Low Lives 3 International Festival of Live Networked Performances

Live stream from Alice Yard tonight
Friday April 29th from 8-12pm.

April 29 – 30, 2011
Produced and Curated by Jorge Rojas
Co-produce by Chez Bushwick

About Low Lives 3
Low Lives 3 is the third installment in a series of annual international art events. Low Lives 3 features more than fifty live performance-based works over two days, each transmitted over the web and projected in real time at 24 venues across the globe.

Participating Artists
Annie Abrahams / Lukas Avendaño / Chloe Bass + Brian Balderston / Camille Baker / Tzitzi Barrantes / Rachelle Beaudoin / Black & Jones / Caroline Boileau / Catherine Cabeen and Company / Jennifer Chan / Tyrone Davies / Joseph DeLappe / dev01ded / Alfred Dong / Nancy Douthey / Eosin (Diana Combo) / Julie Fotheringham + Jarryd Lowder / Second Front / Scapegoat Garden (Deborah Goffe) / Carlos Gonzalez / Katelena Hernandez / Ajeesh K.B. + Santhosh V.S. + Hemabharathy Palani / Jayson Keeling / La La La Singers / Gabriela León + Saúl López Velarde + Daniel Weinstock / Shaun El C. Leonardo / Anya Liftig / Kristin Lucas / James Mbunju and Company / Saul Melman / Marcello Mercado / Jui Mhatre + Jaee Joshi / Julio Cesar Morales + Juan Luna-Avin / Irvin Morazan + Maya Jeffereis / Kendall Nordin / Molly O'Connor (Molliver) / Julian Palacz + Bernhard Garnicnig / So Percussion / SaBa / Marisol Salanova / Rosa Sanchez + Alain Baumann / Byd Sarret / Jenny Schlief / Carmen Sober / Alan Sondheim / Nathan Stevens / Zornitsa Stoyanova (Here[Begin]Dance) / Channel TWo / Frans van Lent / Claude van Lingen / Ginna Alejandra Vélez Carrasco / Rodell Warner / Ian Warren / Heather Warren-Crow / Rebecca Weiner / Paul Wiersbinski /

Presenting Partners
Alice Yard / Aljira, A Center for Contemporary Art / Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts / AE District / Box 13 / Center for Performance Research / Chez Bushwick / Co-lab / Crossing Art Gallery / Diaspora Vibe Gallery / DiverseWorks / Elon University Department of Art & Art History / Fusebox Festival / Headspace / Konic Thtr / La Periferia / La Perrera / Living Arts / MACO, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca / Mascher Space Co-op / Mindpirates / Obsidian Arts / On the Boards / Portland Institute for Contemporary Art / QMAD, Queens Media Art Development / Real Art Ways / Simba Theatre Art International / SOMArts / the temporary space / Utah Museum of Fine Arts / Village Museum / WORM Vienna /
Watch Low Lives 3 online:
www.ustream.tv/channel/low-lives-3

see Web Catalogue here

ARC magazine Trinidad launch

Wednesday 27 April, 2011, at 7 pm
In partnership with the Bocas Lit Fest

Image by Brianna McCarthy

Launched in January 2011 by artists Holly Bynoe and Nadia Huggins of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, ARC is “a Caribbean art and culture magazine dedicated to highlighting emerging and established artists.”

Alice Yard is pleased to host the Trinidad launch of ARC on Wednesday 27 April, from 7 to 9 pm. The programme includes an exhibition of works by artists featured in the magazine and spoken word performances. Both editors will be present, and copies of the second issue of ARC, fresh off the press, will be available for sale. This event is part of the 2011 Bocas Lit Fest, the first annual Trinidad and Tobago Literary Festival.

All are invited.

Read an interview with Bynoe and Huggins published at Antilles, the Caribbean Review of Books blog, in January 2011.

See the full programme of events for the 2011 Bocas Lit Fest here.

High science: a conversation with J. Brent Crosson

Tuesday 29 March, 2011, at 7 pm


J. Brent Crosson is a doctoral candidate in cultural anthropology at the University of California and a researcher affiliated with the University of the West Indies, St Augustine. He is currently in Trinidad and Tobago on an eighteen-month Fulbright research grant. From November 2010 to February 2011, he was based at Alice Yard.

He describes his research:

“My broader project examines spirits as cultural archives, especially for mute or concealed histories, where embodied practice is the method for remembering. I am also interested in Trinbagonian perceptions of superstition — who or what counts as obeah — and the relation of these perceptions to modernity and postcolonialism. Finally, I am looking at how ‘high science,’ as sorcery is sometimes known in the Caribbean, relates to the science that emerged out of the Enlightenment in its approach to materiality.”

