Thank you for coming. We are so glad you are here.
THE PEOPLE TO COME is a participatory performance project by a canary torsi. Specifically, it is dances composed from people’s images, videos, or text submitted on this website in response to three requests: Give us a pattern, Give us a portrait, Give us a task.
On this site you can:
GIVE US SOMETHING
Take 5 minutes. Take 5 hours. Give us one or multiple submissions. And please give us something YOU have made (no copyright infringements!). Otherwise, there are no limits and no prerequisites. Everyone can do this.
We promise to host your submissions, showcase them, and possibly perform them.
VIEW WHAT OTHERS HAVE GIVEN & SEE THE PERFORMANCES MADE
By acting as an archive for all audience and web-visitor submissions and all performances created, thepeopletocome.org can be considered a portrait of the people that came, made and watched each performance and visited this website. We are all makers here.
COME TO A SHOW
Check out the schedule. If you come, you might recognize yourself... or your neighbor... or the person you came to the show with.
THE PEOPLE TO COME is (to name a few) about process, portraiture, inspiration, representation, projection, and being live. We can only make this piece with the people that come here. That’s you.
Thank you for coming.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Can I participate more than once?
Yes! You can submit as much material as you'd like in any categories you choose, as long as it represents your own work.
Can I change/delete my submission?
Once submitted, your contributions are final and cannot be edited.
What types of images/video files do you accept?
For videos, we accept files in the following formats: .mp4, .mov. For pictures: .png, .gif, .jpg, .jpeg.
Why can't I see the video submissions or hear the sound scores?
To ensure that you can see all videos on the website and that you can listen to the sound scores, please make sure you have the most updated web browsers. We recommend one of the following: Chrome: 23.0.1271.64, Safari: 6.0.2 (7536.26.17) or Firefox: 16.0.2.
Why can't I upload a submission from my iPhone/iPod?
Due to Apple's limitations on sharing from handheld devices, iPods or iPhones cannot upload material directly to our site. You can email the file to any desktop or laptop computer, and then submit your contribution to the website.
What will you do with my submission?
We will host your original submissions on this website and occasionally highlight individual submissions on the website or on press materials. Ultimately, your submission may be used in performance by one of the performers of THE PEOPLE TO COME to create a new work in front of you and on site.
Where can I see a performance of THE PEOPLE TO COME?
Please see the performance schedule below.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
THE PEOPLE TO COME is a new participatory performance installation conceived and directed by Yanira Castro. The work initiates from a solo choreographed by Castro, which is radically altered each night by the performers using material created by the local community and the audience attending the performances. To see the original dance--click here.
Each performer has 19 minutes to rehearse using the submitted materials and create an original solo in front of the audience. He then has 19 minutes to perform the new solo while the next dancer begins his rehearsal, creating duets for the audience to witness: always someone performing, always someone rehearsing. The process takes four hours allowing the audience to come and go, observe the solos, engage with specific performers, and contribute material.
Audiences can submit contributions before, during, and after performances on this website in the form of images, video, or text in response to 3 requests: Give us a pattern, a task, a portrait. The website serves as the archive for all the contributed audience material and all the dances made from that material, forming a portrait of each night’s performance community.
PEOPLE builds on a canary torsi's explorations into the relationship between audience and event and into the development of web projects to accompany and support the work.
ARTIST STATEMENT: Yanira Castro
I have been exploring the audience/performer relationship since 2000 when I began a series of projects for small audiences in which they were placed at extreme distances from the event—very distant or close. Questions about the role of proximity in the work became questions about audience agency, their ability to choose their own frame—how close to be in relationship to the event, what to focus on during multiple events, whether to sit, stand, move. My latest projects have centered on the audience’s ability to impact the work, to change the tone of the piece, to alter choreography, to create the music, to create material that is manipulated by the performers. While the scenarios are meticulously created, my work challenges ideas of authorship and asks the questions: What is the divide between spectator and participant? How are these roles inverted/shared? Who is the translator? Who is the narrator?
PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
THE PEOPLE TO COME will be performed at five different locations in five states during the 2012-2013 season. If any of these are in your neighborhood, come out and join us!
The performance dates are:
The Yard (Chilmark, Martha's Vineyard, MA), September 12, 2012 (http://dancetheyard.org)
Marlboro Town House (Marlboro, VT), September 29, 2012 (http://vermontperformancelab.com/past-artists/yanira-castro)
The Granoff Center at Brown University (Providence, RI), October 25 & 26, 2012 (http://brown.edu/academics/cre
Space Gallery (Portland, ME), April 6, 2013 (http://www.space538.org/event_details.php?id=1785)
The Invisible Dog Art Center (Brooklyn, NY), June 25, 26, 27, 28, & 29, 2013 (http://theinvisibledog.org/the-people-to-come/)
If you come, you might recognize yourself, or your neighbor, or the person you came to the show with in the performer's work. We look forward to seeing you there!
THE TEAM (NY PREMIERE)
a canary torsi creates site-adaptable, installation-based performance projects. Formed in 2009 by New York choreographer Yanira Castro, a canary torsi invites audiences to participate in work that is anchored in live performance and extends into other media and online platforms. Ranging from formal movement and immersive audio installations to fictional Twitter feeds and interactive websites, a canary torsi explores the relationship between audience and event, developing scenarios where the audience’s presence dramatically impacts the work. www.acanarytorsi.org
Yanira Castro (director/choreographer) is a Puerto-Rican born and Brooklyn-based choreographer who collaborates with a core group of performers and designers on individual projects under the name, a canary torsi.
Castro’s work has been presented in New York by Dance Theater Workshop, Performance Space 122, ISSUE Project Room, The Invisible Dog Art Center, The Chocolate Factory, and Experimental Media & Performing Arts Center, among others, and has toured nationally and internationally. Her work has often incorporated untraditional spaces: public bathrooms, warehouses, former bathhouses. Internationally, her dance installation Dark Horse/Black Forest has been presented in the public bathrooms of the George Bacovia Theater in Bacau, Romania; the Daile Theatre in Riga, Latvia and the Tanzhaus in Düsseldorf, Germany for the International Tanzmesse.
Castro and the team of Dark Horse/Black Forest won a 2009 NY Dance & Performance (aka Bessie) Award for the NY performances of that project at The Gershwin Hotel. She has received several commissions and awards for her work, including National Dance Project's Touring Award, The MAP Fund, The Jerome Foundation, NYFA’s BUILD, Meet the Composer’s Commissioning Music/USA program, NYSCA, New Music USA’s Live Music for Dance, Trust for Mutual Understanding, and USArtists International. She is a 2012 Vermont Performance Lab Artist, a 2012 Media Fellow and 2007 Choreography Fellow at the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, a 2012 and 2010 LMCC Swing Space Artist-in-Residence, a 2008/2009 ARC Artist, a 2007 Artist-in-Residence at the George Apostu Cultural Center in Romania with Artist Ne(s)t, a 2007 Sugar Salon Artist, and a 2006 Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellow. Castro received her B.A. in Theater & Dance and Literature from Amherst College.
Peter Bussigel (musician) is an improviser and video artist interested in intermedia performance. He works with found objects and brass instruments augmented through digital and analog electronics. Peter collaborates with dancers, writers, visual artists and other musicians and has performed throughout North America and Japan including the International Computer Music Conference, the annual Society for Electroacoustic Music in the United States conference, the Tank, and the Pixilerations Festival. He has received grants for performances and workshops on improvisation from Bates College and the Kobushiko Commissioning Group in Japan, and currently leads the intermedia ensemble at Brown University.
