Artist Bios
Abby Ellin
Abiodun Oyewole of The Last Poets
Adam Klasfeld
Amber Ray
Anna McHugh
Athena Reich
Audrey Crabtree and Aimee Leigh German
Carey Urban
Dan Hicks
Darius James
Ella Veres
Eric Lockley
Erin Markey
GREAT SMALL WORKS
Hilary Baum
Inbred Hybrid Collective
Jack Waters
Janie Martinez
Jed Miner
Jim Dailakis
Joe Cross
Dr Joel Fuhrman M.D.
John Bell
John Fleck
John Law
Jonas Mekas
Joseph Pravada
Katie Wallack
Kenya N. Robinson
Kristen Rhea Van Liew
La JohnJoseph
Lewie JPD
Mac McGill
Marc Scrivo
Martha Wilson
Meggan Gomez
Mother Flawless Sabrina
Parashakti
Patrice Miller
Penny Arcade
Peter Grzybowski
Phoebe Légere
Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping
Rick Shapiro
Ron English
semi:theater
Dr. Stanley Bass
Steve Wishnia and Eric Blitz
STRIKE ANYWHERE
Susan McIntosh
Susana Cook
Thomas Moore
UNIVERSES (Steven Sapp)
Zero Boy
Abby Ellin
is the award-winning author of “Teenage Waistland: a Former Fat Kid Weighs in on Living Large, Losing Weight and How Parents Can (and Can’t) Help” (hardcover came out in 2005; paperback in January, 2007). The book was optioned by Sony Pictures; keep your fingers crossed. For five years, Abby Ellin wrote the “Preludes” column, about young people and money, in the Sunday Money and Business section of the New York Times. She also regularly writes for the Thursday and Sunday Styles section. Her work has appeared in a range of publications, including Time, the Village Voice, Marie Claire, More, Self, Glamour, the Boston Phoenix, and Spy (RIP). She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. But her greatest claim to fame is naming “Karamel Sutra” ice cream for Ben and Jerry’s.
Abiodun Oyewole of The Last Poets
(born Charles Davis, 1948), was a founding member of the legendary African-American musical spieling group, the Last Poets, that developed into what is considered the first ever hip hop group. Abiodun was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and he moved with his maternal aunt and her new husband at age three to Queens, NY. At the age of 15, he attended a Yoruba Temple in Harlem. It was there that he was given the name by which he is best known. Early in his life, Abiodun was influenced by jazz and gospel music played by his parents and the poems of Langston Hughes. The Last Poets was born on May 19, 1968, Malcolm X’s birthday, when Abiodun and two others, David Nelson, Gylan Kain, read poetry in tribute to Malcolm X. The group was based in black nationalism and quickly became known throughout the African-American community. They are generally credited, along with Gil Scott-Heron, as being major influences on the development of hip hop. At one juncture, Oyewole was forced to leave the group as he spent four years in a North Carolina prison, convicted of larceny. After serving 21/2 years of a three year sentence, because of good behavior he was eligible for study release during the day. Oyewole continued his education at a nearby college and earned his undergraduate degree. He subsequently went on to earn a doctorate from Columbia University in NYC, where is currently on the faculty. Recently, Abiodun has been touring various venues giving lectures of poetry and politics.
www.myspace.com/abiodunoyewole
Adam Klasfeld
recently graduated from Rutgers College with highest honors in Theater Arts. He has appeared on the New York stage in an off-off-Broadway production of Midsummer Night’s Dream, and has performed extensively outside of Manhattan. Credits include: Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf (George), Moon Over Buffulo (Howard), Cloud Nine (Joshua/Gerry), 237 (Tom), and Joined At The Head (Ensemble). He recently finished the Shoestring Player’s production of Witches, Riches, And Wedding Cake which performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. He has been involved in two student films, “sexpotjesus” (winner of the Audience Award at the New Jersey Film Festival) and Conversational Pieces, and a Tom Jones music video. He has also recently written Europa’s Child, his first full length play, which received a stage reading at his college. Adam received acting training at Rutgers and in the London Academy of Theater under Richard Digby Day.
www.funkthisentertainment.com/artists/bios/klasfeld
Amber Ray
Amber’s pageantry is reminiscent of many iconic genres of the past and present and a major force in the evolving future culture of popular art. Her chameleonic qualities measure vast differences and are sure to startle with grace, confrontation and fantastical flamboyance. She embodies the dream of other mythical worlds, revealing her stature as a provocative exotic creature. Known for her many characterized adventures based on collaborations with style makers such as Anti-gravity, Susanne Bartsch, Thierry Mugler, ChiCHI Valenti and Johnney Dynell of Jackie 60 Fame, and a thrivingly talented New York City Performance community composed of the freak chic, theater, fashion world, and burlesque. You will find her most often musing the masses through various stage productions, art installations, sitting for severely talented painters, photographers and designers as well as dazzling at High end events to which she ardently shares her love of style, luster, and her brand of spiritual artistic expression of the whimsical and the real. Amber Ray is an artist, costume designer, singer, Burlesque entertainer and all around creative force of nature residing in NYC. Brace Yourself for her power-packed manifestations of absolute fabulousness”
Anna McHugh
is a performing artist, director and professional hula hooper. She is an educator and youth activist. After graduating from Syracuse University with a BFA in theatre she studied movement based theatre at Del Arte in California and in Minneapolis with the Margolis Brown Theatre Company. Since living in New York City for the past seven years McHugh has produced, performed in and directed shows from Shakespeare with the Aquila Theatre Company to original children’s dance theatre in schools from the Bronx to Long Island. Most recently she directed Megan Terry’s Viet Rock in The Peculiar Works Project’s “Off Project”. Currently teaching Special Education in the Bronx, McHugh is an avid “faster and cleanser.”
Athena Reich
is a Jewish/Mennonite from Canada, which, once you get to know her, explains a lot. She is working on her 5th CD with Grammy/Emmy winner Cynthia Daniels. Credits Include: Love Sucks: a punk rock musical (NYMF), 365 Days/Plays (Public Theater/Lincoln Center), Air America Radio (correspondent/musical guest) & Day They Shot John Lennon (Fran). Athena has shared the stage with Sarah McLachlan & Jim Carrey, and toured North America for 3 years. Her music is storytelling pop with a theatrical twist.
