What is a theater without a theater? A dance without a dancer? Are the bodies of the audience no longer able to feel empathy, to be moved? What do we need a dance for in these times? Is the theater the sharing of ourselves in a space? Or is it simply the agreement, the framing as such? In these times of isolation can we perceive the theater in the body? Can our bodies be our sites? What of the spaces between the audience and the stage, between our bodies? The space of transference; the space that carries the empathetic response, the being moved, the moving, the feeling, the expansion and transformation of our perception during and after the magic of the theater…: The Spell!
Justin Allen continues his 2020 ISSUE Project Room residency with the premiere of Bass (October 8) and Drums (October 15), a performance stemming from ongoing research into how to emulate, experiment with, and better understand the performance practices of punk singers. This performance is co-presented with The Chocolate Factory Theater, and will be streamed from their theater in Long Island City, New York.
Normally around this time, we’d be launching a “season” filled with “performances” for “human beings” gathering in “spaces”. Embracing the unknown unknowns* of the present (and unprecedented) moment, we’ve decided instead to simply announce the cohort of artists whose work we will support within the next 12 months.
Originally conceived as a solo performance with special appearances by Faïn’s long time collaborators (intended to premiere at The Chocolate Factory Theater in September 2020) celebrating her 60th birthday and the culmination of 40 years of research into the body/mind embodiment within architecture, language, spirituality and communal action, patch the sky with 5 colored stones will now unfold in two separate but deeply related strands.
David Neumann and Marcella Murray receive a 2020 Obie Award for the Creation and Performance of Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed
Madeline Best - a summary of busy hands
In partnership with Bard High School Early College Queens, The Chocolate Factory presents new work by student artists commissioned to create portraits of local community members.
Six days a week, Sheila Lewandowski, 46, and Brian Rogers, 38, run an adventurous performance space in Long Island City, Queens, called the Chocolate Factory theater. On Sundays they forage for cholesterol and watch “Battlestar Galactica” on Netflix. The couple, who are married, live next door to the theater with their dog, J. R., a pit bull terrier and Labrador retriever mix that they found on the Jackie Robinson Parkway.
PERHAPS it’s the name. When people speak about their experiences at the Chocolate Factory in Long Island City, Queens, they inevitably mention food.
For years, this small but vital space for experimental dance and theater, in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, has been building an under-the-radar Vimeo archive of all that happens there (or most of it). Browse dozens of performances from the past decade — along with helpful “context videos” in which the artists talk about their work — at vimeo.com/chocolatefactory.
