15 Downtown New York Performance Artists of the 80s and early 90s *

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Selected venues

The Kitchen
Performance Space 122
Franklin Furnace
Dixon Place
Danspace
Dance Theater Workshop
The Performing Garage
La MaMa Experimental Theatre
8BC
The Pyramid
Club 57
King Tut’s Wah-Wah Hut
Chandalier
Darinka

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10 DPAs who became very famous

Steve Buscemi
Whoopie Goldberg
Willem Dafoe
Blue Man Group
Jill Clayburgh
Spaulding Gray
They Might Be Giants
Laurie Anderson
Eric Bogosian
Frances McDormand

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Further reading

* C. Carr On Edge: Performance at the End of the Twentieth Century (Wesleyan, 1993)
* Roselee Goldberg Performance: Live Art Since 1960 (Harry N. Abrams, 1998)
* Brandon Stosuy Up Is Up, But So Is Down: New York’s Downtown Literary Scene, 1974-1992 (NYU Press, 2006)
* Marvin Taylor The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene 1974-1984 (Princeton University Press, 2005)

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15

Dancenoise
‘The Dancenoise performance art duo of Anne Iobst and Lucy Sexton pull viewers into a world of nightmare dreams and hilarious apocalyptic visions through which the two women travel with friendly, deadpan objectivity. A good deal of the fun lies in the agonizingly slow vaudevillian buildups to fleeting jokes and barbs. The topics include women’s reproductive rights and the Persian Gulf war. The jokes are surprisingly fresh and devastating, and the gentler moments of affection as touching. A good deal of Dancenoise’s impact comes from the scrappily imaginative, sometimes beautiful set elements they work with.’ — Jennifer Dunning, NYT, 1991

Dancenoise at The Pyramid Club’s 7th Birthday Party

John Kelly
‘John Kelly is a performance and visual artist has created over 30 performance works which have been performed at many performance and alternative venues, including The Tate Modern, The Kitchen, PS 1, The Warhol Museum, the Whitney Biennial, Dance Theater Workshop, The Sundance Theatre Lab, The Drawing Center, LaMaMa ETC, Creative Time, Performance Space 122, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival. His performance works have consistently focused on the character of creative genius, and have ranged from the autobiographical to historic figures such as the Viennese Expressionist artist Egon Schiele, Caravaggio, Antonin Artaud, Joni Mitchell, and Jean Cocteau, as well as cultural phenomenon such as the Berlin Wall, the Troubadours, the AIDS epidemic, and Expressionistic Film.’ — John Kelly Website

“The Dagmar Onassis Story” (excerpt)

David Leslie
‘I have been creating public spectacle as an artist / daredevil in the cultural arena of performance art in NYC art houses and club venues since the mid eighties. My addiction for art and adrenaline drove me to my first stunt in SOHO, when I attempted to fly a small single seat rocket over a mountain over watermelons. That night I almost broke my neck and was nearly burned alive in the flaming wreckage. I loved it. Throughout the mid to late eighties I offered up many outrageous acts and actions mostly in admiration, imitation and respect for of the men and women who inspired me. My over the top outrageous acts were in simpatico with a temperament that was pervasive in the East Village at that time. My over the top outrageous act were a in simpatico with a temperament that was pervasive then in that East Village. My fans and followers of my work named me “The Impact Addict”. I was given that name after doing a show that I had titled “impact addict”. In that show I jumped off a 3 story building onto a sheet of steel while wrapped in bubble wrap and christmas lights .. and the name stuck.’ — David Leslie

Yoshiko Chuma
‘The School of Hard Knocks, more fully titled “Yoshiko Chuma & The School of Hard Knocks,” was founded in 1982 and is located in New York. Described in 2007 by Bloomberg as “a fixture on New York’s downtown scene for over a quarter- century”, her work spans from early “absurdist gaiety” to more recent serious reflection, which nevertheless represents the “maverick imagination and crazy-quilt multimedia work” for which the artist is known. Dance commentators have found her work difficult to classify; in a 2006 profile, Dance Magazine speculated that “One might call her a postmodern choreographer, a movement designer, or a visual artist whose primary medium is human beings–dancers, musicians, pedestrians”.’ — Wikipedia

Excerpts from ‘Dead End Falling – Secret Journey’

