Moderation(s): A Thing At A Time (Performances)

Alongside the programmed performances RoseLee Goldberg, Director of Performa, will be in conversation about the early days of the downtown community in New York and how the relationships between artists of different disciplines and the community were so critical to the 1970s and how this informed the beginnings of Performa. Writer Guy Mannes-Abbott is invited as a witness to reflect upon the two-day program. His textual interventions are on view on Witte de With’s first floor.

About the performances

Koki Tanaka

Continuing his long term exploration of acts and gestures he calls ‘Collective Acts’, Precarious task #6 going up to a city building taller than 16.7m will have Japanese artist Koki Tanaka lead a group of audience members to share his catharsis of a moment defined by a major catastrophe through casual yet carefully choreographed conversations. (A trace of this performance will be included into a collection of performance documentation by the artist for a solo show at the Japan Pavilion in the 55th Venice Biennale this year.)
Date Friday 19 April 2013, 5pm and Saturday 20 April 2013, 4pm
Location meeting point at Witte de With entrance

Anthony Marcellini

Loosely modeling his performance Slowly Breathe in…and Out…Through the Object on the notorious saga of Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc, artist and writer Anthony Marcellini directs viewers to imagine a plaza where they are guided to heal a trauma about public sculpture through an active exercise in mass hypnotism. If a work of art can only be understood through what it does or sets in motion, how do we redefine sculpture, performance or text?
Date Friday 19 April 2013, 7pm and Saturday 20 April 2013, 1pm
Location Witte de With auditorium, 1st floor

Eszter Salamon

Renowned choreographer Eszter Salamon’s performance Dance for Nothing utilizes the text from the Lecture on Nothing by John Cage as a score for a series of random, improvised movements. Guided by her voice and her body, the performance slowly unfolds as a series of ambiguous scenes that thread the realm between movement and the spoken word.
Date Saturday 20 April 2013, 8.30pm
Location Scapino Ballet, Eendrachtsstraat 8, Rotterdam

Mette Edvardsen

Brussels-based artist and performer Mette Evardsen has been invited to stage a new version of her performance Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine. For this, Evardsen will work with the very first and ongoing Moderation(s) project Bibliotheek (Library) .Three books of the artist’s choosing will be memorized and “performed” for the audience in one-on-one encounters.
Date Saturday 20 April 2013, 2pm (ongoing until 5pm)
Location Witte de With

Benjamin Seror

The Rotterdam iteration of Mime Radio by Benjamin Seror generates the 9th chapter of his upcoming novel to be published in 2013. With each performance a new chapter is “written”, and the story of a group of people gathering in a fictional bar called ‘Tiki Coco’ unfolds.
Date Saturday 20 April 2013, 7pm
Location De Schouw, Witte de Withstraat 80, Rotterdam

Talk:

RoseLee Goldberg

An evening talk featuring Performa Director RoseLee Goldberg in conversation with Anthony Marcellini and Witte de With Director Defne Ayas.
Date Friday 19 April 2013, 8pm
Location Witte de With auditorium, 1st floor

Program overview:

Friday 19 April 2013

5pm
Precarious task #6 going up to a city building taller than 16.7m by Koki Tanaka
Location: meeting point at Witte de With entrance
Witte de Withstraat 50, Rotterdam

7pm
Slowly Breathe in…and Out…Through the Object by Anthony Marcellini
Location: Witte de With auditorium, 1st floor
Witte de Withstraat 50, Rotterdam

8pm
Talk by RoseLee Goldberg with Anthony Marcellini and Defne Ayas
Location: Witte de With auditorium, 1st floor
Witte de Withstraat 50, Rotterdam

Saturday 20 April 2013

1pm
Slowly Breathe in…and Out…Through the Object, Anthony Marcellini
Location: Witte de With auditorium, 1st floor
Witte de Withstraat 50, Rotterdam

2pm to 5pm, ongoing
Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine by Mette Edvardsen
Location: Witte de With, 1st floor
Witte de Withstraat 50, Rotterdam

4pm
Precarious task #6 going up to a city building taller than 16.7m by Koki Tanaka
Location: Meeting point at Witte de With entrance
Witte de Withstraat 50, Rotterdam

7pm
Mime Radio by Benjamin Seror
Location: De Schouw
Witte de Withstraat 80, Rotterdam

8:30pm
Dance for Nothing by Eszter Salamon
Location: Scapino Ballet
Eendrachtsstraat 8, Rotterdam

One day ticket: € 10 / €5 discount. This ticket gives you access to all performances taking place that day. Reservations via [email protected]. Please indicate which day you want to book your ticket for.

Tickets can be bought only on the day of the performances at the Witte de With reception desk.

‘I am here, and there is nothing to say. Those who wish to get somewhere, let them leave at any moment. What we re-quire is silence; but what silence requires is that I go on talking.’
Lecture on Nothing, John Cage

Special thanks to Bilderberg Parkhotel Rotterdam.