Big Art Group
Encyclopedia
Big Art Group is a New York City-based experimental performance ensemble that uses language and media to push formal boundaries of theatre, film and visual arts to create culturally transgressive
works. It has publicly declared its goal as the desire to develop innovative performance
s using original text, technology, and experimental methods of communication.
's Three Sisters and the documentary Grey Gardens
through methods of improvisation. These experiments evolved into a trilogy of works: Shelf Life, Flicker and House of No More. In these pieces, Manson invented an integrated spectacle which he dubbed ‘Real-Time Film’, a hybrid of film and theatre in which actors recombined formal ideas of performance through the use of simultaneous acting on stage and for live video using complex choreography, puppetry, and autobiography.
Thematically, the trilogy began with an acidic critique of consumerism
with Shelf Life, which also marks author Jemma Nelson's debut. The sister piece, Flicker, used two storylines to create a linked examination of violence and commodity. The trilogy concluded with House of No More, which dismantled ideas of theatrical narrative
, and attacked the idea of spectacle
.
In 2006 the company began a series of experimental video art, musical collaborations and reality performances, Dead Set #2 and #3 and The People. Dead Set #2 and #3 continued Big Art Group's experimentation with live theatre and video, set and costume design to comment on themes of trauma and popular culture. The People was an expansion of real-time film that moved the theatre to the street, combining local participants, documentary research and site-specific creations and also fusing avant-garde performance with community expression. Retelling a contemporary version of the Oresteia, The People was simultaneously projected and broadcast into the public square of the Italian town of Polverigi.
Caden Manson has been recognized as a Pew Fellow
for his work with Big Art Group. Major funding for the company include grants received from the Rockefeller Multi-Arts Production fund, The Greenwall Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Art and the Florence Gould Foundation. In the United States, Big Art Group has performed at such venues as Performance Space 122
, The Kitchen, The Wexner Center for the Arts
, The Walker Art Center, and REDCAT
. Performers include Heather Litteer, Farrad Mullins
, and Theo Kogan. Their work is also in the permanent collection of the Yale Drama Library.
2003 Pan Pan Theatre Symposium (Dublin, Ireland), The Walker Arts Center (Minneapolis, Minnesota), Fresh Terrain/PS122/UT (Austin, Texas), The Wexner Center For The Arts (Columbus, Ohio), The Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt, Germany), Sommerszene (Salzburg, Austria)
2004 New Territories Festival (Glasgow, Scotland), Emilia Romagna Teatro (Modena, Italy), Sommerszene Festival (Salzburg, Austria)
2003 The Via Festival (Maubeuge, France), Inteatro Polverigi (Polverigi, Italy), Zürcher Theater Spektakel
(Zurich, Switzerland), La Bâtie-Festival de Genève (Geneva, Switzerland), De (internatonale) Keuze van de Rotterdamse Schouwburg (Rotterdam, Netherlands), Le Vie de Festival (Rome, Italy), SpielArt Festival (Munich, Germany), Hebbel Theater (Berlin, Germany), Mettre en Scène (Rennes, France)
2002 Théâtre Garonne (Toulouse, France), Festival d'Automne (Paris, France), Théâtre de Lorient (Brittany, France)
2006 Temps d'Image at L'Usine C (Montreal, Canada), Festival Mois Multi (Québec, Canada), Donau Festival (Krems, Austria), Scene Festival (Salzburg, Austria)
2008 Theater der Welt Festival (Halle, Germany)
Transgressive art
Transgressive art refers to art forms that aim to transgress; i.e. to outrage or violate basic mores and sensibilities. The term transgressive was first used by American filmmaker Nick Zedd and his Cinema of Transgression in 1985...
works. It has publicly declared its goal as the desire to develop innovative performance
Performance
A performance, in performing arts, generally comprises an event in which a performer or group of performers behave in a particular way for another group of people, the audience. Choral music and ballet are examples. Usually the performers participate in rehearsals beforehand. Afterwards audience...
s using original text, technology, and experimental methods of communication.
Development
Founded by director Caden Manson in 1999, Big Art Group has produced seven original works, CLEARCUT, catastrophe (1999), The Balladeer (2000), Shelf Life (2001), Flicker (2002), House of No More (2004), Dead Set #2 and #3 (2006-7), "The People" (2007). The first two works, Clearcut Catastrophe and The Balladeer, explored the development of new vocabularies for performance and trained the ensemble in physically rigorous methods of stagecraft. Clearcut Catastrophe fused ideas from ChekhovAnton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
's Three Sisters and the documentary Grey Gardens
Grey Gardens
Grey Gardens is a 1975 documentary film by Albert and David Maysles, with Susan Froemke, Ellen Hovde, and Muffie Meyer. The film depicts the everyday lives of two reclusive socialites, a mother and daughter both named Edith Beale, who lived at Grey Gardens, a decrepit mansion at 3 West End Road in...
through methods of improvisation. These experiments evolved into a trilogy of works: Shelf Life, Flicker and House of No More. In these pieces, Manson invented an integrated spectacle which he dubbed ‘Real-Time Film’, a hybrid of film and theatre in which actors recombined formal ideas of performance through the use of simultaneous acting on stage and for live video using complex choreography, puppetry, and autobiography.
Thematically, the trilogy began with an acidic critique of consumerism
Consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...
with Shelf Life, which also marks author Jemma Nelson's debut. The sister piece, Flicker, used two storylines to create a linked examination of violence and commodity. The trilogy concluded with House of No More, which dismantled ideas of theatrical narrative
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
, and attacked the idea of spectacle
Spectacle
In general, spectacle refers to an event that is memorable for the appearance it creates. Derived in Middle English from c. 1340 as "specially prepared or arranged display" it was borrowed from Old French spectacle, itself a reflection of the Latin spectaculum "a show" from spectare "to view,...