Audrey Crabtree and Aimee Leigh German
Audrey Crabtree is a performer and creator of original work. She has written and performed with The Brave New Workshop, Minnesota Public Radio, NPR and in ComedyCentral’s “Let’s Bowl!” Audrey was a Collective:Unconscious Board Member for four years where she co-created and performed in 8 original ensemble works including the Drama Desk Award winning Charlie Victor Romeo. She is co-artistic director of Ten Directions. Audrey has studied clown and bouffon with Sue Morrison, clown with Philippe Gaulier, and physical comedy with David Shiner and is a co-director of the NY Clown Theatre Festival.Aimee Leigh German studied dance at UCLA, Stanley Holdens and the American Academy of Dance in Los Angeles where she assisted legendary Sadler’s Wells dancer Margaret Hill. In London, she received a Post Graduate degree at Mountview Academy of Dramatic Art. Aimee also studied at Circus Space where she focused in physical comedy and acrobatics. She was also on a house team at the People’s Improv Theatre where she was considered the fall girl. She also worked with Ten Directions for their 2004 production of Saint Arlecchino at the Lucille Lortel. Currently she teaches gymnastic and circus skills in New York. As frequent collaborators, Audrey and Aimee’s most recent project Bouffon Glass Menajoree, also with Lynn Berg and Eric Davis, has been nominated for 4 NY Innovative Theatre awards, including Outstanding Short Script, and Outstanding Ensemble. They also perform under the guise of the clown and bouffon inspired characters, Deenie Nast and Nurse Minnie, (www.deenienast.com) in venues all over NY including Joe’s Pub, Caroline’s, UCB, and Bowery Poetry Club.
Carey Urban
is excited (and a little bit terrified) to be a part of Globesity! She has appeared on many NY stages with many companies including: The Queens Company (Taming of the Shrew), The Women’s Project (The Feign’d Courtesans), Resonance Ensemble (The Imaginary Invalid), American Globe Theatre (Romeo & Juliet), Inverse, Soho Rep, Circle Rep, The Workshop Theatre, York Theatre, OffWorld Theatre and HERE. She wishes to thank everyone involved with this festival and especially Robert and Amy: “When she looks at you you know she’s nowhere near through./ It’s the kindest heart beating this side of the blue.” ~j. newsome
Dan Hicks
originally from Mt. Kisco NY has been a professional actor for thirty years. He attended the American Academy of Dramatic arts and has studied with legends, Julie Bovasso, and Bill Hickey. Dan is now taking the time to explore his deep passion for writing. Many thanks to Lorca Peress of Multistages.
Darius James
After living and working in New York City for twenty-two years, Darius James moved to Berlin in 1998. He is the author of four books, a lecturer and spoken-word performer who has appeared on radio, television and film. With the German-based company, tvt productions, he is currently developing a documentary exploring the influence of Voodoo on American popular culture and the birth of a new pantheon of Vodun spirits titled “The United States of Hoodoo”. In the course of completing this project, he will undergo a dramatic spiritual initiation, and emerge as a member of that religion’s priesthood. In order to understand his collaboration with Quio and Jon Evans in context, one should know Voodoo was the religious, political and military response to the oppressive conditions of slavery in the so-called ‘New World’. In these uncertain times, the Black American composer, Sun Ra, has been reborn as a loa (or ancestral spirit) in the new American Voodoo pantheon.
www.myspace.com/drsnakeskin
www.facebook.com/p/Darius_James
Ella Veres
is a writer/performer/image maker hailing from Transylvania. Upon arrival to the USA she discovered her Dream America was elusive. What she had hoped to leave behind was what she found here: bureaucracy, apathy, absurdity. She sat in the dust and cried, but then friends showed up, she got up, sharpened her pen, and together with them ventured to make Dream America real. As if this Fall is about to come true: she has her first production, Three Eco-Friendly Self-Propelled Clowns in October-November. While at it, she looked into the mirror and felt endangered: what if the good life turns her into an oversized American? Luckily she stumbled upon the Globesity Festival.
Eric Lockley
A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (’07), Eric Lockley has performed in various productions including The Winter’s Tale, Inside the Belly of the Beast, and Black Terror, along with devised-theater pieces 07:00 Seconds, based on the book BLINK and CHAINS, which was performed in South Africa. In May of 2007 Eric wrote and performed a one-man show entitled Last Laugh. The much-talked about piece explores what happens when two black performers begin to confuse performance and reality.
Erin Markey
is a Brooklyn-based performance artist and playwright who works in experimental comedy and avant-cabaret. She is currently developing a full-length, solo, autobiographical musical with composer Rich Campbell entitled Puppy Love: A Stripper’s Tail. She is continuing development on her 7-actor blues-opera, Looking for Limbo, co-composed and written with frequent collaborator, Joseph Keckler. These pieces premiered in Dixon Place’s HOT! Festival and HERE’s American Living Room Festival, respectively. Markey was invited to Lincoln Center’s Director’s Lab ’07 as a playwright. Her work has appeared in a variety of different venues: theatres, galleries, museums, salons, clubs, and conferences including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Public and Joe’s Pub, Performance Studies International at Brown University, HERE, Baltimore’s Walter’s Art Museum (upcoming), Creative Alliance Gallery (upcoming), The Ann Arbor Film Festival, England’s Brewery Arts Centre, Galapagos Art Space, the Ohio Theatre, Unisex Salon, 3LD, London’s Club Wotever, Mo Pitkin’s, and Dixon Place.
