-emphasizes the singular, commodifiable art object as the end-all of cultural production.

The exhibition considers a renewed interest in the aesthetics and performativity of mysticism. Through idiosyncratic performance, borrowed iconography, and the creation of “invested” objects and spaces, the artists in Altered States re-contextualize alterity, or “otherness”, as a psychedelic state of being, and explore the secular, the sacred, and the creative space in between.

Artists:
Delia & Gavin (video)
EMR (Extreme Mature Respect: Math Bass & Dylan Mira) (video)
Forcefield (Matt Brinkman, Jim Drain, Leif Goldberg, Ara Peterson) (video)
Lexie Mountain Boys (performance on Sunday 4/5)
Zeljko McMullen & Severiano Martinez (video)
New Jedi Order (installation + performance)
Jimmy Joe Roche (video)
Caitlin Williams & Sarah Milinski (installation)
Erin Womack (objects + performance)

	Delia & Gavin (Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom: video) are multidisciplinary artists based in Berlin. Their practice encompasses video, performance, sculpture, and music.  They have been working collaboratively for the past seven years. Their work approaches the ecstatic atmosphere present in both initiation and celebration, mirroring the function of these rituals as simultaneous expressions of creative and destructive energy. A repetitive element is present both visually in meticulously sequined totems and modular Formica block sculptures, as well as in the sound produced by their electronic music synthesizers, provoking a state of trance. A minimalist aesthetic is used for its ability to generate an abstraction of reality within which many points of reference can interact. The work derives inspiration from such seemingly disparate sources as Greek tragedy, fascist architecture, Latin American mythology, 70’s horror films, and disco culture and it is particularly focused on historical moments of decadence and extremes. Their work has been presented at PS1 The Center for Contemporary Art (Long Island City, NY), Daniel Reich Gallery (NY), Jack Hanley (San Francisco), Peres Projects (Los Angeles), Galleria Fonti (Naples, IT), among other places.  They are also well known for their musical recordings on the DFA label, and have been the cover subject of Arthur magazine.
	EMR (Extreme Mature Respect: video) is a new collaborative entity, formed between interdisciplinary San Francisco-based artists Dylan Mira and Math Bass (formerly of the performance duo Marriage). They have previously collaborated on the Pilot TV Chicago convergence, and have shown individually at Mix NYC, Documenta 12, and in collaboration with LTTR, the celebrated colloborative queer feminist publication. Most recently, EMR’s work has been featured in Channeling: An Invocation of Spectral Bodies & Queer Spirits, a film and video exhibition curated by Latham Zearfoss and Ethan White, which has been screened internationally.
	Forcefield (video) were an art collective and band closely associated with Fort Thunder, an event space in Providence, Rhode Island between 1995 and 2001. Known for performing in colorful full-body knit-wear of their own design, Forcefield rarely performed outside of Rhode Island, but did one US tour with their Fort Thunder roommates Lightning Bolt. Members included Meerk Puffy (Matt Brinkman), Gorgon Radeo (Jim Drain), Patootie Lobe (Ara Peterson), and Le Geef (Leif Goldberg). The group become more widely recognized after being included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial, but dissolved shortly afterwards.  Third Annual Roggaboggas, the soundtrack accompanying their Biennial installation, was released as a CD by Load Records in 2003. Later that year, Bulb Records put out the posthumous Lord of the Ring Modulators. The work of Forcefield and other Fort Thunder-related artists has been chronicled in Artforum, the New York Times, and in the exhibition, Wunderground: Providence 1995 to the Present at the Rhode Island School of Design. Since its demise, members of Forcefield have exhibited internationally and have been published widely in a variety of projects.
	Zeljko McMullen & Severiano Martinez (video) have been collaborating for years, chiefly on projects related to their recording label Shinkoyo (also home to Baltimoreans Peter Blasser and Carson Garhardt). McMullen lives and works in Brooklyn, New York at the experimental performance and art space he founded, Paris London West Nile. Martinez is a published writer and musician based in New York. In July 2008, West Nile was the subject of an exhibition at D’Amelio Terras gallery in Manhattan, in which a portion of The Fool’s Journey was featured.
	Lexie Mountain Boys (performance): a many-limbed, many-voiced beast that lives in Baltimore. Founded in 2005 by Lexie Macchi, LMB have managed to escape all categorizing and most contextualizing. Relying primarily on their bodies as instruments, they recall 70s sisterfied female performance art met with the raucous collectivist spirit of the aughts, filed under experimental. They wail, stomp, whistle, giggle, clap, intone, incant, and always surprise. Their recordings and live performances have garnered critical acclaim in national music press. They have performed nationally and will embark on their first European tour in April. Shortly before their performance for Altered States, they will have their first institutional appearance, hosted by the New Museum in New York City.
	The New Jedi Order (installation + performance) is a radical open source copyleft new media conglomerate run out of Baltimore USA. As hybrid defenders of anarchic media all output from the conglomerate refuses any form of intellectual property ownership and views such concepts as counterproductive and delusional mentalities instilled in the general public by the systems that be. The collective aims to create new relevant dialog out of preexisting symbols. Work is broadcast as a means of channeling the decentralized forces of the information age toward the general erosion of outdated and fascist institutions. Work by the collective is unbiased in venue and form. Varying from performing at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Baltimore Contemporary Museum to performing, screening, and working anonymously in underground, DIY, cyber and public spaces. Borrowing elements from many different models the audio, video, and pictorial output of the NJO is often designed for and distributed over the internet, recycled analog tapes, photocopy zines and Compact Discs.
	Jimmy Joe Roche (video) is a Baltimore-based visual artist, filmmaker, and member of the Wham City collective. Roche’s work has been screened in venues and museums all over the U.S. and Canada, including the Corcoran Museum of Art, the Walters Art Museum, Anthology Film Archives, New York Underground Film Festival, Yale College, the Great American Music Hall, and San Francisco International Animation festival. His recent collaboration, “Ultimate Reality”, with musician Dan Deacon has gained national press attention. Recently, Roche’s short film “Baltimore Shopping Network” was featured on the New Museum’s website Rhizome, and his music video for Deacon’s “Crystal Cat” was featured on the front page of YouTube, garnering over half a million hits. In June 2008, Roche had his first solo exhibition, Totems, at New York’s R.A.R.E Gallery.
	Caitlin Williams & Sarah Milinski (installation) Caitlin was born and raised in or around Virginia Beach, VA. She is a fibers major at Maryland Institute College of Art.  Sarah was born in Oxfordshire, U.K., she is a video teacher. Sarah heard of Caitlin and was curious. Many years later, pretty much the stars aligned and art work was made. Their abiding interests are cats, Shakers, succulents, hand made ropes, woven imagery, wycinanki, lavender incense and making the world’s largest friendship bracelet together. They hope to meet you at Transmodern–otherwise, see you in the future. Keep it friendly.
	Erin Womack (objects + performance) is an artist working in print media, performance and film. Her narratives tell of a primeval reality where humanoids are left to wander vacant forests and deserts. She has recently exhibited at Space 1026 in Philadelphia and Mountain Fold Gallery in New York City. She has self-published a number of small books independently and with the Baltimore-based group Closed Caption Comics. For Altered States she will be performing with Ravi Binning as Ra Khuit Noor: “Together, they are ambassadors of new Egypt, creating charred feedback hymnals as an offering to the ancient ones.”

