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.

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.

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.

“Be The White Rabbit”
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn’t be, and what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?”

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

    415 Worms

        ”and the little ones chewed on the bones oh…. the bones oh.”

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. 


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.

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

Frequently Answered Question Workstation

At the Lifewinning Workstation (a table made of a chalkboard and some saw horses), participants are given a pamphlet of 100 questions and a piece of chalk. The participant is asked to pick one or more questions and work on an answer or answers on the surface of the workstation. The participant should not write down which question they are answering when they write, only their personal response to it. As groups progress, they are permitted to edit or respond to any of the previous statements on the workstation surface. By the end of the day maybe we’ll have sorted out some things.

Lemonade and cookies may be provided.

inside=outside

Exercise at 11:oo am sharp!

Light Milkmaid Aerobics and Stretching with Joe Meduza and Laura Dulski.

PSE TOUR GUIDE, Joe Meduza has been performing, creating and expressing himself in and around Baltimore since 1991.

Conspirator with the former Haus of Frau, former member of Charm City Kitty Club, Fixture and performer at the 14Karat Cabaret, founder of Wire Hanger Productions, Milkmaid and currently a board member and producer with Fluid Movement.

Joe’s work includes performance, acting, writing, painting, directing, producing and general creative endeavors.

A jack of all artistic trade and master of none.

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.

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)

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

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

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.

Meaghan Harrison b. 1981 Edina, MN. Harrison received her BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2002 and her MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2008. She has participated in group and solo exhibitions since 2002. Most recently at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, MN; School 33 Baltimore, MD; the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Wilmington, DE; Gallery Four, Baltimore, MD; and the Meyerhoff Gallery, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD. Harrison was awarded the MICA Graduate Fellowship Studio, 2008-09, at the Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower and a Full-Fellowship Residency at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT; winter 2010. Her work has been featured in Urbanite Magazine, State of the Art, by J.W. Mahoney, contributing critic, Issue May 2006 and in the Target Corporate Collection. She currently resides in Baltimore, MD.

Trust
Trust, is a mobile nail salon constructed from an army parachute. Complete with everything required for a professional manicure. In the performance I invite one viewer at a time to enter a military parachute turned tent to receive a free manicure in exchange for conversation. This intimate experience creates a intimate space for viewer and artist to engage in conversation on sensitive topics such as globalism, racism, and environmentalism to the not so serious such as childhood memories, how their day was, cooking and family ancestry.

Pedestrian Service Exquisite’s Professional Welcoming Fairy

Melissa Ultra Sharlat,  is a vocalist and welcoming fairy. An ordained reverend, Ms. Sharlat can officiate a non-denominational and personalized service for any occasion.

Exercise at 11:oo am sharp.

Every morning a happy morning…… with movement!

here is my grandma and i right after morning exercises. 

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.

Transmodern Hoopdreams:

An experimental improvisational, mobile dance happening!
Hula Hoopers, stilt walkers, poi spinners, jugglers and other exotic dancers are invited to perform in the park from 12-2:30pm with Regina.  No experience needed. Learn how to practice what you love!!!!!

“You are the secret of the Universe.” , (Douglas Brooks)

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.

Selfsame Sisters
These two artist connected at the hip in a adjoined dress plan to tempt, tease and tantalize participates into bacchanalian revelry using the game of double dare.  

“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.

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.

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.