GREAT SMALL WORKS
was founded in 1995 as a collective of artists who keep theater at the heart of social life. Drawing on folk, avant-garde, and popular theater traditions to address contemporary issues, the company performs in theaters, clubs, schools, galleries, streets, and other centers of community. Based in New York City, they produce performance works on a wide variety of scales, from outdoor pageants with giant puppets and hundreds of performers to miniature “toy theater” spectacles. At Performance Space 122, the company continues the twenty-three year tradition of Monthly Spaghetti Dinners, variety evenings founded in the late 1970s that include music, live performance, and vegetarian spaghetti. GREAT SMALL WORKS productions consistently reinvent ancient, popular theater techniques: toy theater (Papiertheater), mask and object theater, circus, sideshow, and picture-show (cantastoria) to name a few. On any scale, GREAT SMALL WORKS productions seek to renew, cultivate, and strengthen the spirits of their audiences, promoting theater as a model for participating in democracy.
Hilary Baum
produces educational seminars, conferences and special events focusing on critical issues in food and farming. She is president of Baum Forum/ Public Market Partners, a not for profit corporation, and coordinating director of Food Systems Network NYC, an emerging collaboration of agencies and individuals engaged in work that furthers access to wholesome, regional food. Hilary has been involved in the development of farmers’ and public markets, agricultural marketing programs, and community supported agriculture, and is co-author of Public Markets and Community Revitalization. She is a board member of Friends of Van Cortlandt Park, the Hawthorne Valley Association, Riverdale CSA, and an advisor to the NYC Wholesale Farmers’ Market.
Inbred Hybrid Collective
was established in 2005. Our mandate: to stimulate a consciousness of the external factors affecting our human existence. The type of interventions associated with Inbred Hybrid Collective, achieved as artistic concept, constitute a provocation for the public to reflect upon the influence that this immersion has had upon them.
www.myspace.com/inbredhybridcollective
Jack Waters
is a film maker, writer, media artist, choreographer and performer. His film “Berlin New York” was shown on the November 2002 Sundance Channel’s “Underground Shorts: Politics” program. He and Partner Peter Cramer were subjects of the PBS series “In The Life” 2002 season premier for their video installation “We Remember” at NYC’s Donnel Library windows. His video short The Male Gayze was shown at the Whitney Museum Of American Art’s February 1995 exhibition The Black Male. Water’s film works are the subject of preservation by Visual AIDS’ Estate Project for Artists With AIDS. These are distributed by NYC’s Film Maker’s Cooperative and archived at New York University’s Fales Library and Special Collections. A selection from this archive was premiered at NYU’s Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality abd the Donnell Libray Media Center. The originals and related ephemera are archived at the Fales Library at NYU. Waters was a co-founder of Naked Eye Cinema, a component of Abc No Rio’s film program, and an international venue for experimental film from 1985-1992. He created the Naked Eye Cinema TV , a Manhattan Cable public access series comprised of selections from these screenings and interviews by the makers. These tapes are included in the Royal S. Marks Collection of the New York Public Library. Teaching credits include originating A different Take workshop for Mix, The New York Lesbian And Gay Experimental Film Festival. From 2002 - 20004 he was Assistant Professor of Video at Hampshire College where he taught production and theory in Film Video and Media. He has also tutored and taught film and video courses independently. A graduate of Juilliard’s Dance Division, Waters and his life-partner Peter Cramer’s 20 year collaboration was represented by their interdisciplinary work Black and White Study:The Dance performed in December 1999 at NYC’s Danspace at Saint Mark’s Church, and then at the Miller’s Studio in Zurich. This was followed by the creation of Short Memory/No History, an interdisciplinary media/live work about memory, perception, history, and representations of AIDS Activism and queer culture which was previewed at Zurich’s Shedhalle in June 2000. Their media environment Time Warp 2000 was shown in November 2000 at NYC’s Anthology Film Archives presented by MIX, the New York Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film Festival where both hve exhibited since the Festival’s inception. Waters is the creator of the interactive digital artwork Superschmoozio© The Game Of the International Art Market, a project fostered by Franklin Furnace’s Future of The Present residency at the New School for Social Research. As a journalist he has published articles on politics, cultural affairs, and reviews in visual arts, film, and media. He was a founding contributing writer for Color Life, the news journal for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and two-siprited people of Color, and for LGNY, New York City’s LGBT news bi-weekly. Other writing credits include The Coney Island Wedding of The Great Fredini and Kiva, Princess of Pyrotechnics for Conde Nast Bride’s Magazine, and a January 2000 profile of the HIV positive artist Valerie Caris for Poz Magazine. Waters was a panelist on the February 2000 College Art Association panel titled Archiving the Unarchivable chaired by Martha Wilson. Cramer and Waters were a catalytic force behind POOL, a dance/performance collective in the early 80’s. POOL explored contact and other forms of improvisation, emphasizing combined theatrical forms, ritual, activism and group dynamic, creating performance work, choreography, and ephemeral events in NYC, throughout the U.S., and internationally. Co-Directors of Abc No Rio for 5 years (1983 -1988), they initiated an arts in education program in association with neighborhood public schools and settlement houses. This was a multifaceted program of workshops in the arts conducted at the facility. The community interface was thorough and detailed, yet organic. The activity reflected the style of Abc No Rio in the 80’s - raucous, progressive interdisciplinary multi-media. An apprentice program was developed with student internships assigned to professional artists. Studio, gallery and museum visits, plus production assistance with performances and screenings were all integral elements of the program. Concurrent with their work at No Rio they, among a group of colleagues co-founded and ran Allied Productions, Inc. a not for profit arts umbrella. Under their direction this multi-purpose organization highlighted the performing arts, having sponsored, produced and presented many experimental and emerging dance artists and groups. Under the combined auspices of POOL, No Rio, and Allied, they organized and produced national and international events - tours in dance, performance, music, media, and visual art exhibitions as interdisciplinary events.
Janie Martinez
has been featured in movies such as Shortbus (John Cameron Mitchell) and Fur, An Imaginary Portrait Of Diane Arbus (Steven Shainberg). Her most recent stage work includes God’s Pants Too Big, and Goebbels-One Night Only, Live From Hell for the 2007 Bad Plays Festival; Bolero NYC, for Kiegwein and Company and Big Moves’ “Gargantua: Fear Of A Fat Planet” which just completed a successful run at the 2007 Montreal Fringe Festival.