*Special thanks to Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York for the Forcefield videos and Delia Gonzalez, Gavin Russom, and DFA Records for the Delia & Gavin video.

Ami Dang is a South-Asian American musician and multimedia artist born and raised in Glen Arm, Maryland. Her work shifts between electronic and acoustic music, installation, movement, video, and various intermedia forms.  Currently, she is focused on solo performance that combines experimental music notions with North Indian classical sentiments to create a unique one-woman show. Having studied North Indian classical vocals and sitar for over ten years in the United States and Delhi, India, she conjures a 21st century spell of sounds further influenced by ambient, noise, and minimal musics.  In 2005, she became a disciple (for sitar) of Dr. Anupam Mahajan of the Senia Ghurana.  A year later she graduated from Oberlin College Conservatory of Music with a bachelor’s degree in technology in music and related arts.

In 2005 and 2006, she completed two multimedia performance productions.  She directed, composed, and choreographed Unee Sau Churaasee, a one-act performance for video installation, music, and six dancers about the 1984 anti-Sikh riots of Delhi, India. She also created a performance about consumption in contemporary society entitled Reception, a show for viewer-interactive installation using MIDI sensors and five music video shorts.  Last year, shereleased a tour-only EP Because You Rained On Me, and she is currently working on a full-length album.

Ami is often thinking about Sikh spirituality and performance, how children become adults, the sounds of the body, hair, perceptions of the self and the other, translation of information, the public vs. the private, brown identities, beauty, otherness, and good beats.

“Comprised of Jim Fetterley and Rich Bott, Animal Charm’s tapes are mind-bendingly inventive experiments in uncanny, surreal montage that defy logical analysis. [Their work] is a tour de force of incongruous juxtapositions, startling dislocations and ingenious visual rhymes assembled from the banal detritus of late night TV.” –Gavin Smith, 1998 New York Video Festival

http://www.animalcharm.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/therealanimalcharm

Anna Catastrophe is a multimedia artist, promoter, and writer in the DC and Baltimore area. Formerly known as Anna B or Anna Bonanza, she has been known to be quite the stir with her uncontrollable shaking on dance floors and witty side comments.  Anna Catastrophe has done three official performances including collectively participating in a performance titled Slapdown! featured in Transmodern Age Festival 2007.  Also featured in this performance is Meg Mitchell, a Maryland based artist and Jeffry Cudlin’s Washington D.C. based band, The Objective Lesson.  Other interests include being lacquered by the sun during mid-afternoons, naming wild baby rabbits in early June, baking cakes, the act of untangling, daydreaming about distant places, shrine-like organization, palindromes, sushi, unexpected acts of mysticism, exploration as always being my muse, drawing with kids, disco revival, seances, lucid dreaming, and staring at a wall for hours.  Anna Catastrophe is all about the ruckus!

Autumn Breaud, also known as ‘Dirty Tex’ from her reign as Charm City’s mud wrestling champion, is grateful for any reason to use the right side of her brain. Versatile, with roles from Uppity Ladies Garden Gnome #8 to Theresa Columbus’ BCC’s Grandma, Autumn is an accomplished performer with a canyon-wide range of interests.

The AVWC is an A/V “lounge” curated by Baltimore-based group Snacks.  The The lounge will provide continuous sound and video enjoyment for the Transmodern festivalgoers.

The lounge will be located on the 3rd Floor/Whole Gallery and will be open on Friday and Saturday evenings. 

Participating artists include: (subject to change)

Kristen Anchor (Baltimore)
Mitchell Brown (Los Angeles)
Chris Cooper (Mass.)
Drew Daniel (Baltimore)
Deven Green (Los Angeles)
ID M THeftable (Maine)
Hans Grusel’s KrankenKabinet (San Francisco)
Leprechaun Catering (Baltimore)
Melissa Moore (Baltimore)
People like Us (UK)
Martin Schmidt (Baltimore)
Swinging Chandeliers (Los Angeles)
Tarantism (San Francisco)
Karen Yasinsky + Snacks (Baltimore)
C. Spencer Yeh (Cincinnati) 

Ball Movement 09, Baltimore Cup
A life size Foosball game 

created by:
Michael Benevento, and Andrew Liang

Project team:
Eamon Espey, Lisa Krause, John Bohl, Joana Kopczyk, Michael Carpenter, Krysten Watson, Miranda Pfeiffer, Matt Lohry, Jeff McGrath, Jeff Timlin, Emmanuel Nicolaidis, Stev Santillan, Adam Montegut, Erin Gleeson, and Madeline Poole, and Monique Crabb

Harnesses created by:
Risa Ono, Melanie Lester

Performers:
Harness Assistants:  Emmanuel Nicolaidis, Jeff Timlin, Krysten Watson, Risa Ono, Melanie Lester, Michael Carpenter, Miranda Pfeiffer, Joana Kopczyk

Ball Boys:  Matt Lohry, Mitchell Goodrich, John Bohl, Adam Montegut

MC: Jeff Mcgrath

Sound Effect/ DJ:  Stev Santillan, Martin Kasey.

Videographer/Photographer: Andy Shenker and Monique Crabb

Daniel Allende is determined to make it into the history books, even if he’s got to rewrite them to do so. Born in New Jersey, Dan is an artist and expert in the realm of the historically inaccurate. He uses what he knows and makes up the rest in order to create work that might change your perception about the past. He also works in the Maryland Institute College of Art’s Office of
Historical Preservation.

Living History
Come join artist Daniel Allende as his troupe of semi-professional historical reenactors re-create some of the less memorabl moments and movements in Baltimore’s history.

The art made by Baltimore artist Dan Deacon is about community and how to organize and inspire it. From founding a now well-known art collective (Wham City), to organizing and running an annually sold-out DIY music festival (Whartscape), to conceiving, planning and curating a massive 60 person/30 band tour (Baltimore Round Robin Tour), it’s clear to see that community and bringing people together is the major theme of his work.

Bromst, Deacon’s ground-breaking new album, is the embodiment of that way of thinking. Dan will be performing Bromst with the Dan Deacon Ensemble at the 2009 Annual Transmodern Festival.  This event will act as a record release for his exciting new work, as well as a celebration of his Baltimore base & home and his commitment to on-going ecstatic, collective creative action.

