THEATER

Performer gets sucked behind the curtain in a tizzy, lights flicker, empty stage

Choreography of various statuesque poses

Mannequin devil child birthed, becomes upside down twin

Wiggling worm appears; basks in deliciousness of the world

Distraught mother sings about poisoning herself on tinned fish, her mouth stuffed with tinned fish

Triple Canopy Symposium “How To Be Your Selves”

Performances by the musician and playwright Emily Allan, the poet and drag performer Wo Chan as The Illustrious Pearl, and the comedian Spike Einbinder as the Red Guy. Culminating in a “panel of personas.”

St Marks Church-in-the-Bowery, NYC

A demented talk show host tries to push through the introduction

Transition music between talk show guests

A group of confused performers pause to ponder their existence

Dirt Trip

“Linking American pop-cultural angst over the evil clown to efforts to banish garbage and urban blight, Tatarsky examines our fears of figures and substances which suggest transitional, ambiguous, and disordered states. Contents may include: the ballad of an unemployed court jester who desires to be a rotting vegetable; a lecture that decays into a heap of dirt.”

MoMa PS1, NYC
Cannonball Festival, Philadelphia PA
Cucalorus Film Festival, Wilmington NC

“Dirty Work” rendition plays after piles of dirt are thrown through the space

Clown choreography: smokes, releases balloons, juggles, emulates falling bags

Performer finds their most authentic self while gnashing teeth, shaking apoplectically

Scraps of trash from the audience are strewn about the space, meditations on compost

Rumination on the neighbor chasing his dog, god and the healing powers of dirt

Buttplug Gnome

“Leaning into the sorrow of an entertainer in an empty theater, Alex Tatarsky will attempt a new piece at the edges of dance and giving up. Inspired by the figures of the tramp clown and the garden gnome, they consider choreographies of failure in the space between dunce and dance. Bad clown, bad sex, bad dance, bad gnome.”

Gibney Dance, NYC

A beautiful gnome dance featuring a floor mop

A melodramatic video plays, performer longs to return to the garden

A washed-up magician wanders the abyss and tries to remember his act

A washed-up magician falls into the abyss

A slow walk to a large book of sexual fantasies

 Alex Tatarsky: UNTITLED FREAKOUT (TELL ME WHAT TO DO)

“A laboratory for performance research, thinking through the opportunity of a residency as a home—a “residence”—to revisit latent ideas and cultivate unhinged processes. Within the framework of an institution, a context that can often inhibit individual values and experimentation, Tatarsky will test different modes of thinking and making. Research methods will include rage at landlords, trash as divination, and tenderness for the scraps.”

The Kitchen, NYC

Dance featuring various scraps collected from previous shows

Dunce stands in the corner writing sentences

A drowning man turns into a fish

A strange rock and roll song about dirty laundry

MUSICAL PROJECTS

SOLO WORK:

“at times hyperderivative of speedy gonzalez but at least john cage wasn’t buried alone

COLLABORATION:

“SSS have carved out a reputation for their outrageously energetic live performances and for their totally scrambled and chaotic music. But for all the manic chaos, everything they play is a composition performed by two people who are at heart a band. SSS can be called a noise band, but they are deep in the zone that the Decoherence label focuses on: “Almost music.”“

OTHER WORKS

Canal Street Research Presents: Smart and Lovely Shakespeare

Presented by Montez Press Radio

Incomplete Poem

Presented by Plastic Language via NTS Radio

To parrot means to imitate, mimic, copy. Parrots mock the sound of human language regardless of its intended meaning—or the consequences of what their utterances might produce. Across Europe and the US, feral communities of green parrots abound, punctuating the landscape with their bright plumage. Often characterized as invasive, they have lived outside their natural habitat for decades. The same terms often used to define so-called “invasive” or “alien” species pervade counterfeit markets, used to describe and persecute both bootleg items and their purveyors. Restrictions around both birds and bootlegs rely on controlling ideas of authenticity, ownership, and borders in order to control the biggest fake of all: property. 

This is an excerpt of Shanzhai Lyric’s “Incomplete Poem” recorded at Green-Wood Cemetery, New York City

Shanzhai Lyric – Cnanel

Presented by State of Fashion, The Netherlands