Kathy Couch (installation/lighting/costume designer) For 17 years, Kathy Couch has been designing and creating visual landscapes in performance and installation works. Primarily working in the mediums of light and space, Couch has designed over 300 performances in New York, Boston, Washington D.C., Australia, Armenia, Russia, Latvia, Serbia and throughout New England. Creating installations and designs for a variety of traditional and non-traditional spaces, Couch’s artistic practice focuses on the vital role of the audience/viewer as active contributors to the work. Kathy Couch has ongoing performance collaborations with Adele Myers, Candice Salyers, The Architects and Chimaera Physical Theater. As a member of the creative team for Yanira Castro’s Dark Horse/Black Forest, Couch received a 2009 Bessie Award. Most recently, she collaborated with choreographer and video artist Wendy Woodson in the creation of Belonging: Reflections on Place, a video installation for the Immigration Museum of Melbourne (Australia). Kathy Couch currently teaches Lighting Design at Amherst College and recently received an MFA in Visual Arts from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is a founding board member of the Northampton Community Arts Trust that seeks innovative ways to preserve arts space in Northampton, MA and a member of the arts organization C3, a creative community collective.
Simon Courchel (performer) is native of Paris and he studied dance at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. During his time and growth, Simon worked with William Forsythe, Carolee Schneeman, Michel Kelemenis, Lucinda Childs, Ashley Page, Karole Armitage, Yuval Pick, Terro Saarinen, Francois Raffinot, Jean Claude Gallota, Russel Malliphant, Frederic Flamand and Bud Blumenthal among others. Simon is based in Brooklyn since July 2010 and is Deputy Director at The Invisible Dog Art Center.
Tess Dworman (archivist) is a choreographer and performer originally from Chicago, IL. She studied at the Laban Centre in London and graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a BFA in Dance. In New York, her work has been presented by AUNTS, Center for Performance Research, Danspace Project, Dixon Place, Movement Research at the Judson Church, and Roulette Intermedium. She has also had the pleasure of performing in the works of Moriah Evans, Strauss Bourque-
Sam Lerner (web director) works best when he’s surrounded by visuals, graphics and music and his best work involves putting technology right in the middle of it. A creative engineer and Flash expert at CivicActions, he thrives on clients seeking community-oriented solutions. While at Calabash Music, the first fair-trade online music company, he created a built-in media player that helped put more money in musicians’ pockets. His first project for CivicActions was dubbed “The Great Turtle Race.” An initiative for Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP), the website chronicled the migration of tagged leatherback turtles from Costa Rica to the Galapagos Islands. Corporations and celebrities such as Stephen Colbert quickly jumped in to sponsor a turtle and the “race” was showcased via Sam’s time-lapse Flash animation map, updated daily. The project raised huge awareness for the turtles and drove significant traffic back to the organizer’s web site, also developed by CivicActions. Working with Amnesty International on their state-of-the-art web site, Sam’s team was tasked with finding a lightweight solution for searching the organization’s exhaustive document database. By incorporating Google Mini, the site and its attendant document library can now be searched seamlessly.
Luke Miller (performer) is originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and studied dance at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He has performed with Yanira Castro / a canary torsi in 2:1, Center of Sleep, Wilderness, and received a Bessie award in ’09 for his collaboration and performance in Dark Horse/Black Forest. He is looking forward to performing in the upcoming work entitled The People To Come. He is also currently a member of Susan Marshall & Co. and has danced in the work of Martha Clarke, David Dorfman, Molissa Fenley, Keely Garfield, Neil Greenberg, Fiona Marcotty, Julie Atlas Muz, Neta Pulvermacher, stephen petronio, Sally Silvers, Christopher Williams, and Bill Young / Colleen Thomas. Luke enjoys freelancing in other artists’ work when they invite him into the studio. As well as making his own work, he curates events that involve live performance and visual art at Location One gallery in SOHO. He is currently creating a series called HOMO-spoof-EROTIC. It involves lycra. In addition to performing, he also teaches dance, yoga and improvisation. Luke dabbles in interior design and costume/set design. For more information please visit www.lukemillerdance.com.