For the last three years Dan Deacon has been working on Bromst. Fusing together the growing intensity of his live performances with his background in electro-acoustic composition, the outcome is a collection of pieces that are intense and epic and at the same time down to earth and welcoming.

Bromst embodies the same energy and excitement as Spiderman of the Rings, however the craftsmanship and composition on Bromst have a wider scope and richer palette.  Unlike the completely electronic Spiderman of the Rings, the instrumentation on Bromst is a mixture of acoustic instruments, mechanical instruments, samples and electronics. The player piano, marimba, glockenspiel, vibraphone, live drums, winds and brass give Bromst a much richer tone than his previous work.  The intricate and complex parts, skillfully executed by the performers, are woven together into a rich, dense, noisy dance pop that has become Dan Deacon’s signature sound.

Daniel Van Allen has been creating a visionary environment in Baltimore since 1980. He has been driving an art car since 1976. Van Allen has operated his own furniture restoration business for 35 years. He is the founder and organizer of the Intertribal Powwow (an annual cultural expo) and The Arabber Preservation Society (for our horse cart vendors); Dan directed The Sowebo Arts Festival for 6 years and helps organize several art organizations around town. His work includes multimedia art and architecture documentation, installation; mixed media, found object and wood sculpture; painting and performance.

Dime Store Therapy
A carnivalesque push cart with signage announcing therapeutic services (Dime Store Therapy) will lead the public to engage with the three artists,providing access to alternative counseling and prescriptions (legal) from an outsider friendly, non clinical point of view.

David Moré currently works in Chicago, Illinois. His work is often a result of experiments with ordinary objects to produce sound. The end result of these experiments, ideally, exposes the listener to subtle sonic events occuring all around them.

Baltimore based artist & activist working in community interactive situation, event & spectacle for over 30 years. Co-founder/producer of BaltiMedia events, Ad Hoc Fiascos, Baltimore Oblivion Marching Band, TESTES-3 & VD-RADIO- interactive telephone experiments. Sleep Deprivation Therapy School, Adopt-A Doug & other social experimentations.Owner/operator of “Random Universe Tours & Services” and “Art & Effects” - event, fx & phenomenon design & creations

Curated “Autoternatives-Human Mobility & Alternative Transportation Concepts” for Artscape. Producer of Winter Gatherings & “Zimni’ Setkani”-Eastern European Winter Festivals. Co-designer of AVAM MardiGras & Mondo Exotica spectacles

Installations for AVAM, Port Discovery Children’s Museum, Art on the Gwynns Falls Trail, EcoFestivals and numerous other involvements

Co-producer of GreenCityBaltimore.org -enviro & community resource site &

GreenCityBaltimore Flickr site - a community photo documentation bank

Presently spearheading “Grow Art” - creating vegetated sculptures in co-operation with & in celebration of Baltimore’s community gardens & urban farms.  www.greencitybaltimore.org

www.flickr.com/photos/growart/sets

Edward Knapp creates works in fiber, flame, glass, bone, paper, and pigment, together with harvested and found materials. His pieces are grounded in traditional forms and techniques, manifesting Vision in co-creation with Spirit. He has over 15 years of experience in the divinatory arts.

Emilie Mouchous aka Gmackrr is active in the fields of electronic and noise music, interactive art, sonic installations, as well as radio and sound art. She’s searching for unique sounds using handmade, intuitive electronic instruments. Her work is less about understanding how electronics work than about finding (literally) touchy points that’ll make circuits “scream out” their own, personal voices. She’s always looking for ways to avoid the regular stage, table and chair associated with electronic music shows.
She’s been performing in France, the United States (Bent Festival NY 07 & 08) and Canada where she currently resides (Montreal).

Fil(s) is a sound performance using a modular, one-of-a-kind wearable outfit as the instrument (in french language, fil stands for electrical wire, thread/string, and has a rather fragile, organic connotation). Small sonic modules (circuit-bent toys & handmade electronics), sewn recycled materials, as well as conductive thread make a soft, body-scaled, playful instrument. 


Emily C-D is is a Baltimore based artist and explorer. She is a discoverer of beauty in unexpected places and makes her art from what she finds around her. In addition to her extensive explorations of Baltimore’s most dilapidated neighborhoods, Emily has traveled to such far off places as Mexico, India, and Poland. Currently living the warehouse lifestyle in Charm City, she divides her time between drawing, dancing, drumming, biking, building, painting murals, and teaching after school art classes. Emily is a big believer in the power of combined effort and for Transmodern will collabo with Can Collective and Helicopter Dude.

Erin Markey is a Brooklyn-based writer/performer who creates musically theatrical events. Her solo musical, Puppy Love: A Stripper’s Tail, toured nationally with the 2008 Sex Worker’s Art Show and her blues opera, Looking for Limbo, co-written with Joseph Keckler, was included in the 2007 Lincoln Center Director’s Laboratory. Her work has appeared at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Joe’s Pub, Performance Studies International, Leslie/Lohman Gallery, Here Arts Space, Galapagos Art Space, Club Wötever (London), and frequently at Dixon Place. She is currently developing a new telemusical, Dardy Family Home Movies by Stephen Sondheim, and is in the process of making Puppy Love: A Stripper’s Tail into a screenplay.

Press:

“Performance artist Erin Markey started out with comedy, talking about trying to support herself after college by becoming a stripper. Markey had a cloud of puckish hair and dark-painted eyes, and she explained that the strip club had asked her to pick a stripper name. What she chose, she explained, was Bridget, her sister’s confirmation name and the patron saint of childbirth. At first this seemed a little sacrilegious. But then Markey started to sing. ¶ She was topless, in gold panties and leather boots, arching her body around the golden pole. It was incredibly sexy, but it was more than that. She was singing about Bridget, the saint of childhood, and how she spread her legs, as Markey, too, slid up the pole and spread her legs wide. She kept climbing higher, looking at the audience with that sultry exhibitionist gaze but also reaching up, aiming for something more. ¶ It was thrilling and thought-provoking and beautiful, and it was pushing beyond all these into something else, a kind of constant striving. ¶That didn’t just count as art, I realized, spellbound; it embodied it.”  –The Harvard Crimson

“Erin Markey gets guffaws on virtually every line…” –Backstage.com

“Every single one of [Markey's] lines received a huge laugh from the audience. Silly voices are a dime a dozen, but this was a real performance worthy of the warm response.” –NY Theatre

“wickedly funny” –The NY Blade

“There are probably no envelopes Ms. Markey hasn’t pushed to the tearing point, but the effort always seems to come out funny and strangely beautiful.” –Grand Street News

“But perhaps the very strongest and most truly Brechtian moment comes at the hand of Erin Markey… fiercely eccentric, almost androgynous roughness…indulges in some very low comedy indeed.” –KDHX

“The standout performance is by Erin Markey…” –TheatreMania.

