by Anna Marie Shogren
Sunday November 21, 3pm, Brooklyn Arts Exchange

Conversations in the performance community can fall to worry over incestuous audiences as seats of dance, theater, performance venues often fill with artists directly involved in these mediums.  It leads an insider to speculate about the attraction to the form in general, a la Franny and Zooey.  JD Salinger rants rather nicely, “It seemed in such poor taste, sort of, to want to act in the first place.  I mean all the ego.  And I used to hate myself so, when I was in a play, to be backstage after the play was over.  All those egos running around feeling terribly charitable and warm.”  Yes, performance holds opportunity for conflicting feelings of importance between those on and off stage, uncomfortable for both parties.  Yet, as live time based work lays most responsibility on the side of the artist, hopefully the audience’s experience does not get handled lightly.  Not wanting to be impolite, we viewers do the basics; we watch throughout their chosen duration and offer an affirming response after.  Jesus prayer help us if the composer or performers reveled in our given attention.

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by Daniel de Wolff

The Freedom Tunnel is a fifty block beast approximately thirty feet tall and sixty feet wide, with two sets of tracks coursing through it like twisted spinal columns.  It is cool and dark, littered with pockets of debris—tennis shoes, empty water bottles, clothing turned to rags, stained sleeping bags, and gutted mattresses—that signal the ghosts of lives eked out not far from the maddening crowd.  One of the first things I notice is the presence of tire treads packed hard in the mud.  Jedi and Eptic trade stories of fellow graffiti writers who in recent wanderings have come across unfinished pieces on the walls kept vigil by abandoned cans and buckets of paint.

The story is that the Freedom Tunnel is hot—the authorities have been patrolling the tracks of late.  And it hits me.  In this concrete cathedral of echoes and hushed voices I’m trapped, utterly screwed if Amtrak sends security thugs with egos inflated by fake gold stars pinned to the chests of their beer and sweat stained uniforms.  I imagine something akin to the nightmare game of cat and mouse enacted in the sewer systems of Bogotá, Columbia, where drug addled homeless are hunted down by paramilitary thrill seekers with submachine guns in the name of cleaning up the streets.  I can almost hear the crazy war cries before the engine is revved and some Mad Max-style SUV equipped with flood lights and AK-47’s comes bouncing willy-nilly through the darkness.  Which way would I run?  Would it even matter?

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By Akwetey Orraca-Tetteh

Welcome to the inaugural edition of Under the Lid, an exploratory shot into the cavernous world behind door # 2.  In writing this column I’ll examine that other “thing” we all do that is at once vital and missing from our shared vues de vie. I’m referring to the item on the menu one always wants but never gets when folks are around; the same item that is  then devoured when alone in just a robe raging to Bon Jovi.

As per items? Let’s call them headbugs, the itching curiosities that instill in us new possibilities for our lives. Here we will uncover these secrets and all that encompasses the lives of primary people.  First up to the plate is graphic designer, artist, musician and newly ordained marriage officiant Thimali Kodikara.

Kodikara was born/raised of Sri Lankan parents in Kingston-upon-Thames in London; she belies any hint of blasé. With a cherub face and commanding Brit accent Thim is, like many New Yorkers, an eye catcher. What separates this graduate of England’s prestigious Central St. Martins College is a sense of compassion that far surpasses even the least snarky of Manhatties.

Sitting cross-legged in stone washed jeans and a polo long sleeve buttoned to the top I imagine Thim as a 21^st century Rosie the Riveter; strong willed, stylish, and sensual. I apologize for arriving late to my own apartment for the interview (my roommate let her in) and I am greeted with a warmth deserved of family.

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by Akwetey

As a preview, we are told the work is about “the helplessness of humans in the face of disaster.” Not being a zombie movie enthusiast, I would prefer to think of the apocalyptic as a vehicle for stunning images, created through the kinesthetically brilliant humans on stage and the supplies of their surroundings. Their helplessness is hard to see. It’s not to be focused on at least.

Two dancers spin with unfocused vision, and partnered dancers are held in shifting flayed positions above the rotating base, their limbs pulled up and out like the full white skirts of a whirling dervish. Whirling dervishes take a vow of poverty in efforts toward humility and simplicity of life. A bit ironic as in this piece they turn, framed within an elaborate and functioning set including two walls, three doors, and movable floorboards dressed up in a disheveled aesthetic, again framed within an ornate theater and ticket prices to be saved up for. A worthy investment, though I am conscious of the contrast.

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By Daniel de Wolff
photos by Renee Rogoff

If NYC is the Mecca of graffiti, the Freedom Tunnel could be likened to the Ka’bah shrine, around which pilgrims walk. Or perhaps it is more apt to compare the tunnel with the Jamarat, giant walls at which pilgrims on the Hajj hurl their pebbles in what is referred to as the Stoning of the Devil. I say this because walking the Freedom Tunnel is one thing, but adding your tag or your mural to the collection that exists, throwing your name up, is to partake in something deeper. Depending on your perspective, this is pithy oversimplification, grandiose metaphor, or blasphemy. But bear with me.

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by Daniel de Wolff
part two
photos by Renee Rogoff

Recently, The New York Times published an article about a large-scale art exhibition in an abandoned subway station.  The curators and artists are calling it The Underbelly Project.  It’s attracted a wide variety of artists eager to participate in a unique venture.  Part of what makes it so interesting is that while many of the artists featured command a large following, and create pieces that fetch tidy sums in the art world, due to the clandestine nature of the affair, the location remains undisclosed.  The very fact of the article depicting The Underbelly Project raises a valid question regarding what has been termed “street art,” specific to abandoned spaces: how or why to publicize artwork that, often by virtue of location and the mutable surface of the canvas, will only be seen by a chosen few—and probably never in its original form.  For explanations from the artists themselves, check out the story at NY Times.

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by Daniel De Wolff
the first in a series

The flash of the camera illuminates the scene like lightning on a black night.  Bathed in pale blue light, Jedi stands on a concrete ledge above me.  His feet are set wide apart, his torso waves stiffly back and forth.  He’s a cobra in a trance; a violinist locked in the depths of sound.   There is only the hiss of paint escaping from a spray can clutched in a nimble hand, which is sheathed in a latex glove.  The occasional waft of chlorine from the street above mingles with the dank smell of dirt, rusted metal and toxic-sweet paint fumes.  Then I catch the distant creak and moan.  Sean (our photographer) hisses, “train!”

Jedi abandons his buckets of paint and hops down from his perch, avoiding the third rail.  Meanwhile Sean dismantles the tripod with the speed of a liquored gun nut practicing blindfolded with his favorite Smith & Wesson.  We make ourselves thin, crowd the wall that separates our abandoned track from the rest of the rusted arteries still in use by the MTA.  Bright light snaps around the corner and a few feet from where we stand, a bruised and battered J train lumbers past at top speed like a giant caterpillar, its belly laden with bored, tired passengers.  Framed by scratched windows, their faces are frozen in my mind as the train thunders around the bend, all squeaks and sighs and heavy thuds ringing in my ears.  Silence, darkness envelops us again, and this is the first time I understand what my two guides have been talking about.  This potent sense of calm and quiet and exhilaration at participating in a world below the hum and bustle of New York City.  Commuters on the train are temporary visitors, shuttled through this dream world, unseeing zombies with their eyes burned out and covered with coins.  Only we are alive in this dream.

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