Stephan Moore (composer) is a composer, performer, audio artist, sound designer and curator based in Brooklyn and Providence. His creative work currently manifests as electronic studio compositions, improvised solo performances, sound installation works, scores and sound designs for modern dance and theater groups, custom software design, and the creation of multi-channel sound systems for unusual circumstances. He performs regularly with Scott Smallwood in the electronic duo Evidence, and with a variety of musicians, live-video artists, and dancers. He has created custom music software for a number of composers and artists, and has taught workshops and numerous college-level courses in composition, sound art and electronic music. He curates the annual Floating Points Festival at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, where he serves on their Art Advisory Board. From 2004 to mid-2010, he was the Sound Engineer and Music Coordinator of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and one of its core-touring musicians. His collaborations with Yanira Castro include Center of Sleep, Dark Horse/Black Forest, and last year’s Wilderness.
Peter Musante (performer) is a San Francisco-raised theater artist and educator currently based in Brooklyn. A frequent performer with Blue Man Group, Peter has enjoyed collaborating on original interdisciplinary works with such artists as Martha Clarke & Alfred Uhry (Angel Reapers - The Joyce), Jody Oberfelder, Sabrina Jacob, Sinking Ship Productions, Double Image Theater Lab, Trusty Sidekick Theater Company and with Summer Shapiro in their award-winning Legs and All. His original work of physical theater has been presented at St. Mark’s Church / Incubator Arts Project, The Kraine, The Brick, The Tank, Galapagos Art Space and most recently at The Chocolate Factory’s THROW series. Peter is also working toward an MFA in Performance & Interactive Media Arts at Brooklyn College. www.petermusante.com
Caroline Park (musician) is a composer/performer who improvises on laptop, piano, and other noise-making devices, either solo or within a group. Caroline has been involved with ((audience)), Boston Center for the Arts, Non-Event, Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, Saint Louis Symphony, Callithumpian Consort, Together: New England Electronic Music Festival, Musicacoustica Beijing, SICPP (Summer Institute of Contemporary Performance Practice), Boston Microtonal Society, and Boston CyberArts.
Tim Rovinelli (musician) is performer and instrument builder based out of Providence, RI. His work focuses on the creation of unstable generative electronic systems, hacked devices, and crude digital processing. He is especially interested in environmentally sensitive and unusual interfaces. He performs improvised music with the BUMPR ensemble with Stephan Moore, Peter Bussigel, and Caroline Park, electro-rock with House Party, and solo noise under the Splatterpuss moniker. He is a graduate of Brown University affiliated with the MEME program and RISD's digital media program.
Peter B. Schmitz (performer) has been involved in the creative and performing arts for over 25 years as a dancer, choreographer, actor. As a professional dancer/choreographer, Peter has worked throughout the United States, Amsterdam, Germany, France, England, New Zealand and recently in Ankara, Turkey. He was a founding member of Dance Gallery, a small modern dance company, a member of Creach/Co in New York City for over 8 years, and has performed in the works of Wendy Woodson, Ann Carlson, Richard Colton/Amy Spencer. Peter currently lives in Bronx, NY. He has choreographed for New World Theatre, Medicine Show Theater and Potomac Theater Project and is a member of Actors Equity.
Kirsten Schnittker (archivist) is a choreographer and performer who creates dances that question the act of performing, expose the individual within the performer, and push the limits of audience passivity. Since graduating from Barnard College, Kirsten has shown her work throughout New York City with RoofTop Dance, Brooklyn Arts Exchange’s 2012 UPSTART Festival, REHEARSAL, Dance New Amsterdam, Movement Research's Open Performance and Green Space. Kirsten has performed with Kelley Donovon and Dancers, Tara Aisha Willis and the A.O. Movement Collective. She has worked with Yanira Castro | a canary torsi since 2011.