Jed Miner
works in mixed media, combining music, performance, visual art, experimental writing and animation. Through notated improvisatory events, ideas exploring synaestesia and the effects of multiple sensory perception are used to engage the audience. He attended the California Institute of the Arts where he received a B.F.A. in Fine Art in 2002, studying with Ron Athey, Karen Finley, Mady Schutzman, Jennifer Miller, James Tenney, Mark Trayle and Barry Schrader.
Jim Dailakis
Greek Australian actor/writer/comedian and voiceover artist, Jim Dailakis has been touring the USA for the last ten years headlining in the major comedy clubs. On stage, he talks about relationships, love, and mimics movie stars with an uncanny ability of being able to contort his face so he can look like them too. His performances have earned him standing ovations and adoration from audiences across the USA and the rest of the world including Australia, the Edinburgh Comedy Festival, the Cayman Islands and all across Canada. Being an Aussie in America is another part of his act.
John Bell
is a historian of theater, performance, and puppetry, and a member of the Brooklyn-based theater collective Great Small Works. He is a fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT, and the Director of The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut. He is the author of *Strings, Hands, Shadows: A Modern Puppet History* and edited *Puppets, Masks, and Performing Objects*. He was a company member of the Bread and Puppet Theater for over a decade, and still performs with that group. He earned his Ph.D. in theater history from Columbia University, and plays trombone with the Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band. For the recent Honk! Festival of activist street bands in Boston he organized and directed *Reclaim the Streets for Horns, Bikes, and Feet*, an ambulatory spectacle with eighteen brass bands and twenty community groups including roller derby teams, the Bread and Puppet Theater, Bikes Not Bombs, and parents with strollers.
John Fleck
is a critically acclaimed performance artist and actor whose solo work received national attention in 1990, when, along with three other performance artists, he became part of what was known as the “NEA 4.” Labeled by some political pundits as too dirty to be funded, the NEA four spearheaded a national campaign against artistic repression and won their initial Supreme Court case against the National Endowment for the Arts. His self-scripted work has been funded by the Getty, the NEA, Franklin Furnace & Jerome Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, LA Cultural Affairs and most recently The Durfee Foundation. A sampling of past performance venues includes; the ICA (London), ICA (Boston), The Warhol Museum (Pittsburg), The Public Theater, The Guggenheim Museum, PS-122, 2nd Stage, La Mama, Dixon Place & Joe’s Pub (NYC), REDCAT, The Getty Museum, Cal Plaza, MOCA & The Evidence Room (LA). As an actor, he works frequently in theater, tv and film, which enables him enough financial fluidity to create his not-necessarily-for-profit performance art.
John Law
John’s career as a prankster (a label he prefers to “artist”) began in 1977 when he joined The Suicide Club shortly after arriving in San Francisco at the age of eighteen. For seven years, along with Harvey and Mikel, Law was one of the main organizers of Burning Man. “It’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever been involved in. Fabulous. Lots of good things about it.” Law stopped participating after the disastrous 1996 event in which his friend Michael Furey was killed in a motorcycle accident and several people were injured by a car that ran over their tent. In addition, Burning Man has moved in a direction that Law does not support: “Aggrandizing a central image, even with no purported philosophy to inveigle people, I find reprehensible, frankly. And it’s antithetical to why I was involved in the event - completely antithetical,” he says The Suicide Club, Cacophony Society, Survival Research Laboratories (SRL), Seemen, People Hater, Defenestration, Circus Ridikulus and Laughing Squid. These are the people who help prevent cultural arteriosclerosis. During the past twenty-plus years, Law has conspired and collaborated on many projects and in many roles: master builder of doomed props in SRL shows, master negotiator for his fellow Santa pranksters on the brink of arrest. He has rappel-danced on the side of buildings, gunned down an Oldsmobile station wagon in the desert, scaled all the bridges in San Francisco and New York City, led spelunkers through the Oakland sewers - and this is the short list. Much of what he has done is creative, participatory fun, the most famous of which, Burning Man, would never have made its virgin excursion to the Black Rock Desert ten years ago without Law’s ingenuity and energy. But even without Burning Man, a look at the broad range of his activities over the last twenty years attests to Law’s vital, catalytic influence on the evolution of San Francisco culture and art. One Cacophony Society event which got plenty of attention from from the police as well as from the press was a beautifully arranged marriage of anti-capitalist zeal and Christmas spirit dubbed Santasm. In December, 1994, 30 cheap-suited Santas stormed downtown San Francisco venue by holiday venue. At Macys, Santas rode the escalators and chanted “charge it, charge it”; out on the street, one naughty Santa (Law) got strung up and hung from a lamppost in front of the St. Francis Hotel while another guzzled booze from a Pine Sol bottle. Crashing a Christmas ball at the Fairmont, the Santas drank wine, ate hors d’oeuvres, danced and were even applauded by the guests. Two of the participants of The Suicide Club, Irving Glick and Jack Napier (the latter of whom Law - somewhat jokingly - characterized as “bull-headed and autocratic, but funny”), were inspired to create the Billboard Liberation Front (BLF). The BLF’s most recent campaign to “improve” advertising in public space got people to think differently about Apple’s appropriation of the images of famous people on their “Think Different” billboards. Amelia Earhart’s image was accompanied with the message “Think Doomed”; the Dalai Lama’s, with “Think Disillusioned”; Ted Turner’s with “Think Dividends”. The BLF have never been caught since that first Suicide Club event.
Joe Cross
A key player in Australia’s financial services industry for more than twenty years – including successful tenures at Queensland Press and United Capital Securities – Joe Cross has gained a global reputation as a deal-maker, with significant contacts in the media, finance and technology sectors. A problem solver and leader, Joe Cross has proved he has an innate understanding of the investment world and a clear vision when guiding his clientele to identify prime opportunities and future potential while overseeing the resultant growth. Beginning his career at Elders Drexel Australia in 1984, Mr. Cross rose to the position of trading floor manager before going out as a local for five years. In 1994 he founded United Capital Securities – brokers on the Sydney Futures Exchange – and held the position of Managing Director while being an active full floor member. Four years later, aged 31, Mr. Cross was appointed Executive Director of Queensland Press, wholly owned by the Murdoch family. He was given the task of overseeing all non-media related investments and was successful in raising $200 million in start-up funds for Zurich Capital Marketing. Mr. Cross left Queensland Press after five years service and now manages his own investments. Mr. Cross’ business interests cover a diverse range, encompassing media technology, property trading, fashion, childcare, futures broking and on-line betting. He’s also chairman of the Manly/Warringah Sea Eagles Rugby League team in Sydney. He travels extensively and is an arts and mental health philanthropist.
