Performance will take place at The Chocolate Factory Theater, 38-33 24th Street, Long Island City.

The Chocolate Factory Theater and ISSUE Project Room are pleased to present legendary performance artist Linda Mary Montano hosting a series of “interactions” embedded within her new video piece MA AND THE SEVEN CHAKRAS (produced in collaboration with Tobe Carey, with video editing/animations by Jim Barbaro and sound engineering and Brenda Hutchinson). Montano is renowned for videos and endurance-based performances that dissolve the boundaries between art and life. This special evening showcases the artist’s longtime exploration of the intricacies of the seven Chakras, embodying the fundamentally expansive and empathic nature of her practice.

In works like Art/Life One Year Performance 1983–1984, a collaboration with Tehching Hsieh, Montano spent a year bound to the artist by an eight-foot rope; in 14 Years of Living Art (1984–98), she wore monochromatic clothing, devoted herself to meditative practice, and provided monthly “Art/Life Counseling” at the New Museum in New York (1984–91). Her transformative videos and performances draw upon her biography, from catharsis to the humor of the everyday. Recently, Montano has guided audiences through “interactive healing modalities” that alternate between laughing and crying at SAIC and three minute “Art/Life Counseling via Laughing/Crying sessions” with Printed Matter. This presentation is, in the artist’s words, “SEVEN INTERACTIONS TO BE INTEGRATED INTO MONTANO’S VIDEO WHICH IS A LAMENT AND ALSO HONORING OF MOTHER EARTH/ OUR ANCESTORS/TRANSFORMED BEINGS.”

These “interactions” are performative interventions to be staged through the presentation of her video piece MA AND THE SEVEN CHAKRAS. The interactions will be coordinated alongside ISSUE friends and artists Laurie Berg, Kim Brandt, Yanira Castro & Tatyana Tenenbaum.