“Lovely” –Gay City News

“Vampy” – SPIN

“Brave” –Artforum

“Art Sexpot” –HX

photo: Kristyn O’Reilly

LOVE PARADE! 

Come one come all,

Artists, Performers, Milkmaids, Fluid Movement peeps, friends and family are encouraged to come by and enjoy the festival, feel the LOVE and be part of a Love Parade and bring the kids…

Fluid Movement is a Baltimore-based performance art group that juxtaposes complex subject matter with delightful and unexpected mediums. We create art that is accessible, and often educational, for audiences of all ages and backgrounds. Our performances are created for urban spaces, in Baltimore and beyond. For ten years, Fluid Movement has been working hard to share our joy and silliness and we do it all for one reason: we do it for the LOVE!

From the ultra-feminine to the nadir masculino, artist Fred Van Dyk has tried to reach both ends of the spectrum. Hair-centric, his work tends towards fibrous frictional static-producing interactions and a search for a metaphysical ground. By day he is suffering from this very full and human dominated world, and when on the other side, in the night world, he finds a place without nature, without the rest of us, “I fear and relish the absence, space, and sense of loss. In this space there is a need and into this need I am pulled wide awake.” His performance and performance residue is prized for sensitivity, sensuousity, and sensuality.

So if one were to unravel a bunch, and I mean, A WHOLE LOT of thrifted afghans, one would get a sizable amount of yarn to wind around two 3-foot, doughnut-holed cardboard discs.  Depending on when one assessed one’s progress, the cardboard form’s colors would vary quite a bit (unless somehow one was able to find all the same color blanket).  One could wedge their fingers into the strands of yarn to get a peek of what’s within, but for the most part, layers and layers of whoknowswhatcolor would be buried inside.  Then, if in front of an audience one were to cut along the outer edge of the yarn-filled form, all the colors would spill out, no apologies.  Once the center has been tied, and the doughnuts have been chewed out by scissors, a ridiculous 3-foot pom-pom is left full-exposure on the stage.  This may or may not literally happen when one shares one’s words, but it for damn sure happens figuratively.

San Francisco duo FREDDY MCGUIRE is Anne McGuire, accompanied by electronic musician Wobbly (Jon Leidecker). Together they perform as The Freddy McGuire Show, in twisted lounge mode. myspace.com/freddymcguire

Anne is widely regarded for her video work, and has screenings this winter at the Berlin Film Festival and The Stan Brakhage Symposium in Boulder, CO.

Wobbly began as an improvised live mix radio program in Santa Barbara In 1990 and since 1994 has become the unintentional psuedonym of Jon Leidecker.  Live performances are still laptop free and aim for extended narratives spun from spontaneous yet coherent multi-sample polyphony.  It tries to sound like everything that’s ever happened.  Selected recent albums  are freely available online.  Previous and ongoing collaborators include  Thomas Dimuzio, People Like Us, Matmos, Anne McGuire (as ‘The Freddy McGuire Show’), Negativland, Tim Perkis, Xopher Davidson, Blevin Blectum, Lesser,  Otomo Yoshihide, Zeena Parkins & MaryClare Brzytwa (as ‘The Amen Seat’).

FUTURE ISLANDS are a new-wave dance band from North Carolina, now residing in the fertile “music capital of awesome”, Baltimore. Future Islands play a terse yet passionate music wrought from a stripped back palette. Gerrit Welmers’ cartwheeling synthesizer melodies tumble across the austere wilderness of William Cashion’s post-punk bass pulse, driven ever forward by ecstatic electronic rhythms.

Samuel, William and Gerrit had been writing songs together since 2003 in the guise of absurdist party project Art Lord & The Self Portraits, however it was with the arrival of Eric Murillo on drums that the band rid themselves of the mythology and masks, taking on a new motive and the name Future Islands. With the change their sound became exponentially faster and surprisingly powerful. They quickly wrote and recorded an EP entitled ‘Little Advances’ in time for their first tour late 2006 and haven’t looked back since.

Photo by Jenn.

Gary Kachadourian works for the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts, sometimes curates exhibitions and is a working artist.

Gary Kachadourian will be selling a life-sized poster of a cinder block wall from a card table. This poster was created to enable the purchaser to alter his or her living space so that it may feel like a basement, institutional stairwell, laundromat, prison cell, back of shopping center, or other cinder block related space. The poster is a Xerox reproduction of a lovingly hand drawn rendition of a 4 x 5 foot section of wall.

Exploring the spaces between buildings and searching for moments of an invisible urban sublime: this is the work of Graham Coreil-Allen. Based out of the urbanized, rural village of Waverly, Baltimore, Coreil-Allen is an interventionist public artist interested in the constructs and contradictions of our built environment. Using urban analysis and research, Coreil-Allen develops projects that test the boundaries of pedestrian agency and investigate the negotiable nature of public space. His work includes temporary outdoor architectural installations, interactive service-based performances and a variety of fantastical and informative discursive maps. Whether creating crosswalks for jaywalkers, revealing hidden vistas, or helping people navigate their urban terrain, the artist always brings a sense of play and critical engagement to public space. Coreil-Allen hopes to cultivate fresh insights, engaged adventure, and democratic discourse by inviting participants to experience their everyday public realm in new and creative ways.

Raised along the Gulf Coast and most recently living and working in Brooklyn, the artist has shown with mack b, English Kills, and Pocket Utopia galleries, and has been featured in the Brooklyn Rail and the Village Voice. Coreil-Allen is now and MFA candidate at Maryland Institute College of Art.

Vagabond Kiosk

The Vagabond Kiosk will be temporary kiosk structure serving as an inverse gallery featuring readymade urban objects and sites around the H&H building. Three separate panels on the kiosk will include photos, descriptions about he found art, along with maps and brochures for participant explorers.

Hannah Brancato is an artist, craftsperson, designer and activist who believes in making and sustaining traditions through the community of art. Her work uses handmade textiles and crafts to re-evaluate the function of ornament in contemporary life. 

Brancato is an active participant in art and craft events in Baltimore City. She has curated shows and organized events at the Current Gallery and Load of Fun, in addition to exhibiting work at the Transmodern Festival and Gilah Press. She is currently a full-time Americorps volunteer at the House Of Ruth Maryland, where she is creating a Community Artist and Art + Craft Coordinator position (hruth.org).