Dr Joel Fuhrman M.D.
is a board-certified family physician who specializes in preventing and reversing disease through nutritional and natural methods. His private practice is located in Flemington, New Jersey. He is the author of Eat To Live: The Revolutionary Plan for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss, which was published by Little, Brown & Company in 2003 and has gone through eleven printings in hardcover and six printings in paperback. Foreign editions of Eat To Live are available in the U.K., Turkey, and Israel. Dr. Fuhrman’s first book, Fasting and Eating for Health: A Medical Doctor’s Program for Conquering Disease, was published in 1995 by St. Martin’s Press. Dr. Fuhrman’s next book, Disease-Proof Your Child, was published by St. Martin’s Press in April 2005. In addition, Dr. Fuhrman is widely published, from medical journals such as the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Orthopaedics and Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, to consumer publications such as Mothering Magazine and Health Science. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and has received the St. Joseph’s Family Practice Resident’s Teaching Award for his contribution to the education of residents. In addition, Dr. Fuhrman provides nutritional education to other physicians, and is a guest lecturer at Cornell University Graduate Program in Human Nutrition. Dr. Fuhrman is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Health Association; Advisory Panel, The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine; Diplomat, American Academy of Family Physicians; Sports Medicine Committee, Professional Skaters Guild of America; and PwC Health and Performance Advisory Panel, PricewaterhouseCoopers. As one of the country’s leading experts on nutrition and natural healing, Joel Fuhrman, M.D. has appeared on hundreds of radio and television shows including: ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, Today, Good Morning America, the Discovery Channel, TV Food Network, CNBC and many more. Joel Fuhrman is a former world class figure skater and member of the United States World Figure Skating Team. In 1973, he placed Second in the United States National Pairs Championships (click here to download, or right click and “save link as” his winning routine - 10mb). In the World Professional Pairs Skating Championship in Jaca, Spain in 1976, he placed Third. His dedication to sports medicine, health and fitness, preventive care and medicine speak to these lifelong interests. Dr. Fuhrman lives in Flemington, New Jersey with his wife, Lisa, daughters, Talia, Jenna and Cara and son, Sean.
Jonas Mekas
film-maker & poet, he was born in 1922 in Semeniskiai, Lithuania. He currently lives and works in New York. In 1944, Jonas Mekas and his brother, Adolfas, were taken by the Nazis and imprisoned in a forced labor camp in Nazi Germany for eight months. After the War, he studied philosophy at the University of Mainz from 1946-48 and at the end of 1949, he emigrated with his brother to the U.S. settling in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in New York. Two weeks after his arrival, he borrowed the money to buy his first Bolex 16-mm camera and began to record moments of his life. He discovered avant-garde film at venues such as Amos Vogel’s pioneering cinema 16, and he began screening his own films in 1953. He has been one of the leading figures of American avant-garde filmmaking or the “New American Cinema,” as he dubbed it in the late ’50s, playing various roles: in 1954, he became editor and chief of Film Culture; in 1958 he began writing his “Movie Journal” column for the Village Voice; in 1962 he co-founded the Film- Makers’ Cooperative (FMC) and the Filmmakers’ Cinematheque in 1964, which eventually grew into Anthology Film Archives, one of the world’s largest and most important repositories of avant-garde films. His own output ranging from narrative films (Guns of the Trees, 1961) to documentaries (the Brig, 1963) and to “diaries” such as Walden (1969); Lost, Lost, Lost, (1975); Reminiscences of a Voyage to Lithuania, (1972); Zefiro torna, (1992) and As I was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2001) have been screened extensively at festivals and museums around the world. Recently, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the American Museum of the Moving Image screened Letters from Greenpoint and the Mead Gallery at the University of Warwick, England, Monash University Museum of Art, and Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Australia, held exhibitions for Mekas this past fall. In May 2006, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. held a lecture entitled “meet the artist” and screened Reminisces of a Journey to Lithuania. The Directors Guild of America awarded Anthology Film Archives a DGA Honors recognizing the center’s dedication to preserving the art of cinema. In its annual selection of 25 films, Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania was esteemed by the United States National Film Preservation Board to be selected for preservation at the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. His films were also screened at Art Basel Miami and Mekas was honored at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s award ceremony for his significant contribution to American film culture. Most recently, the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center was established in Vilnius, Lithuania and exhibitions will focus on art and film collections by Mekas and his friend and artistic collaborator George Maciunas, founder of the Fluxus art movement. Opening in late 2007, the Center will house an extensive avant-garde film archive and library and has plans to build a Fluxus Research Institute.
Joseph Pravada
Born Brooklyn, NY, graduate of the University of Florida College of Journalism, began a career in law in 1971, recruited at that university’s law school for service as a ‘kid’ lawyer with the Federal Government during Watergate, where he immediately ‘Felt’ something was amiss; later as lobbyist and private businessman. He has been a prolific writer in all genres, with an emphasis on short works, including microfiction/flash fiction as well as full length and One Act Plays. A 10 page excerpt from his play ‘Patsy’, involving a fated ‘reunion’ of JFK Jr. & the oldest daughter of Lee and Marina Oswald, won him a highly competitive place at the Kennedy Center last summer, with subsequent lifetime privileges at the annual Intensives featuring such literati as Marsha Norman, Steven Dietz, Lee Blessing, et. Al.
