Event
"GET DOWN AND PARTY. TOGETHER!" Two video pieces. Dance party to follow
This screening will focus on artist Adrian Piper's groundbreaking work Funk Lessons 1983. Ms. Piper situates Funk Lessons first in the evolving tradition of recent mainstream films that highlight the teaching of popular dance as a medium of self-transcendence and cross-cultural contact.
"My immediate aim in staging the large-scale performance was to enable everyone present to GET DOWN AND PARTY. TOGETHER." -Adrian Piper, Notes on Funk
Funk Lessons is a video piece based on Adrian Pipers interactive performance at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1983. Piper's Funk Lessons (1982-84) was a series of participatory social events where the (black) artist taught mostly white participants how to dance to funk music. As Piper noted in Notes on Funk (1985): "We were all engaged in the pleasurable process of self-transcendence and creative expression within a highly structured and controlled cultural idiom, in a way that attempted to overcome cultural and racial barriers." Though the election of President Barack Obama shows us how far integration in America has come since Funk Lessons was first staged, the racial and cultural issues addressed by Piper in Funk Lessons continue to resonate. By re-visiting Funk Lessons now, we will, in the spirit of Adrian Piper, offer a festive opportunity for disparate communities to come together, helping to break down the racial barriers that are still in place today. We will "GET DOWN AND PARTY. TOGETHER." Again.
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LocationMaysles Cinema
343 Lenox Ave.
New York, NY 11222
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: No |
| Wheelchair Accessible: No |
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