.
In 2006 the company began a series of experimental video art, musical collaborations and reality performances, Dead Set #2 and #3 and The People. Dead Set #2 and #3 continued Big Art Group's experimentation with live theatre and video, set and costume design to comment on themes of trauma and popular culture. The People was an expansion of real-time film that moved the theatre to the street, combining local participants, documentary research and site-specific creations and also fusing avant-garde performance with community expression. Retelling a contemporary version of the Oresteia, The People was simultaneously projected and broadcast into the public square of the Italian town of Polverigi.
Caden Manson has been recognized as a Pew Fellow
The Pew Charitable Trusts
The Pew Charitable Trusts is an independent non-profit, non-governmental organization , founded in 1948. With over US$5 billion in assets, its current mission is to serve the public interest by "improving public policy, informing the public, and stimulating civic life."-History:The Trusts, a single...
for his work with Big Art Group. Major funding for the company include grants received from the Rockefeller Multi-Arts Production fund, The Greenwall Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Art and the Florence Gould Foundation. In the United States, Big Art Group has performed at such venues as Performance Space 122
Performance Space 122
Performance Space 122, generally known as P.S. 122, is a not-for-profit arts organization and one of the longest standing venues dedicated to contemporary performance art in New York City. Founded in 1979 in the abandoned Public School 122 building at 150 First Avenue at East 9th Street in the East...
, The Kitchen, The Wexner Center for the Arts
Wexner Center for the Arts
The Wexner Center for the Arts is The Ohio State University’s multidisciplinary, international laboratory for the exploration and advancement of contemporary art...
, The Walker Art Center, and REDCAT
REDCAT
Opened November 2003, REDCAT is a contemporary arts center that is an extension of CalArts campus, and serves as the professional presenting arm of the Institute...
. Performers include Heather Litteer, Farrad Mullins
Farrad
Farrad is a New York City-Based, American recording artist. He began performing in New York City's downtown performance scene with the experimental performance ensemble Big Art Group directed by Caden Manson and Jemma Nelson...
, and Theo Kogan. Their work is also in the permanent collection of the Yale Drama Library.
Shelf Life (Premiere - The Kraine Theatre, NYC 2001)
2004 Kaiitheatre (Brussels, Belgium), Hebbel Am Ufer (Berlin, Germany), Festpielhaus Hellerau (Dresden, Germany)2003 Pan Pan Theatre Symposium (Dublin, Ireland), The Walker Arts Center (Minneapolis, Minnesota), Fresh Terrain/PS122/UT (Austin, Texas), The Wexner Center For The Arts (Columbus, Ohio), The Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt, Germany), Sommerszene (Salzburg, Austria)
Flicker (Premiere Performance Space 122, NYC 2002)
2005 In Motion Festival (Barcelona, Spain), RED/CAT (Los Angeles, California, USA), Teatro Central (Sevilla, Spain), VEO Festival (Valencia, Spain), Teatro Canovas (Málaga, Spain), Teatro Alhambra (Granada, Spain), Teatro La Fenice (Senigallia, Italy), Trafó (Budapest, Hungary), STUK (Leuven, Belgium)2004 New Territories Festival (Glasgow, Scotland), Emilia Romagna Teatro (Modena, Italy), Sommerszene Festival (Salzburg, Austria)
2003 The Via Festival (Maubeuge, France), Inteatro Polverigi (Polverigi, Italy), Zürcher Theater Spektakel
Zürcher Theater Spektakel
The Zürcher Theater Spektakel is an international theatre and performing arts festival, held annually each summer in Zürich, Switzerland. First held in 1980,...
(Zurich, Switzerland), La Bâtie-Festival de Genève (Geneva, Switzerland), De (internatonale) Keuze van de Rotterdamse Schouwburg (Rotterdam, Netherlands), Le Vie de Festival (Rome, Italy), SpielArt Festival (Munich, Germany), Hebbel Theater (Berlin, Germany), Mettre en Scène (Rennes, France)
2002 Théâtre Garonne (Toulouse, France), Festival d'Automne (Paris, France), Théâtre de Lorient (Brittany, France)
House of No More (Premiere Performance Space 122, NYC 2004)
2005 Dance Theater Workshop (NYC), Hebbel Theater (Berlin, Germany), Théâtre Garonne/TNT (Toulouse, France), Festival d'Automne à Paris (Paris, France), Le Manège (Maubeuge, France), Le Vie de Festival (Rome, Italy), La Rose Des Vents (Villeneuve d'Asq, France), Wexner Center (Columbus, Ohio), Art Rock Festival (Saint-Brieuc, France), Festival de Otoño (Madrid, Spain), Teatro La Fenice (Sinigalia, Italy), Semaines Internationales de la Marionnette (Neuchâtel, Switzerland), Théâtre de Nîmes (Nîmes, France)2006 Temps d'Image at L'Usine C (Montreal, Canada), Festival Mois Multi (Québec, Canada), Donau Festival (Krems, Austria), Scene Festival (Salzburg, Austria)
Dead Set #2 (Premiere Hebbel Theater, Berlin Germany 2006)
2006 La Comète (Châlons-en-Champagne, France), Théâtre d'Angoulême (Angoulême, France), Festival d'Automne à Paris (Paris, France)Dead Set #3 (Premiere The Kitchen, NYC 2007)
2007 deSignel (Antwerp, Belgium), Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt, Germany), Donau Festival (Krems, Austria)The People
2007 Inteatro Polverigi (Polverigi, Italy)2008 Theater der Welt Festival (Halle, Germany)