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SLC Performance Lab

SLC Performance Lab

Written by: SLC Performance Lab
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 Sarah Lawrence College MFA Theatre Program has partnered with ContemporaryPerformance.com to produce the SLC Performance Lab Podcast. The SLC Performance lab interviews visiting artists to the MFA Theatre Program’s Grad Lab, one of the core classes of the program where graduate students work with guest artists and develop group generated performance pieces each monthly.All rights reserved Art
Episodes
  • Alex Tartarsky - Episode 06.02 SLC Performance Lab

    Alex Tartarsky - Episode 06.02 SLC Performance Lab
    Mar 31 2025
    ContemporaryPerformance.com and the Sarah Lawrence College MFA Theatre Program produce the SLC Performance Lab. During the year, visiting artists to the MFA Theatre Program's Performance Lab are interviewed after leading a workshop with the students. Performance Lab is one of the program's core components, where graduate students work with guest artists and develop performance experiments. Alex Tartarsky is interviewed by Amelia Munson (SLC'26) and Sheridan Merrick (SLC'26) and produced by Julia Duffy (SLC'25) Alex Tatarsky makes performances somewhere in between comedy, poetry, dance-theater, and rant—sometimes with songs. Tatarsky’s pieces play with the tension and overlap between written and improvised sequences, careening between known and unknown, set and scored. Drawing on the lineage of the clown, Tatarsky plays with the expectations and power dynamics of a given context, dissolving the fourth wall to respond to what is actually happening in the room, and probing the construction of genre, self, and narrative in real time. Sad Boys in Harpy Land, which premiered in 2023 at Abrons Arts Center in New York, NY, is an adaptation of a German novel about a little boy who wants to change the world through art but isn’t very good at it. This narrative collides with other stories of tormented artists during horrific times, moving through the inaction born of anxiety, shame, and overwhelm towards strange and ecstatic modes of re-writing the world together. The performance takes the form of the bildungsroman or development novel—a classic narrative of an individual’s linear progress towards becoming a fully integrated member of society—and lets it decay, reveling in the insights of the fragment, the spiral, the wandering, and the broken bits. Sad Boys in Harpy Land was presented again in 2023 by Playwrights Horizons, New York, NY. Tatarsky’s other works include MATERIAL, Whitney Biennial, New York, NY (2024); Gnome Core, Glen Foerd, Philadelphia, PA (2023); Dirt Trip, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY (2021); Untitled Freakout (Tell Me What To Do), The Kitchen, New York, NY (2021); and Americana Psychobabble, which premiered at La MaMa E.T.C., New York, NY (2016), with subsequent performances as part of the Exponential Festival, Brooklyn, NY (2019); and America(na) to Me, a program celebrating the 90th anniversary season at Jacob’s Pillow, Becket, MA (2022). Photo: Maria Baranova
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    40 mins
  • Maria Camia - Episode 06.01 SLC Performance Lab

    Maria Camia - Episode 06.01 SLC Performance Lab
    Jan 16 2025
    ContemporaryPerformance.com and the Sarah Lawrence College MFA Theatre Program produce the SLC Performance Lab. During the year, visiting artists to the MFA Theatre Program's Performance Lab are interviewed after leading a workshop with the students. Performance Lab is one of the program's core components, where graduate students work with guest artists and develop performance experiments. Maria Camia is interviewed by Rebecca Padrick (SLC'26) and produced by Julia Duffy (SLC'25) Maria Camia, creator of the MARICAMA brand and universe, is a Filipino American Director, Playwright, and Spiritual Visual Theatre Artist who creates Puppet Theater, Visual Art, and Fashion with the intention to globally inspire healing and play. Her transformative storytelling leaves audiences rewired and enlightened to the infinite potential of the MARICAMA mindset. She has performed original work for established theaters, including The Henson Company, La Mama, and Chicago’s International Puppet Festival.
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    43 mins
  • Sacha Yanow - Episode 05.05 SLC Performance Lab

    Sacha Yanow - Episode 05.05 SLC Performance Lab
    Oct 20 2024
    ContemporaryPerformance.com and the Sarah Lawrence College MFA Theatre Program produce the SLC Performance Lab. During the year, visiting artists to the MFA Theatre Program's Performance Lab are interviewed after leading a workshop with the students. Performance Lab is one of the program's core components, where graduate students work with guest artists and develop performance experiments. Sacha Yanow is interviewed by Julia Cowitt (SLC'24) and produced by Julia Duffy (SLC'25) Sacha Yanow is an NYC/Lenapehoking–based actor, performance artist and organizer. Yanow’s performance practice draws on theater, dance, queer performance, and Jewish cultural traditions to reckon with ancestral trauma, gender and sexuality, antizionism and assimilation. Since 2015, Yanow has created a trio of solo performances based on familial archetypes— Dad Band (2015), Cherie Dre (2018) and Uncle! (2024) — these embodied portraits act as an entry point to discuss broader social issues, as well as connect to estranged personal and cultural histories. Sacha's work has been presented by venues including The Kitchen, MoMA PS1, Danspace Project, Joe's Pub, and the New Museum in NYC; PICA’s TBA Festival/Cooley Gallery at Reed College in Portland, OR; and Festival Theaterformen in Hanover, Germany. They have received residency support from Baryshnikov Arts Center, Denniston Hill, LIFT Festival UK, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Mass MoCA, SOMA Mexico City, and Yaddo. Sacha has performed in theater, film and dance works by artists including Karen Finley, Sarah Michelson, Laura Parnes, Katy Pyle, Elisabeth Subrin, and Julie Tolentino. And they were a member of the Dyke Division of Theatre of a Two-Headed Calf, creators of Room for Cream, the live lesbian soap opera. Sacha is also working on two ongoing collaborative projects: a short film Grey Matter with organizer Bilal Ansari, disrupting settler colonial mythologies of their hometown of Williamstown, MA (Mohican Land); And an embodied dialogue Thank You for the Fire Between Us with Johannesburg-based performing artist Tshego Khutsoane involving divination practices. Sacha currently works as creative consultant for fellow artists and organizations. They served as Director of Art Matters Foundation for 12 years, and previously worked at The Kitchen as Director of Operations. They received a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and are a graduate of the William Esper Studio Actor Training Program. Sacha is a member of the NY chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. Photo by Allison Michael Orenstein
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    36 mins
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