PERFORMA 2021
STALK
Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 3 (Brooklyn Heights)
See Map
Oct 30, 10:30 pm—11:15 pm
Oct 31, 12:30 am—1:15 am
LIVE STREAM: October 30 at 6:30 PM, click Watch Live, top right corner
This commission was previously scheduled for Oct 29 at 6:30pm and Oct 30 at 6:30pm but was moved for inclement weather.
Set against Manhattan’s skyscrapers, artist Ericka Beckman will present STALK, an alternative version of the fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk reconfigured as an anti-capitalist proposition. Jack, and his friends, the workers on the ground, unite to revolt against the Giant in the sky––an overt metaphor representing corporate conglomerates––to illustrate the consequences of the agricultural industrial complex. Beckman’s performance will comprise an original musical soundtrack, created with Beckman’s long term collaborator Brooke Halpin, performed live by a vocalist as Jack, accompanied by a chorus of workers, and a circus acrobat. The live scene will be set against a stage formed by multiple LED screens playing animated film of the cast performing scenes that both reflect and mirror the live action, implicating the viewer in determining which is more real, the screen or the stage.
Curated by Kathy Noble, Senior Curator & Head of Curatorial Affairs
For any questions or accessibility needs please email the box office: boxoffice@performa-arts.org
Press Release
For Press Passes, kindly email Performa@culturalcounsel.com
Special limited edition print by Pictures Generation artist Ericka Beckman, inspired by her first live performance STALK, presented in the Performa 2021 Biennial is available here.
STALK (2021). Performa Commission for the Performa 2021 Biennial.
Credits
Ericka Beckman: STALK is supported by Toby Devan Lewis, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, Brooklyn Bridge Park, and Metropictures.
PERFORMERS:
Miguel Anaya, Megan Wright, Noa Rui-Piin Weiss, Hana Bookman, BRAT, demetries morrow, Georgeanne Kalweit, Madison Ward, Dorian Jackson
PERCUSSION:
Matt Norman
PRODUCTION:
Writer & Director: Ericka Beckman
Composer & Musical Director: Brooke Halpin
Choreographer: Emily Coates
Stage Manager: Madeleine Joyce
Composer & Recorded Vocals: Jasmine Golestaneh
Hair: Sergio Estrada
Make Up: Isaya Ellis
Aereal Rig: Lia Douillet
Technical Producer: Andrew Devlin
Production Assistants: Guido Schierano, Julian Rez Masud, Kate Connors
Technical Production: Crossfire
Security: Dwyer and Associates
SPECIAL THANKS:
Brooklyn Bridge Park
Senior Curator & Head of Curatorial Affairs: Kathy Noble
Managing Director & Executive Producer: Esa Nickle
Associate Producer: Sheridan Telford
Performa 2021 Biennial Fellow: Steph Christ
Performa 2021 Biennial Fellow: Joyce Chung
Technical Director: Andrew Devlin
Portrait of Ericka Beckman
Photo by Mathew Wagenknect
ABOUT Ericka Beckman
Ericka Beckman is a radical pioneer; an artist who revolutionized the way performance could be shot and edited in camera, enabling her to interweave experimental animation with live performance footage. Beckman’s early films captured live-action choreographed sequences on super-8 film stock, which she then rewound to integrate layered animation, accompanied by fast-paced soundtracks utilizing, resulting in radical short films that anticipated the digital post-production effects of today. Beckman is an ‘artist’s artist’, highly revered by contemporaneous peers and collaborators, she has influenced the generations that followed her in numerous ways, especially in relationship to what she describes as “the performance of the image” on camera and how these images influence our perception of reality and movement in the physical world.