Katie Wallack
born and raised in Anchorage Alaska, Katie made her cross country trek to New York City two years ago this month. She received her undergraduate degree in theater and dance from Trinity College and studied acting for 3 years with Laurel Smith. Her credits include People Magazine Project with Bartlett Sher and The Bride in Lorca’s Blood Weddin the Illyrian Group with Paul Warner. Katie’s first play – Balloon Stories: Finding Your Way By Doing It Wrong, was produced in February of this year. Katie recently wrapped the independent film Normal here in New York City and is excited to return to the stage as part of this festival. Her new piece is called You Can’t Fly with Cargo: A Spiritual Awakening After a Connecticut Salt Flush. Performing with Katie are Mia Price, Asie Mohtaerez and Maria Dolbotten.
Kenya N. Robinson
is a full time creative and part time writer, fashion/graphic designer, professional muse and ‘Executive Performance Assistant’ (aka: hip hop’s most lovable hype woman). Originally from Gainesville, Florida she now lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, directly above of a great smelling Jamaican restaurant. She enjoys internet television, reading, maintaining an active social calendar, engaging in philosophical conversation, and representing the BK. Look out for her HAIR POLITIC installation at MoCADA in spring of 2008.
Kristen Rhea Van Liew
is a New York City-based performance and installation artist. Her work focuses on the viewer as the performer and varies from ‘Deconstruction’ (2006), a 10′x30′ installation painting, to performing and working as director of the dance ensemble PED, which she recently founded. An NYU graduate, she teaches visual art and movement at the Children’s Museum of the East End and assists in teaching the History of New Media at NYU.
La JohnJoseph
was born in Liverpool in 1982; signed as a model in Manchester in 2001; co-founded the international Dada cabaret collective BoyfriendRobotique in San Francisco in 2004; started the art ‘zine “P.S. I LOVE YOU” in London in 2005; relocated to New York as a solo performer in 2007. In his illustrious career he has been invited by the Cockettes to show in their salon at the Centre for Sex and Culture, played Holly Woodlawn in “Warhol: the Musical”, toured the UK with The Irrepressibles, performed in Paris for Fashion Week, sat for the celebrated photographers Paul Hartnett, James Mollison and Ulli Richter, appeared on stage at TrannyShack as Barbra Streisand-a-sarus and become the first ever male winner of the Miss Galapagazonga burlesque contest. Since arriving in New York, La JohnJoseph has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times art section slideshow, and Flavorpill. He has performed at Kino 41, Freshly Squeezed, Sugar Shack, Unisexxx Salon, Galapagos Art Space, Luke and Leroy, Dixon Place, Rapture Cafe, Supreme Trading, Rose Live Music, Coney Island, the New York Burlesque festival and Weimar New York.
Lewie JPD
writes and performs comedy on a regular basis. Sometimes even in public. He has felt equally out of place in Australia, the US and Japan, having spent extensive time causing creative mischief in each. Both his dog and his shrink died (in unrelated incidents) quite some time ago. And still, he carries on. He has released two books, four comedy CDs, six screenplays and a dozen tiny insect prisoners from captivity beneath his fridge. He is currently working on a one-man show for Edinburgh 08 and writing a screenplay based on one of his comedic characters. We wish him luck and wish he would clean up his room.
Mac McGill
is a artist from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where he has been involved in the squatter movement. He has contributed illustrations to World War 3 Illustrated Magazine, The Progressive Magazine, Tikkun Magazine, Shadow Newspaper, Strip Core (Slovenia), Chimurenga Magazine (South Africa) and other publications. He has exhibited his work and performed a multimedia slideshow presentations Europe and America.
www.booklyn.org/artists/Mac McGill
Marc Scrivo
is honored to be a collaborator. Originally from Kansas, he moved to New York after university. As an actor, Marc has dedicated his craft to characters who will raise the consciousness of humanity by challenging the audience to question their personal tolerances. Favorite credits. Film: Four Eyed Monsters (2 Ind. Spirit Award Nom.). Nat’l Tours: Grease (w.Cindy Williams). Regional: Red Rock Diner (repl. Michael Buble).
Martha Wilson
Performance artist Martha Wilson is Founding Director of Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc., a museum she established in her TriBeCa storefront loft in lower Manhattan which, since its inception in 1976, has presented and preserved temporal art: artists’ books and other multiples produced internationally after 1960; temporary installations; and performance art. Franklin Furnace “went virtual” on its 20th anniversary, taking the Internet as its art medium and public venue to give artists the freedom of expression they had enjoyed in the loft in the 70s. Trained in English Literature, Ms. Wilson was teaching at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design when she became fascinated by artworks created at the intersection of text and image. As an artist, she has performed in the guises of Alexander Haig, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, and Tipper Gore. Ms. Wilson lectures widely on the book as an art form, on performance art, and on “live art on the Internet.”
Meggan Gomez
This is Meggan’s first performance in almost exactly two years. After last being seen in an original collaboration under the direction of Tim Miller, Meggan moved to the big bad city to find out what it had to teach her. Turns out, it’s a lot. Meggan’s next adventure will be traveling to Colombia to see the family she hasn’t know since she was six. Meggan wants to thank the whole Globesity family for including her in this unique experience, and her family for their unwavering love and support.
Mother Flawless Sabrina
Mother Flawless Sabrina is Jack Doroshow. He came to international fame in 1968 when his film “The Queen” won the Cannes Film Festival. Mr. Doroshow has been a vital part of New York’s artistic community throughout its various changes. From William Burroughs to Truman Capote to Andy Warhol to Diane Arbus, Mr. Doroshow has been within the center of New York’s artistic genius for years. Today he finds himself a Socrates of sorts, nurturing young artists of all types. J. Edgar Hoover would probably have charged Mr. Doroshow with “corrupting the youth of New York”, but as Mr. Doroshow so aptly observes, “When you call Hell J. Edgar Hoover’s the one answering the phone.”
Parashakti
descended from a long line of spiritual healers, Parashakti moved from her native Jerusalem to the United States to pursue her life long exploration of the healing art of Dance and Ritual. Parashakti, had the honor of receiving teachings from Swami Sachidananda, founder of Integral Yoga, while she lived at their ashram in NYC and Virginia. Her yogic lifestyle led her to the study of Native American healing arts with the Shoshone and Lakota Indians. Inspired by the wisdom of her elders and her native roots, she developed a unique form of movement called Dance of Liberation. She has worked with over 10,000 dancers from around the world, leading workshops, trainings & retreats at the world’s leading holistic centers. Featured on CBS & NBC morning show, Newsweek, Village Voice, NY magazine, Yoga Journal, Jerusalem Post & Radio, she has been acknowledged for her compelling work, bridging the ancient teachings into a universal modern day experience. In her private practice as a SoulHealing practitioner, Parashakti has developed her own healing modalities that assist clients with various emotional issues and life threatening diseases.