Jewelry Making Station
Since 2008, I have volunteered through Community Art Corps/Americorps at House Of Ruth Maryland, a comprehensive domestic violence service and advocacy organization. In the agency’s emergency shelter, I am developing the infrastructure for a new Art + Craft Program. Working with staff, volunteers, and residents, I have launched an ongoing fundraiser called the Jewelry Project. Residents make and donate jewelry, which is then sold at craft fairs and in local businesses; proceeds go back to the program. Our workshops create a safe zone for dialogue about surviving domestic violence.  By giving women staying temporarily in the shelter power to raise funds for this program, they can give back to House Of Ruth while recreationally creating art.  The Jewelry Making Station will mirror these shelter-based workshops. Passersby will learn the process of creating jewelry, which they have the option of donating to the Jewelry Project. My intent is to spark a conversation about empowerment through craft; participants will give jewelry and leave with information.  

For more information about House Of Ruth, visit http://www.hruth.org.

For more information about Jewelry Project, http://thejewelryproject.blogspot.com

Hermonie is an Epistemological Liberal (sometimes things just happen. sometimes things just don’t happen). She is an Aries, born on the cusp of Pisces, in the year of the Ox. Her work is replete with the Specific, “I want to be here,” and she thrives on the Obvious, “I want you to be here with me.”

J. Gavin Heck is a raconteur. A founding member of NYC’s Madagascar Institute/Dark Passage, Heck played roles as diverse as Nympho #1, Hades, Dancing streetsweeper #3 and was Pozzo in 08 at Theater Project in Godot. Heck won “Best dead for 100 years elephant” from the Village Voice in 2003 and is working on a cycle of noh inspired plays titled “Wanted Norman”. Looking forward, www.2goats.com is rarely updated as that would involve the past. He would like to thank kate (kaosunshine) for the key labeled “the apartment I grew up in”.

J. Gräf, a dynamic improvisor and stalwart of the Baltimore freek music
scene, creates vivid, compelling soundworlds using intuitive/primitive homebrewed electronics, guitar and voice. J. Gräf is one-half of the noise duos Harrius (with Chiara Giovando, two LP’s on Ehse Records) and Metalux (with MV Carbon, recordings on Hanson, Load and 5RC/Kill Rock Stars, etc). She is also known for her interactive social interventions such as The Guitars Project, in which she worked with a group older women with Alzheimer’s to produce music using electric guitars, Threshold, a piece performed at last year’s High Zero event in which the audience triggered sounds by ordering food, and her Rock Carving Oraclestra, which uses psychic channeling through stone to generate readings for selected audience members. Her recent releases include Proud Flesh, a movie soundtrack to her Western film collaboration with Chiara Giovando (ehserecords.com), a split 7″ with Zaimph as well as a split Metalux/K.K. Rampage.

John Eaton: Longtime fixture in Baltimore Art & Music scene. Member of the time-bending ensemble Geodesic Gnome; local DJ; participant in High Zero and Transmodern Festival; first runner-up Dancing with the Stars 2007; and a big ol’ queer to boot.

Jonathan Taube has exhibited nationally and has studied at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts in Louisiana, the Idyllwild Academy of the Arts in California, and is currently a junior at the Maryland Institute College of Art majoring in Interdisciplinary Sculpture with a concentration in Curatorial Studies and Environmental Design. Taube’s works are an interaction with his environment and its social-political ecology. In the spring of 2008 he designed and directed the Baltimore Sweep Action Parade: Toward the Center for the exhibition, Beyond the Compass, Beyond the Square in Baltimore’s Mt. Vernon Place. In the fall of 2008 he created the fictional Invasive Species Containment Agency for his month long solo exhibition Detainees: Ailanthus Altissima at MICA’s Pinkard Gallery, where Taube comically portrayed detention officer of the common invasive “Ghetto Palm,” ascertaining the plants on frivolous charges and detaining them in the gallery. He has participated in George Ciscle’s Exhibition Development Seminar for two years with the recent opening of Follies Predicaments and Other Conundrums: the work of Laure Drogoul. Taube is currently studying the history of Urban Renewal and the historically segregated policies of Baltimore city.

I propose to initiate a new subdivision of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), tentatively called the Arts Right to Space Act of 2009 (ARSA) as a fictional attachment to the OMB Budget requirements of the Barack Obama Stimulus Package. The ARSA’s initiative is to creatively secure physical space in the urban environment for artful use. Participants will create applications under federal guidelines to have the right to enact artistic practices in Title 1 Art Slum Areas. An information office will be established at the H & H site to promote awareness of HUD’s ARSA. Real estate agents and property assessors will be available by appointment to share the opportunity for Artful Occupations. Participants may apply for artistic use permits and subsides. They will receive a tour of the area and have an opportunity to broker a Deed of Artistic Claim.

Julia Oldham lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Her recent exhibitions include solo shows at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, IL; The University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA; Art in General in New York, NY; and Macalester College in St. Paul, MN. Her work has been supported by the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs; Artadia, the Fund for Art and Dialogue; and Art in General in New York.

Julia was born in Frederick, Maryland in 1979 and grew up in both Maryland and New Hampshire. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Art History at St. Mary’s College of Maryland in 2001, and a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Chicago in 2005.

Kathryn Williamson is a multi-disciplinary artist that uses performance, video, drawing, photography, and /or installation. Her ideas and inspiration come out of observing the world and culture around her and later transforming an idea into an action or a public intervention. Current interests involve social and political issues; specifically car culture and our lack of alternative forms of transportation. Williamson has performed and shown videos nationally and internationally. She received the Bay Area Award for Performance Art in 2000 and received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. She is currently an MFA candidate at the University Of Maryland.

Please join Wiliamson on Sunday for a unique ride on the Light Rail. She will be taking a group on round trip tours demonstrating different riding techniques and philosophies. Meet her at the Centre Street Light Rail Station for warm up “exercises” where participants can win FREE Light Rail Tickets and other prizes before boarding the train…or jump on Kelley Bell’s Pedestrian Services Express at any point, a new convenient way to navigate the festival, for a pre-ride that will make a stop at the Centre Street Light Rail Station. Ride on!!

• Warm Up “Exercises”: 12pm (Park behind the north bound Centre Street Light Rail) Station)
• Light Rail Journey : 1pm (Short RT ride on Light Rail)

Kelley Bell is an animator, graphic designer, and educator who is often willing to make mistakes and other interesting experiments. The animation shown on Friday evening at the H&H Building, “Garden of Earthly Delights” brings new life to the work of
Hieronymus Bosch, and our notions of good, evil, and the places we live in.

  Pedestrian Service Express

   On Sunday, Kelley Bell presents the Pedestrian Service Express, a new convenient way to navigate the artists and  events at Pedestrian Service Exquisite. It’s a new form of mass transit that has absolutely no negative impact on the  environment, and provides several different routes and lines to experience the day at your own pace. Also includes transfer points to the Light Rail and Kathryn Williamson’s specialized light rail tour. Ongoing for the whole Sunday festival!