Suzanne Thorpe (musician) performs the electroacoustic flute, extended through hardware software components. As an improviser, Thorpe has performed nationally and internationally with Chris Brown, Chris Cogburn, Annette Krebs, Maggie Nicols, Pauline Oliveros, Gino Robair, Miya Masaoka, Fred Frith, Ulrich Krieger, Zbigniew Karkowski, Anti-Matter, Miguel Frasconi, and Zeena Parkins among others. From 1989 to 2001, she was a founding member of Mercury Rev, an internationally acclaimed band with which she composed, performed, recorded, produced, and toured, earning critical praise and a gold record for 1998's Deserters' Songs. Thorpe is one half of the flute and feedback duo thenumber46 with media artist Philip White, and one fourth of the quartet Volume(n).
Darrin M. Wright (performer) is a native of Los Angeles, California where he started tap dancing at the age of six. His early training began with Ian Gary, Janet Roston and Rudy Perez. In 1997, Darrin joined the Bella Lewitzky Dance Company as part of its farewell tour. He received his BFA in dance from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2002. Since graduation, Darrin has had the pleasure of working with Susan Marshall, Terry Creach, Bill Young/Colleen Thomas, Jack Ferver, Tami Stronach, Amber Sloan, Jane Comfort, Lindsay Dietz-Marchant, Linsey Bostwick and Nina Winthrop. Darrin teaches master classes in technique, composition and improvisation throughout the country. He has loved working with acanary torsi since 2008. Currently Darrin lives in Brooklyn, New York.
PORTRAIT PROJECTS
MARLBORO SUMMER SALE PORTRAITS, Saturday, July 28, 2012: During this day-long rummage sale in Marlboro, Vermont, shoppers shared personal stories and were photographed with their purchases.
Jess Weitz is a photographer based in southern Vermont. Her work has spanned a 20 year period including platinum print self portraits, 8x10 large format projects of abandoned spaces and eastern Berlin’s history filled streets in the late 1990’s. Currently she is creating images of vegetation and farm animals on Vermont farms.
Her interest in portraiture stems from her studies with Stephen Shore and the work of August Sander, Judith Joy Ross and Rineke Dijkstra. She is interested in creating a working pace with a handheld camera that mimics the slow working process of a large format camera in which her subjects can calmly reveal themselves to the camera.
She has also helped direct the In-Sight Photography Project for teens in Brattleboro, Vermont and has taught Literacy through Photography workshops in schools.
MY INSPIRATION SERIES, Saturday, June 22, 2013: During a canary torsi's benefit, guests were photographed with a picture of a person who inspires them.
Sari Goodfriend is a New York photographer specializing in portraiture, interiors and food photography. A graduate of Smith College who has studied at the Sorbonne, Rocky Mountain School of Photography, and International Center of Photography, Sari is represented by Sous Les Etoiles Gallery in New York. She has photographs in the collections of the Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State University, The University of Boston School of Architecture and Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.
Sari has photographed numerous and varied high profile individuals such as Anthony Bourdain, Malcolm Gladwell, Arundhati Roy, and Ted Turner.
FUNDING CREDITS
THE PEOPLE TO COME is made possible in part with co-production support by Vermont Performance Lab and funding from The Jerome Foundation. Support and composer commission funds are provided by New Music USA’s Live Music for Dance program.
PEOPLE is developed through a 2013 Choreography Fellowship and a 2012 Media Residency Fellowship at Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, and development residencies at The Yard, Vermont Performance Lab and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Swing Space program through a real estate donation from Savanna.
The performances of PEOPLE at The Yard, Vermont Performance Lab, Brown University’s Granoff Center for the Creative Arts and Space Gallery are funded in part by the Expeditions program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional support from the six New England state arts agencies.
The New York Premiere of PEOPLE is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by the Brooklyn Arts Council, Inc. (BAC), and is made possible, in part, by The Invisible Dog's Kickstarter donors.