Patrice Miller
is a choreographer, writer and performance artist who has been crawling, rolling and jumping her way through the city the last couple of years. Last seen in Martha Bower’s Angels and Accordians in Greenwood Cemetary, Patrice tends to work on projects that are public, and/or site-specific and highly collaborative. Recently Patrice has begun to dabble in producing theater and has found herself working for the folks over at Wizard Oil Productions, co-producing Softly Sara Falls coming this November. Additionally, Patrice has collaborated with visual artists and is a proud Arts for Progress member. For pilgrim souls …
Penny Arcade
aka Susana Ventura is an internationally respected writer, actress, director and one of the handful of artists who created and continue to define Performance Art for nearly three decades. Her unique voice and magnetic stage presence have given her a mainstream career and recognition far beyond America’s shores, from Brazil to Australia and from Britain to Mexico.
Penny Arcade debuted with John Vaccaro’s explosive The Playhouse of The Ridiculous at 17, and was a Warhol Factory superstar at 19,featured in the Warhol film “Women In Revolt” . With an artistic career spanning 40 yeears, Penny Arcade occupies a unique position in the American counter-culture. HM Koutoukas has referred to her as “The Little Sister of The Avant-garde”. Her decades long focus on the creation of community and inclusion as the goals of performance and her efforts to use performance as a transformative act along with her long history of social activism, and ability to combine social responsibility and cultural criticism makes her a natural choice as The Globesity Festival’s artistic director.
In her numerous performance plays she has tackled racism in the American working class, religious hypocrisy and homophobia (La Miseria 1991), Sex and censorship, the loss of the American dream and America’s obsession with sensationalistic sex (Bitch!Dyke!Faghag!Whore! 1990)
Fin de Siecle excess (Sisi Sings The Blues 1996)
The failure of feminism and the links between sexual abuse, prostitution and drug abuse (Bad Reputation 1999) The Death of Bohemia and the onset of the professionalization of arts (New York Values 2002) Her documentary project The LES Bio Project, “Stemming The Tide Of Cultural Amnesia” broadcasts every Wednesday at 10:30pm on Ch 34 Time /Warner cable and is in it’s 8th year on air.
Peter Grzybowski
Phoebe Légere
is a composer, lyricist, artist, filmmaker and multi instrumentalist. She graduated from Vassar College, was the resident composer for the Wooster Group, studied with John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet, was signed to Sony Records, opened for David Bowie on his National Tour, received a NYSCA grant, wrote the book and lyrics for seven musicals, has sung with the Cleveland Chamber Symphony and was co-nominated with Morgan Powell for the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 2000. Légere has appeared on National Public Radio, CBS Sunday Morning, PBS’s City Arts, and Charlie Rose. Légere is head writer and host for Roulette TV. She records for Einstein Records and Mercury Records.
Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping
is a radical performance group of about 60 folks, singers, musicians, Savitri D and the Reverend. We are from all five boroughs and Jersey, and from many religious backgrounds. We’re a 7 Train to Flushing of human types. Many of us were hammered by some kind of fundamentalism in our pasts, but now find our path in the resistance to the greatest fundamentalist faith, Consumerism. We call ourselves post-religious, but we are searching, and we find something when we “Put that Product Down” and “Put the Odd back into God!”
Rick Shapiro
is a staple of the NYC and LA Underground Comedy Scene. His life story is featured in Getting It Right, a book by award-winning author Adrian LeBlanc, which will be published by Random House this summer. Rick has been a featured performer on Conan O’Brien, Tough Crowd and Howard Stern. For Conan, he created Richard Black and appeared as himself doing angry rant poetry and sketches. Rick has also performed on Law and Order, Deadline and Saturday Night Live. Commercially, he created a character for Nintendo, which won the most popular character contest voted by Nintendo users. On stage he has performed on the popular Tony and Tina’s Wedding, and performed in Edmond, directed by David Mamet. Rick has also performed various original one man shows Repeat Offender, Unleashed, Torment at the Flea Theater, The Bowery and Melrose Improv. He also performs live regularly at many NYC comedy venues.
Ron English
The relationships of graffiti and advertising, art and vandalism, expression and manipulation, freedom and money, have been explored systematically since the mid-1980s by artist Ron English. His chosen medium is the billboard: He and his assistants, in broad daylight, repaint public billboards with subversive messages, a procedure for which they have faced arrest several times. A New York-based painter, English has exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide for over twenty years his unique sensibility, in which the familiar is reflected through funhouse mirrors into something startlingly new. He was featured in the hit movie “Supersize Me,” and has appeared on television in the US, Canada, Europe, and Japan. He is also the subject of an award-winning documentary, “POPaganda, the Art and Crimes of Ron English.” This fall, expect two new art books showcasing his work, “Son of Pop” and “Abject Expressionism.”
semi:theater
Jeremy Lydic is a multi-disciplinary theater artist obsessed with rare moments of spontaneous humanity. Seeking the intersection of humanity, interaction, and contemporary media technology is the basis of his work. Jeremy’s current project, memeMEMEme is an exploration of internet video makers and the human behind the webcam and the found video. For his recently formed semi:theater, Jeremy created apache:street/bridge for Yehuda Duenyas’ One Million Forgotten Moments and wrote, directed, and designed The Wal-Mart Extra-Vocational Theater Club Presents the Miracle of Corn Syrup for the Ignite Festival at The Ohio Theater, NYC. As a director, credits include Sam Shepard’s Tongues, Fernando Arrabal’s Picnic on the Battlefield, Franz Xaver Kroetz’s Stallerhof(Farmyard), and Tennessee Williams’ A Chalky White Substance. As a performer, he has appeared in works by or directed by Meredith Monk, Richard Maxwell, Mike Taylor, Eamonn Farrell, Tina Goldstein, and Be Laroe. Jeremy is a member of The Lincoln Center Theater Director’s Lab, and the Artistic Director of semi:theater.