Lauren Bender: 5′0″, approx. 110#, Hampden, across from the cemetery.

Leslie Rogers is a Philadelphia-based artist, puppeteer, and wrangler. She was raised studying quilting and textile art, topped it off with a BFA from MICA, then discovered a dirty secret: magic. She practices the craft with the Bread and Puppet Theater in Vermont and Puppet Uprising, a Philadelphia-based puppeteers’ collective. Her specialty is lifestallation in either form, installed life or live stalling. Her greatest joy is coercing viewers into performing in ways they never would if asked outright.

Leslie Rogers will invite the Birth Beast of Business to plant the seeds of commerce in an area of commercial suffering. From its seething marsupial sack, the BBB will bestow upon the region the most pure and unadulterated symbol of success, the Necktie. The BBB’s properly blessed, birthed, and planted necktie is a surefire route to lucrative and total acquisition for all. The beast’s miracle will be glorified on video by Johnny Woods of Mathematical Park. http://www.vimeo.com/980661

BIO: (b.1981) Liz Meredith is a violist, improviser, and composer originally from Baltimore, Maryland. Her music is improvisatory in nature, and frequently moves towards the outer limits of musical genres, being influenced by rock, electronic, and contemporary classical music.

Liz has collaborated with an assortment of individuals, including songwriters, rock bands, electronic musicians, improvisers, and composers. She has composed concert music for The Esterhazy String Quartet, The Opabinia Quartet, and has created electronic and electro-acoustic fixed media works as well.

www.lizmeredith.com
www.myspace.com/lizmeredith

[coming soon]

“Lurch and Holler” is E. Liz Downing and Michael Willis.

Trying to save the world every weekend morning, they conjure healing vibrations by harmonizing with household appliances. They accompany these vibrations with banjo, guitar, and neighborhood sounds like trash trucks, birds, helicopters and such. Finally, “Lurch and Holler” sing, coo and growl words into the poultice which have lately been inspired by the Odyssey, Flannery O’Connor and Gertrude Stein. The resulting medicine is Appalachian Techno Psychedelia and not so far from “Lurch and Holler’s” origin, the Mystic Hillbillie Opera of the late trio, “Lambs Eat Ivy”.

Maria Vashakidze and Minna Nilanont’s crafty nights resulted in a lot of awesome products and two etsy shops. Worndress (worndress.etsy.com) is home to one of a kind jewelry, blank journals, prints and letterpress oddities while Sea Grape bath + body (seagrapesoap.etsy.com) houses lovely hand crafted spa quality products for body and soul.

For more information visit
Worndress.etsy.com
Seagrapesoap.etsy.com

Mark Brown is a Video & New Media Artist presently living and working in Baltimore. He attended the Maryland Institute College of Art; majoring in Interactive Media with a concentration in Video.

Mark Brown currently works with local art collective Wham City and the presently forming and mutating Baltimore Humans group; with whom he recently toured exhibiting video works and performing experimental electro-acoustic improvised audio/visual compositions with Baltimore Artists Shaun Flynn and David Zimmerman. He also regularly collaborates with Baltimore artist Kari Altmann; with whom he helped form the experimental curatorial project Netmares Netdreams (http://www.netmaresnetdreams.net).

please visit http://www.mcbrown.info for more information and selected works.

Marla Parker, Elyza Brillantes, and Maria Duke are all Junior Fiber majors at the Maryland Institute College of Art. They delight in the fabulous and exciting.

Salon Matka
For the 2009 Transmodern Festival, Marla Parker, Elyza Brillantes, and Maria Duke propose opening a pseudo-salon called Salon Matka. The salon will be completely open to the air and feature a couch or some comfortable armchairs, table lamps, an area run, and some floor lamps. The girls will assume the characters of three biological Russian sisters even though none of them are either remotely Russian or remotely related. Each sister will have an appointed task to make visitors feel simultaneously welcome and slightly uncomfortable. By inviting passersby into their salon, the girls hope to place influence on the roles of femininity and maternity in the world today.

Melissa Webb is saturated colors and intricate textures and light and movement and wind and gravity today!

Her favorite color is green.

She enjoys long walks in dense forests, real fake things, ruffles, and fluttering tendrils.

Turn-ons and turn-offs: She tends to fancy open spaces and unassuming places, and wants to find ways to break free from the limitations of white gallery walls, pedestals, and stages.

In her spare time she likes to collaborate with good friends, creating eye-catching public spectacles, alternate realities, and thought-provoking, interactive experiences for human beings.

http://www.bakerartistawards.org/nomination/view/Missy

Neil Feather has been inventing and performing with experimental musical instruments since 1970. His instrument are qualitative machines that produce scary and funny sounds to construct a music that is as unlikely as it is beautiful.

Owen Brightman and Santina Gutierrez find pleasure in walking tall, stilt waltzing, spectacles and specs-appeal.
WHAT THE FUTURE
At the intersection of trick and treat, we will perform ribbon cutting ceremonies for red-light audiences. The line will be drawn, limp and luxurious. The pose will be held, eager and expectant. The scissors will scissor and the new will be open, allowing passage between the local and the cosmological beyond.

Paige Shuttleworth is a MICA alumni and multiple arts practitioner extraordinaire.

Among other disciplines she is a DJ, painter, illustrator, clothing and costume maker, performance artist, hoola-hooper, guitar player, and freaky dancer.

http://www.ciat-lonbarde.net/

Rahne Alexander is a writer, musician and multimedia artist from Baltimore. She is the guitarist and songwriter for the art garage trio The Degenerettes and a senior organizer of the Charm City Kitty Club. Her video art has screened in galleries and film festivals across the country, and she is a frequent contributor to City Paper and Smile Hon You’re In Baltimore. www.rahne.com

Photo: Defekto

Rebecca Nagle is a performance, new media and community artist. She grew up in Kansas. After attending Interlochen Arts Academy, she studied at Maryland Institute College of Art. She is an internationally exhibited and collected artist with works in the New Museum, NY and Ssamzie Art Warehouse, South Korea. Nagle has shown at Current Gallery, Art in General, Site Santa Fe, Artscape, and Conflux Festival. She was hailed by Baltimore City’s Paper’s senior arts editor Bret McCabe as “Baltimore’s very own life-is-art-is-life performance maven…mingling the internet and performance into a fresh and vital new thing”. Rebecca’s performative, interative and community art projects challenge people around issues of intimacy, the body, power, boundaries and efficacy. She is currently trying to make the world a more open, equitable and creative place through community organizing and radical performance art. To follow her efforts go to www.rebeccanagle.com.

