December 13, 2009, 7pm

3rd Ward (map)

It’s all about the noisy lovely town we all can’t live without out at this month’s Moviehouse. Find out who’s in NYC, what they think and how we got to where we got in the Naked City. The show is equal parts video, performance, and question session as we introduce Rob Carter’s latest stop-motion animation on the cityscape and then invite the multi-media performers at Zebra Crossing to share all they’ve learned during their quest to answer What is Brooklyn?

Fresh off his boat tour, VJ Clay Franklin‘s got his ever-expanding cache of clips, beats, and live footage ready to roll. As always there’s snacks, drinks, and a q and a with the artists after the show.

Featuring

Stone on Stone by Rob Carter

This stop-motion video animation uses the architectural language of High Gothic and Modernism to invent a contradictory history of their evolvement.  The theme starts and finishes with the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, located on the upper west side of Manhattan. This vast anachronistic building lies unfinished and partially ruined after over a century of intermittent construction and restoration, and its re-created 13th century medieval architecture unintentionally symbolizes those eventful years of indecision, tragedy and changes in the meaning and purpose of the city’s architecture and landscape, especially religious buildings.

It is contrasted with Le Corbusier’s La Tourette monastery in France, competed in 1960. The video uses this anomalous but single-minded architectural vision, as the foundation for a new emergence of Gothic religious expression, resulting in a complete and unified fantasy cathedral – akin to the building that the Church of Saint John the Divine might have aspired to be.

Brooklyn Play by Zebra Crossing

In February 2009, we met as a group to explore the question, “what is Brooklyn, and how can we put that on stage?” We spent the next nine months conducting our investigation: uncovering found history, personal stories, family recollection, and YouTube videos; conducting on-the-street interviews, neighborhood field trips, e-mail questionnaires, and vigorous debates. We’re excited to bring new film footage into the mix: from the archival to the performative, the animated to the live.

Now, we invite you to join the conversation as we present a look at our discoveries so far. Part theatre piece, part travel guide and part oral history; stuffed to the brim with video, puppetry, field recordings and faux historical re-enactments, BROOKLYN PLAY is our attempt to express (some of) the many identities and experiences of Brooklyn.

Created by Chloë Bass, Drayton Hiers, Natalya Krimgold, Jonah Levy, & Gabriel Willow
Video Concept, Design, & Editing by Ken Yapelii
Technical Direction by Lee Mandell

Photos