Dr. Stanley Bass
Dr. Stanley S. Bass website is www.drbass.com He started fasting at the age of 19, and has done thousands of fasts himself over a period of 70 years, as well as supervising 30,000+ fasts and health recoveries. He is N.D. D.C. Ph.C., Ph.D., D.O., D.Sc., and Knight of Malta. He has advanced knowledge in meditation and yoga. In his early life he was a musician, playing with an orchestra. When in show-business he both played and advised musicians and artists on health, diet and fasting - e.g. Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Rudy Valli.
Steve Wishnia and Eric Blitz
Steve Wishnia (upright bass, electric bass, bass kalimba) and Eric Blitz (drums, percussion) are both old punk-rockers with a love for free-jazz improv. They’ve been in dozens of bands, with Steve the bassist and cofounder of the False Prophets (the Lower East Side’s leading leftist-punk band of the 1980s) and Eric having performed on an album with former Black Flag guitarist Greg Gin. They’re now the rhythm section for the sound-and-vision multimedia shows of artists Mac McGill and Seth Tobocman. They also perform as a bass-and-drums duo called the Improvised Explosive Devices.
STRIKE ANYWHERE
was founded in 1997 by Artistic/Producing Director, Leese Walker. The permanent ensemble is comprised of world-class musicians, dancers, visual artists and actors. Performers collaborate through an ensemble-based, improvisational process to create politically-charged, original works that address socially-relevant issues. Its work is guided by the words of Bertolt Brecht, “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.” The company was in residence at the Theatre at St. Clements in Times Square from 1998-2004 and the company is currently in residence at the Zipper Theater. SA has toured extensively and has been featured on NPR, WBAI and German Public Radio. Its critically acclaimed show, “10 Brecht Poems” has toured to over 40 venues including Theatre Chicago, Goethe Insitut (Washington DC), Trinity College, Brown University, NYU, the KO Festival of Performance and the Catskill Festival of New Theatre. In 2004, Leese Walker was awarded an APPEX fellowship which allowed her to share SA techniques with 16 artists from around the world in a six-week artistic exchange in Bali, Indonesia. Shows currently touring include: 10 Brecht Poems and Soundpainting. Shows currently in development include: SPIN, JOHN LENNON:A SOUNDPAINTING, and a Soundpainted production of HAMLET.
Susan McIntosh
grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area where her cultural and political identity was forged by hard core and hippie idealism. She attended U.C. Berkeley and later attended Columbia University’s master film program where she won the Young Filmmakers Panavision Award for her feature script, which later she directed. She has optioned four screenplays and has produced and starred in two off Broadway plays. The characters she created were picked up by MTV and were most recently used in a television pilot. Susan just returned from The Edinburgh Fringe Festival where she premiered her new one person show Spawn and Die.
Susana Cook
is an icon of the lesbian underground. Born in Argentina, she is a New York-based political theatre worker who has been writing and producing original work for over 20 years. She graduated from the National School of Drama in Buenos Aires and also trained in theater in Paris before moving to the United States in 1991. Susana’s current work focuses on parallels between the dictatorship in Argentina and the present U.S. administration. Concerned with issues such as racism, classism, nationalism, and homophobia Susana creates powerful political satires that use humor as a tool for exposing the rationales used by those in power to justify oppressions against minorities. Susana has staged 16 original plays in venues across New York City; including Dixon Place, PS. 122, W.O.W Cafe Theater, Ubu Rep, Theater for the New City, The Puffin Room and The Kitchen. Her shows have also been featured internationally in Spain, Argentina and Puerto Rico. She has led workshops and performed at Yale University, Barnard and Williams College, among others. Her recent shows include Hamletango, 100 Years of Attitude, Dykenstein, Spic for Export, and the Values Horror Show. For her theatrical innovation and excellence, Susana has received awards from Franklin Furnace, the Astraea Foundation, Arts International, the Puffin Foundation, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Thomas Moore
was a monk in a Catholic religious order for twelve years and has degrees in theology, musicology, and philosophy. A former professor of psychology, he is the author of Care of the Soul, Soul Mates, The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life, The Education of the Heart, The Soul of Sex, and Original Self. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and two children.
UNIVERSES (Steven Sapp)
is an ensemble Company of multi-disciplined writers and performers who fuse Poetry, Theater, Jazz, Hip-Hop, Politics, Down Home Blues and Spanish Boleros to create moving, challenging and entertaining theatrical works. The group breaks the bounds of traditional theater to create their own brand, inviting old and new generations of theater crafters as well as the theater goers and new comers to reshape the face of American Theater.
UNIVERSES’ has performed: Off-Off and Off-Broadway: SLANGUAGE (New York Theatre Workshop), U (SLANGUAGE workshop: Mark Taper Forum-New Works Festival, New World Theater, The Painted Bride, Pregones Theater, Performance Space 122 -P.S. 122), THE RIDE (P.S. 122, New York Performance Works, Andy Warhol Museum), International: THE RIDE (Teatro A Mil Festival in CHILE- Ex-Carcel, Valparaiso and Teatro San Gines, Santiago). Alfred Jarry’s UBU:Enchained (Arts Link International Exchange with Teatre Polski, Poland and New York). Poetry Performances: Nuyorican Poets Café, American Airlines Theater (Encore Awards), Joe’s Pub, Labyrinth Theatre, Symphony Space, Aaron Davis Hall, Museum of Natural History, The Painted Bride, St. John the Divine, Sing Sing Prison, The Tea Party, Bar 13, Sisters Place, El Puente, Live From the Edge Theater, The Bronx Academy of Art & Dance (B.A.A.D). College performances include: Harvard University, Princeton University, Rutgers University, Lehman College, University of Massachusetts, Bard College, Binghamton University, Sarah Lawrence College, City College, New York University, Pace University.
Zero Boy
has been on MTV, VH1, NPR’s The Next Big Thing and Fox and Friends.