Reina was born Tatiana M. Williams on Sept 17th 1982. The name Reina, by the way, means “Queen” in Spanish. And her royal prowess shines, in Spanish. And her royal prowess shines, as a singer, songwriter, rapper, producer, engineer, and performer of her own, original compositions as well as bringing a new flavor to familiar cover tunes.

So you see, its not just hype, because this woman is the Queen of her musical domain.

Born and raised in a musical family in Baltimore, Maryland, this 26 year old began her music career as an extra on stage, with the Baltimore Opera Company when she was barely 17 months old. Formal musical training began at the age of five, with private piano lessons. She has been writing music and lyrics since age 11, and also plays guitar, bass, and percussion instruments.

Trained at The Omega Studios for Recorded Arts and Sciences in Rockville, Maryland; a State-accredited higher education institution, Reina acquired proficiency on the intricacies of recorded music there, while developing a keen understanding of both the technical and artistic components of recorded music.

She was hired as an apprentice engineer at Reel Tyme Studios in NY, run by Grammy award winner, Ernie Lake, and has also worked with DJ Eddie Baez. She also worked as an engineer at Oz Recording Studio, in Baltimore for two years, where she worked with sensational artists such as Alicia Keys, and Usher.

She is currently involved in developing various East Coast based artists, and is also breaking in to film and television. Her music can be heard throughout various network and cable TV shows.

Reina is an out and proud Lesbian, with a little Dominican blood coursing through veins, which gives her music that extra flava, energy and style, like no other.

Samuel Burt is mainly a composer of chamber and electroacoustic music as well as an experimental sound manipulator of reed instruments and computer synthesis. His current mission is to produce more dialog between the expansive, mature, experimental scene in Baltimore and musicians trained in the traditional western discipline. He believes that an intuitive music philosophy would make better performers at the conservatory, and more formalistic and rehearsed ideas could improve the music of the experimental community. His music reflects these values with a moderated approach that sometime explores experimental forms through traditional media (see Parametric Transmutations) and other times explores challenging concepts through new methods of conveyance (see Unwound). Burt teaches at the Baltimore School for the Arts, is an organizing member of the High Zero Foundation, helped found the After Now new chamber music series, and performs regularly with bands Death in the Maze and Geodesic Gnome.

Born and raised in the western United States, Rose Burt moved to the east coast in 2000 when her strong interest in music led her to pursue a degree in classical saxophone performance at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore.  At Peabody, she  became increasingly involved with the Jazz and Computer Music departments, and upon completion of her undergraduate degree, Rose enrolled in the Masters program in Computer Music.  Encouraged by several faculty members and fellow students to explore improvisation further, she became involved with experimental music at the Red Room, and was invited to join the Red Room collective and High Zero Foundation in the spring of 2005.  As a member of the collective she helps book and run an experimental concert series at the Red Room in Baltimore and the annual High Zero Festival. of experimental improvised music.   Currently she is curating a composed chamber music series at Carriage House called Aesthetic Research Series; she performs with Death in the Maze, the Baltimore Afrobeat Society, Second Nature and in the After Now series.

Sarada Conaway is an artist and independent curator working in Baltimore MD. Her work focuses on removing boundaries between everyday life and art. Her current body of work is a large-scale collaboration with residents of standard apartment buildings. Ms. Conaway received her BFA from the Tyler College of Art and is recent graduate of the University of Maryland MFA program.

Jackie Milad is an artist who works with drawing, performance art and installation, and often creates projects that brings these disciplines together. Her projects explore the awkward moments shared between people. She has exhibited internationally and nationally in such places such as The Contemporary Museum in Baltimore, Gallery 32 as part of the London Biennale, Delaware Center of Contemporary Art in Wilmington, Museum of Fine Arts in Mazatlan, Mexico and Galeria de Jovenes in Culiacan, Mexico. In 2005 she earned her MFA from Towson University, and in 2000 she received her BFA from Tufts University and the School of Museum of Fine Arts. In 1998, Ms. Milad studied painting at the Studio Arts Center International in Florence Italy. She is currently Program Coordinator for the Union Gallery at University of Maryland, College Park.

Make-Over
Sarada Conaway and Jackie Milad will offer free makeovers to self selected volunteers. Participants will receive a before, in-between and after photograph. Milad’s in-between makeovers will resemble her current series of portrait drawings; awkward, empathetic and humorous. Conaway’s makeovers create an altered appearance, and an unusual social interaction.

Sarah Jablecki earned her B.F.A. from Rhode Island School of Design in 2004 and her M.F.A. from Maryland Institute of Art in 2008. Her work has appeared in in Selected, Photographers Forum, Photo District News, and AI - AP with Nan Goldin, Terry Richardson, and Sofia Copolla. Her award winning work has been exhibited across the Mid-Atlantic and North East, granted the Marty Forscher Fellowship Fund for “recognition of humanitarian efforts, remarkable storytelling ability, and creativity” as well as the Robert Mapplethorpe Award, and the Roberta Polevoy Award of the Baltimore Community Foundation. She currently resides in Baltimore and continues to create provocative fiber work, photography, and installations dealing with issues of intimacy, family, sexuality, and culture.

Sarah Magida is a robot who was raised in Baltimore City. She enjoys long walks in nature, candel light diners and electric charges. She comes on a little strong at first but she may also have the best of intentions or not. She is a late seventies, early eighties model A-HoT1.

Created in the spring of 2008, Services United is a collaborative group that creates social service based artworks that seek to generate community engagement and dialog. From volunteerism to sustainable practices, SU is interested in exploring the concept of interaction and services as an art form. Recent Projects include Baltimore City Seed Bomb Map, Emergency Preparedness Gardens, inviting the public to complete survey’s about the service industry, and a series of performances exploring volunteerism.

Members: Jill Fannon, Marian April Glebes, Jaimes Mayhew, Kathryn Williamson, & Shannon Young.

www.servicesunited.net

Maps for Ascending

Services United will create an electric scavenger hunt in Gallery Four using maps and clues that communicate energy consumption patterns.

Shana Moulton creates evocatively oblique narratives in her video and performance works. Combining an unsettling, wry humor with a low-tech, Pop sensibility, Moulton plays a character whose interactions with the everyday world are both mundane and surreal, in a domestic sphere just slightly askew. As her protagonist navigates the enigmatic and possibly magical properties of her home decor, Moulton initiates relationships with objects and consumer products that are at once banal and uncanny.

Shana studied at the University of California, Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, where she received her MFA. Moulton has also recently attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine, and studied at De Ateliers in Amsterdam. Her videos and Performances have been screened and exhibited internationally and she currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

shanamoultonweb.com

http://www.eai.org/eai/artistTitles.htm?id=10320

Shana Palmer was implanted into the valley’s surrounding the Superstition Mountains.

She is an unapologetic sensualist with a taste for surrealist animal paintings.