John Sex
‘After early work as a gay stripper, John Sex became an alternative performance artist, creating a character based on an exaggerated, cheesy Las Vegas lounge singer/MC. Sex developed a persona that simultaniously masked and amplified his polymorphous self, elaborating a mythinc yet parodic rock-star figure of mercurial presence”. His “Acts of Live Art” series brought performance art into the club context. He was able to further refine the combination of performance art, drag act, gay go-go dancer, cabaret singer, lounge MC, etc. as a performance art dancer who performed at such legendary New York clubs as Club 57, the Pyramid Club, Danceteria, The Palladium, Paradise Garage and Andy Warhol’s Underground. Mr. Sex’s trademark was his long, blond hair which stood straight up, and which he claimed was kept erect by a combination of Dippity-do, Aqua Net, egg whites, beer, and semen. He also dressed in flamboyant costumes. He owned a python named Delilah that was often included in his cabaret act, and was a friend of artist Andy Warhol. Sometimes he would leave the python on stage and come down into the audience and wrestle with patrons of the club. He died from AIDS-related complications.’ — Steven Hager

“Rock Your Body”

Robert Whitman
‘Robert Whitman is best known for his seminal theater pieces combining visual and sound images, actors, film, slides, and evocative props in environments of his own making. Since the late 1960s he has worked with new technologies, and his most recent work incorporates cellphones. He has collaborated with engineers on installations and works that incorporate new technology: laser sculptures, including Solid Red Line, in which a red line draws itself around the walls of a room and then erases itself. In 2003, Dia Art Foundation, New York presented, Playback, a large-scale retrospective exhibition of Whitman’s works. The exhibition traveled to Porto, Portugal, and opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona in September 2005. A major book, Playback, a comprehensive study of his work, accompanies this exhibition.’ — The Pace Gallery

from ‘Inside Out’

Tom Murrin
‘Tom Murrin began performing under the name “Tom Trash” in the late 70s, doing street shows, but also getting gigs in rock clubs, opening for the bands. The punk scene was just starting at that time in New York, and his brand of theater was considered “punk”. In 1979, he changed his name to The Alien Comic. During the early ’80’s, Murrin also did shows at the off-off Broadway theaters, like La Mama and Theater for the New City, and opened for many bands, including X, Pere Ubu, the Stranglers, and James Brown. In the early ’80’s Murrin met a group of women dancers who had recently graduated from Ohio University, in Athens, Ohio, who were then living in Manhattan. They were Jo Andres, Mimi Goese, Lucy Sexton and Annie Iobst, and they were interested in performing. Murrin taught Sexton and Iobst what he had learned along the way, and the two women became DANCENOISE. The five became The Full Moon Crew, and with the production help of Bill Schaffner, they put on many Full Moon Shows at P.S. 122. In May, 2008, Murrin was honored by P.S. 122, along with his friend, producer/stage technician Lori E. Seid, at their annual Spring Gala and Benefit at Angel Orensanz Foundation.’ — Alien Comic Website

Tom Murrin (Alien Comic)

Ann Magnuson
‘In 1978, Ann Magnuson moved to New York City, New York and was a DJ and performer at Club 57 and the Mudd Club in Manhattan circa 1979 through the early 1980s, while pursuing a performance career on varied fronts. She created such characters as “Anoushka”, a Soviet lounge singer, wearing a wig backwards and singing mock-Russian lyrics to pop music standards, and separately sang in an all-girl percussion group, Pulsallama, whose 1982 single “The Devil Lives In My Husband’s Body” was a housewife’s lament of a spouse who appears to be possessed. Later, in the 1990s, Magnuson fronted the satirical faux-heavy metal band Vulcan Death Grip. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, Magnuson ran Club 57, in New York City’s East Village. The club was located in the basement of the Polish National church. It became a center of a world that included Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, and many others from New York’s budding graffiti and downtown scenes.’ — Art in America

from ‘Made for TV’

John Jesurun
‘John Jesurun, a winner of the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship in 1996, is widely acknowledged as one of the foremost innovators of avant-garde theater, creating virtuoso works that overlap media and language in surprising and unpredictable ways. His works play with various media forms, pop-cultural constructs and entertainment genres. The construction is as important as the text. It is converged by the influence of film, television and radio rather than by theatrical convention. Scenes begin and end abruptly, as if cut and spliced together. Camera effects are replicated: actors are frequently suspended on platforms in various configurations to suggest overhead shots, long shots, and shots from below. Stagings have included helicopter rescues, sailboat races, a floating saxophone, car crashes and chases.’ — MacArthur Foundation

SUNSPOT(1989)

