The Poetry Project is having a Halloween Party! Set in the gleeful, subversive landscape of Helen Adam’s collage poem IN HARPY LAND, a world presided over by priestesses, witches, and indomitable women.
No prayer avails, no strength of ours / No “Principalities and Powers” / The whole creation she devours
Join us in the Sanctuary of St Mark’s for a night of rituals, readings, looks and performances by: Chase Berggrun, Joey de Jesus, Bradley Eros, Deepali Gupta, Raja Feather Kelly, Edgar Oliver, Alexandra Tatarsky, and others TBA
Chase Berggrun is a trans poet. They are the author of R E D (Birds, LLC, 2018). Their work has appeared in POETRY, the PEN Poetry Series, Sixth Finch, Diagram, and elsewhere. They received their MFA from New York University, and are Poetry Editor at Big Luck
Joey de Jesus is an undying manticore hidden behind dark agendas and a glamouring amulet. Joey edits poetry for Apogee Journal and is a recipient of the 2017 NYFA/NYSCA Fellowship in Poetry and lives in Queens. Poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Bettering American Poetry, Brooklyn Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, BOAAT, Guernica, Puerto Rico en mi Corazon, Southern Humanities Review, The Volta, and elsewhere have been performed and installed in Artists Space, Basilica and The New Museum. dejesussaves.wordpress.com
Deepali Gupta is a playwright, composer, and performance artist. Her work ranges from explicit choral settings to morbid love songs to freaky little musicals. Her work has been presented at Lincoln Center Theater, New York City Center, The Public (Under the Radar), Ars Nova, Joe’s Pub, Judson Memorial Church, The Bushwick Starr, The New Ohio, and Vital Joint. Recent projects as a performance artist include I Love You Stranger, No Way To Say Goodbye, and Over(Reverberating). Recent projects as a composer include original music for Madonna col bambino, Ski End, Cute Activist, and Minor Character. She is an Affiliated Artist with The Civilians and New Georges. B.A. Brown (Performance Studies); M.F.A. Tisch (Musical Theatre Writing). Website: deepaligupta.net Soundcloud: deepali (k) gupta
Raja Feather Kelly’schoreography includes: I, I Am A Dancer (Ars Nova ANT Fest), UGLY (The Bushwick Starr), ANOTHER FUCKING WARHOL PRODUCTION (The Kitchen, American Dance Festival, nominated Most Innovative Dance Performance of 2017 by Dance Magazine), ANDY WARHOL’S BLEU MOVIE (BAM Fisher, Baryshnikov Arts Center), ANDY WARHOL’S TROPICO (Danspace Project), ANDY WARHOL’S DRELLA, (I Love You Faye Driscoll) (The Invisible Dog), and ANDY WARHOL’S 15: COLOR ME, WARHOL (Dixon Place).
Off-Broadway credits include choreography for A Strange Loop directed by Michael R. Jackson (Playwright Horizons), Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ EVERYBODY directed by Lila Neugebauer (Signature Theatre); Susan-Lori Parks’ THE DEATH OF THE LAST BLACK MAN IN THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz (Signature Theatre, received a 2017 Lucille Lortel Award for Best Revival); Adrienne Kennedy’s Funnyhouse of a Negro, directed by Lila Neugebauer (Signature Theatre); Daaimah Mubashshir’s EVERYDAY AFROPLAY (JACK); Jim Findlay’s ELECTRIC LUCIFER (The Kitchen); Jackie Sibbles-Drury’s FAIRVIEW, directed by Sarah Benson (Soho Rep) and LEMPICKA, directed by Rachel Chavkin (Williamstown Theatre Festival). Raja was born in Fort Hood, Texas, and is the first and only choreographer to dedicate his company’s work to Andy Warhol and the development of popular culture over the last thirty years.
A 2017 and 2018 Princess Grace Award winner in Choreography and a Director for Soho Rep’s 2018/19 Writers and Directors Lab, his honors include a 2018-2020 HERE Arts Fellowship, 2018/19 CartHorse Fellowship at the Buran Theatre, a 2018 Alan Kreigsman Residency at Dance Place (Washington, D.C.), and 2018-19 Fellowship at the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU, He is a Connecticut College alumnus and holds Bachelor’s Degrees in English and Dance.
Edgar Oliver is a writer and performer who has lived and worked in New York for many years. He started out reading his poems and performing monologues at the Pyramid night club in the early 1980’s. From 1988 to 2001 he wrote and staged a series of autobiographical plays – premiering a new play almost every year in the Club at LaMama on east 4th Street. Titles include The Seven Year Vacation, The Ghost of Brooklyn, Mosquito Succulence, Motel Blue 19, and The Drowning Pages. In recent years he has written and performed a series of one man shows that have won much critical acclaim. These shows include Helen and Edgar – directed by Catharine Burns of The Moth – and East 10th Street: self-portrait with empty house, In the Park, and Attorney Street – all three directed by Randy Sharp of the Axis Theatre Company.
Alexandra Tatarsky makes work in the unfortunate in-between zone of comedy, poetry, dance-theater and deluded rant, sometimes with songs. Pieces often incorporate absurdist characters and improvised wordplay. A 2017-18 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence, they have performed their own work and the work of others at La Mama, 83 Pitt, Maccarone, Picture Room, MoMa PS1, 47 Canal, Bronx Art Space, New Museum, The Kitchen, Brooklyn Museum, AUNTS, Segue, La Plaza Cultural, PSNY, Gibney, Gotham Comedy Club, and Judson Church. Chapbooks include Vacant Love (love letters for vacant lots) and Embrace the Tree (on pagan metal and neo-fascist fantasies). As the Shanzhai Lyric, they publish mini-compilations of bootleg t-shirt poems. Writings on hyper-capitalism, nonsense, and mimes are forthcoming in ArtReview Asia, Folder, and Garlands. A proud third generation East Villager, Tatarsky’s pet hamster is buried in the graveyard of St. Mark’s Church.