With the guidance of the woodland deer spirits she creates hauntingly beautiful music under the guise of Child Bride.

She would like to have you for dinner.

Nick Becker spends most of his days writing Artist Bios for Artists such as Nick Becker. Nick Becker is writing an Artist Bio for Nick Becker right now. Nick Becker spends the rest of his time learning how to make medicine from native plants and storing deer meat in preparation for 2012. Nick Becker makes a living as a psychedelic guinea pig at Johns Hopkins University. Nick Becker is not separate from you or I. Nick Becker is that there is no Nick Becker.

Smelling Salt Amusements is Heather Romney and Peter Redgrave. They are educators by trade and entertainers by whim. Please visit smellingsaltamusements.org for more information.

“Apologies by Proxy”

Sit down for 3 minutes (egg timer) and tell us a story of an event for which you feel you are owed an apology. Spoon sketches you & your tale, Lee & Spoon listen patiently & then your much overdue apology is given. Next customer please!

Spoon Popkin received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and has studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts, the Glasgow School of Art and the Chautauqua Institute for Performing Arts. Solo exhibitions include Goucher College (Baltimore, MD), The Lee Nagrin Workshop (NY, NY),  The Kunstlerhaus (Salzburg, Austria), RGB Gallery (NY, NY), The Garfield Artworks (Pittsburgh, PA) and the International Festival of Women in the Arts (Glasgow, Scotland). She has received awards from the Maryland State Arts Council and the CityArts Individual Artist Award in Visual Arts.

Teeth Mountain is a collective of musicians, artists, and philosophers seeking to subdue the fabric of time by exploring the hypnotic and transformative effects of sound, volume, spirit, rhythm, environment, and other means. Founded by Andrew Burt and Kate Levitt in Baltimore in the Spring of 2007, the group has worked tirelessly to realize its ideas through numerous tours and hundreds of shows, collaborations with a diverse group of musicians, an acclaimed LP, and hosting events at the Comfort Dome, their headquarters in downtown Baltimore.

April will see the release of a new LP on Not Not Fun Records. Comprised of live recordings from the latter half of 2008, the album is a different take on the live album format, seeking to represent the experience of a live band not through a faithful reproduction of a given performance but rather as a dream of a long journey, with the source material manipulated and edited to form a wholly new composition.

The band also is setting out on a full-U.S. tour with the Dan Deacon Ensemble and Future Islands beginning in April. Members Kate Levitt, Greg Fox, Andrew Burt, Justin Frye, and Andrew Bernstein will also be performing in the Ensemble. Following this tour, the band will head to Europe for a week of festivals with Dan and Future Islands and then a two week tour of the UK and the Continent on their own.

Thao Nguyen is a first generation Vietnamese American, who was raised up on her dad’s fast food treats and her mom’s traditional home cooking. As a broke college student, she sometime made money selling homemade springrolls and rice cakes using the recipes from her mom. The other year Thao re-visited Vietnam, a journey that brought her closer to her food and family. She brings you treats reminiscent of the homeland, prepared in the most home-down manner.

Ginkgo Porridge Street Hawking -
Most people may know ginkgo as the stinky fruit that drops all over Baltimore city streets, but may not know its edible and has been used in traditional Eastern cooking for a long time. This porridge is a recipe I learned from an older Vietnamese woman whom I happen to first meet as she was foraging and since that encounter has grown to be my good friend and a frequent host to my curiosity of our shared culture. Though the porridge as food is absolutely delicious, it is representative of a broader idea of understanding personal and community immigrant history as something to be shared, discussed, and hopefully a source of building bonds.

The Cause Company and Ambush Theater proudly present:

Get Strolled!

Tired of being bolted down, bored with working the same old Baltimore block, a crew of street fixtures breaks free to roam through town.

A choreographed bout of cardboard and chaos, Get Strolled! creates an amusingly unpredictable, kinetic landscape that strolls through YOU! Get ready to be entertained, ambushed and amused by this costumed, dancing posse of lampposts, shrubs, mailboxes and more!

Get ready to Get Strolled!

Get Strolled!, a collaboration between Ambush Theater and the Cause Company, was conceived and produced by Baltimore performing artists Annie Howe, Kesling Kalb and Valeska Populoh. Additional performers include Paco Fish and Kristin Faber.

AMBUSH THEATER is a mobilized posse of shrubbery with a mind of it’s own. Part puppetry, part topiary, part clown, Ambush mixes the overlooked world of shrubbery with the suspense and drama of a low budget thriller. Ambush has shared our unique brand of victory garden antics many places from music festivals to press conferences, historic ships, museums, burlesque shows and even college graduations! www.ambushtheater.com

THE CAUSE COMPANY presents public performances and miniature stage productions incorporating puppetry, costuming and masks. The company, founded in 2005 by Valeska Populoh and Sibelius Anton, draws its inspiration from the City and the power of each person to effect positive change in the world.

From scratch from scratch from scratch. Is it better to use my bio all set to go? Is this a good process? I am an artist who is a performance artist/playwrite. I’ve written and toured with many short and long plays. The play I am working on now has performance art in it; it actually contains performance art! Such questions resonate through my work - when is the best time for performers to burst into song? When is sadness strong and evocative, and when does it droop the energy? How is exuberance funny and deep? Why is the structure of every day so incredibly weird?

You can catch a glimpse of some work I’ve done on www.zerotv.com. Just type my name in the search box in the lower left hand corner. The Tingle Showcase was a show I put on collaboratively at Darling Hall, a theater we started where I lived for 5 years in Milwaukee. I’ve also made several films and videos.

Tiffany DeFoe is a saxophonist and stone-age giantess with a love for all kinds of music and a willingness to play in virtually any situation, which has occasionally gotten her into trouble. Luckily, it has also gotten her into the Stolen Heart Cabaret, the 2008 Whitney Biennial Neighborhood Public Radio exhibit, the Black Hole Rock Club (only chainlink stage fence in Baltimore!), the Knitting Factory, the Creative Alliance, CBGB, Caribbean Paradise soul food restaurant on Charles, various festivals, and all kinds of warehouse parties where she might have felt a bit awkward if she weren’t onstage. Current projects include a band called Gunwife Gone, a recording project with a hiphop producer called Dolphin, a community arts and activism center called 2640, and a collectively owned and operated bookstore called Red Emma’s.

Wendy Clupper is a professor who teaches performance and contemporary art at MICA. Having received her doctorate from University of Maryland at College Park, she has been in the Baltimore area for several years and performed two years ago in the Transmodern festival. Wendy is a published author whose scholarship focuses on outdoor sites for performance and experimental art-making. She has performed her solo shows in N.Y.C. and San Francisco, as well as in MD. Her work plays with notions of authority and absurdity.