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SANFORD BIGGERS'S
THE SOMETHIN' SUITE
PREMIERING DURING PERFORMA 07
THE SECOND EDITION OF THE BIENNIAL OF NEW VISUAL ART PERFORMANCE
TO BE HELD IN NEW YORK CITY
OCTOBER 27 - NOVEMBER 20, 2007
New York, September 19, 2007 - PERFORMA 07, the second biennial of new visual art performance, will be held in New York City from October 27 - November 20, 2007. Featuring over eighty artists presented in collaboration with a consortium of thirty key cultural organizations throughout the city, including the Guggenheim Museum, the Kitchen, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, China Institute, and the Studio Museum in Harlem, PERFORMA 07 promises an exciting three weeks of innovative cultural programming for New York City and the international world of contemporary art and visual art performance.
Sanford Biggers is one of ten featured artists commissioned to create a new work for PERFORMA 07. Biggers will present The Somethin' Suite, a conceptual, multimedia exploration of the "Negro variety show" popular at the turn of the 20th century. Presented in speakeasies and small variety theaters across the country, with performers (both black and white) typically appearing in blackface for white audiences, these shows reinforced negative racial stereotypes of the day. They simultaneously catapulted some of America's most inventive musicians, including Ma Rainey, Scott Joplin, and Al Jolson, to stardom. Arguably the first distinctively American theatrical form, the oppressive system behind blackface entertainment has, according to Biggers, evolved into today's popular music industry: "Both systems have ironically gener
ated some of the most notorious images of black Americans, while simultaneously acting as a lens into aspects of black vernacular culture."
Following the traditional structure of the minstrel show, with its series of acts led by an M.C., The Somethin' Suite opens with M.C. Freedome Bailey, who is then followed by performances by some of today's most exciting young visual and musical artists. Act 1: Swing Low presents two well-known singers, Esthero and Shae Fiol, performing a duet while perched on a giant swing; On Da Block: The Birth of Niggy Tardust features award winning spoken-word performer Saul Williams; Blackening Up presents DJ Jahi Sundance (producer, D.J., and turntable instrumentalist) mixing a sonic history of American popular music, and the final act, C'est Mon BlaBla, features Biggers himself reading from Yukio Mishima's Confessions of a Mask. Additional performers include Martin Luther (singer/songwriter, performer), CX Kidtronik (D.J., performer), Imani Uzuri (singer), and other special guests. The Somethin' Suite will premiere at The Box on November 12, 2007.
PERFORMA is a non-profit multidisciplinary arts organization dedicated to exploring the critical role of live performance in the history of twentieth century art and to encouraging new directions in performance for the twenty-first century.
PERFORMA Commissions are supported by the Toby Devan Lewis Philanthropic Fund, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The Greenwall Foundation and the PERFORMA Producer's Circle. Sanford Biggers is represented by Mary Goldman Gallery, Los Angeles.
For more information on the PERFORMA Commissions and PERFORMA 07, please visit www.performa-arts.org.
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