Karen Finley
‘Karen Finley is an innovative and controversial New York based performance artist/literary figure/visual artist. She has created countless installations, drawings, performances, and public sculptures all over the world. Many of her works deal with the issues of violence against women, emotional despair, a sense of loss, and abuse. During her performances she often goes into a trancelike voice and verbally juggles different characters and voices. At the end of her shows, she often takes off her clothes and smears herself with chocolate or other substances. Finely gained much notoriety for her show,”We Keep Our Victims Ready.” “The show made her run afoul of Senator Jessie Helms who used her performances as a focal point for a movement to eliminate the NEA. When her NEA grant application was rejected for inappropriate content she challenged the ruling. She took the case all the way to the Supreme Court along with fellow artists, Holly Hughes, John Fleck, and Tim Miller. The artists lost the case.’ — Vittorio Carli, artinterviews

“I’m An Ass Man” performed at Limelight NYC

Ethyl Eichelberger
‘Ethyl Eichelberger often performed solo works in free verse based on the lives of the grand dames of history, including Lucrezia Borgia, Jocasta, Medea, Lola Montez, Nefertiti, Clytemnestra, and Carlotta, Empress of Mexico. “I wanted to play the great roles but who would cast me as Medea?”, he mused late in life in Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century. His 1984 play Leer distilled Shakespears’s King Lear into 3 characters, all played by Eichelberger. Such works are rarely revived, as they require a solo performer capable of accompanying himself on the accordion, eating fire, turning cartwheels, and doing splits and other acrobatic feats. He was diagnosed with AIDS and was unable to tolerate the available medications. Only after his suicide did it become widely known that he was ill.’ — Joe E. Jeffreys

from ‘Minnie the Maid’

Jeff Weiss
‘Anyone who has visited Good Medicine & Company on East 10th Street over the last fifteen years knows something about theater that many people are just now discovering. Sometimes, before a show, there might be instant shopping expeditions to neighboring bodegas. Always there was red wine, fruit. Often you found yourself on stage, pinpointed, a part of the energy of the evening. All this at close quarters. In that small space audiences experienced a total immersion in their own darker consciousness through the vehicle of Jeff Weiss and Carlos Ricardo Martinez. Suddenly, total darkness, then a candle, a flashlight, or a bare light bulb and then—total theater.’ — Bill Rice, Bomb, 1984

Portrait of the Artist: Jeff Weiss

The Wooster Group
‘The Wooster Group evolved from a small group of people in 1975 who made the trilogy, THREE PLACES IN RHODE ISLAND, around the autobiographical impulses of Spalding Gray. That group included Gray, Elizabeth LeCompte, and Jim Clayburgh. Ron Vawter began performing with the company in RUMSTICK ROAD and Willem Dafoe joined during the making of NAYATT SCHOOL. Kate Valk began working with the Group during POINT JUDITH and Peyton Smith joined for ROUTE 1 & 9. The Group has sustained a full-time, ongoing ensemble since this beginning. The company is constantly evolving, and with its many artistic associates has created and performed nineteen pieces for theater, eight film/video pieces, and five dance pieces. The company members are at the center of the work. Elizabeth LeCompte has directed all of the pieces and members who have “moved on” periodically return to remount repertory pieces and make new work. ‘ — Thewoostergroup.org

from ‘LSD’

Eiko & Koma
‘Eiko Otake and Takashi Koma Otake, generally known as Eiko & Koma, are a Japanese performance duo. Since 1972, Eiko & Koma have worked as co-artistic directors, choreographers, and performers, creating a unique theater of movement out of stillness, shape, light, sound, and time. For most of their multi-disciplinary works, Eiko & Koma also create their own sets and costumes, and they are usually the sole performers in their work. Neither of them studied traditional Japanese dance or theater forms and prefer to choreograph and perform only their own works. They do not bill their work as Butoh though Eiko & Koma cite Kazuo Ohno (a Butoh pioneer) as their main inspiration.’ — Village Voice

‘River’

Joey Arias
‘Born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Joey Arias moved to New York City as a teenager and eventually got a job at the Fiorucci designer clothing store. While working at the store he became friends with alternative icon Klaus Nomi, singing backup and designing Nomi’s sets and costumes. Arias gradually became involved in the burgeoning 1980s New York performance art scene, appearing regularly at Club 57 and other downtown venues. During these years he also began crafting a successful career in cabaret, based on his talent for channeling the vocal style and mannerisms of the legendary Billie Holiday. His most recent work was performing in Arias with a Twist, a collaboration with puppeteer Basil Twist, and before that as the Mistress of Seduction in the Las Vegas show Zumanity, an “adult-themed” Cirque du Soleil show running at the New York-New York Hotel & Casino.’ — Wikipedia

‘fish out of water’