On Tuesday 29 March, 2011, at 7 pm, Crosson will give a presentation at Alice Yard on his current fieldwork. There will also be an opportunity for members of the audience to engage him in dialogue. His talk will focus on his fieldwork in Moruga on the south coast of Trinidad:

“From the mass hysteria/demonic possession at the local secondary school to the descent of helicopters and military personnel to the town savannah, the first week I spent in Moruga was punctuated by events that conjured the place of this region in the national imaginary. These two events, especially the former, stirred local and national debates regarding the relation of belief in supernatural forces, on the one hand, and rural economic livelihoods, on the other, to postcoloniality, development and modernity. My research examines the complex relations and convergences between religion and rationality, spiritual and psychological forces, modernity and belief, and rural and urban spaces that these events in Moruga conjured.”

All are invited.


Crosson can be contacted at jcrosson@ucsc.edu.

Celebrating Independent Mas

Friday 25 March, 2011, at 7 pm



Robert Young and Lupe Leonard of Vulgar Fractions will host an evening celebrating contemporary independent mas at Alice Yard. Featuring slideshows of images from Carnival 2011 and live entertainment, the event will include visual contributions from:

Cat in Bag Productions: Snake in the Grass
Vulgar Fractions: Coalition
Alice Yard Players: When Arima Rained
Generation Lion Jouvay: Cleanse
Mas Jumbies: Bourgeois

The Cloth 25 + Alice Yard Pop-up Shop, featuring clothing and design objects by Trinidadian designers, will also be open.

All are invited.

A conversation with Shani Mootoo

Thursday 24 March, 2011, at 7 pm


Shani Mootoo is an internationally acclaimed writer, artist, and experimental filmmaker. Born in Dublin of Trinidadian parents, she grew up in San Fernando and now resides in Canada. She is currently writer in residence at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine.

She is the author of three novels: Cereus Blooms at Night (1996), He Drown She in the Sea (2005), and Valmiki’s Daughter (2008), as well as a collection of short stories and a book of poems. Her films have been screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and at the Venice Biennale.

On Thursday 24 March, 2011, at 7 pm, Mootoo will read from her recent work at Alice Yard, and talk about her writing process and creative concerns. The programme will also include a screening of several of her short film works. Copies of her books will be available for purchase.

This event is a collaboration with Paper Based Bookshop.

All are invited.

Greta Mendez and Akuzuru: What Lies Beneath the Skirt of Globalisation? and A Poem for Desi

Thursday 17 March, 2011, at 7.00 pm



From a performance by Greta Mendez in Shimla, India, during Art Karavan International 2010

What Lies Beneath The Skirt of Globalisation? and A Poem For Desi are two performance works which integrate sculptural installation and movement to establish form.

Over the Carnival season, artists Akuzuru and Greta Mendez have been meeting at Alice Yard to construct and develop a collaborative narrative work, incorporating mixed multimedia and movement. Playing to their strengths, Akuzuru has contributed the installation and design, and Mendez the concept and text.

They write:

“The convoluted narratives of both works are connected by the interrogation and analysis of the human condition through the web of those persistent artificial webs and matrices that shroud the consciousness of the everyday.

“A visceral presentation that challenges the gaze of external participation, this multi-sensorial projection offers to restore the dormant calamity that plagues the mind.”

Running time: 1 hour, 10 minutes



From Vein (2009), a performance work by Akuzuru

About the artists:

Greta Mendez is a performance artist, dancer, producer, director, carnivalist, and choreographer. Originally hailing from Fyzabad, Trinidad, she moved to London very early in her life to expand her horizons in dance. Over her forty-year career she has performed and choreographed worldwide, including projects in Greece, India, Italy, and China. She has received the BP & National Westminster Dance and Mime Award, a New York International Film and Video Award, a Dance Fellowship from the Greater London Arts Council, and been awarded a Travel Bursary by the Arts Council. In April 2009, she presented her performance work Ndulgence at Alice Yard.

In 2010 Mendez participated in Art Karavan International, an initiative developed by Indian artist Inder Salim. She joined the Karavan in Shimla and journeyed on to Jammu, Srinagar, and Delhi. The central premise was to involve local Indian and international artists, to find a vehicle for common expression and common ground.
In her forthcoming Alice Yard presentation, she will share some of the work created, tell a few anecdotes, and introduce the work of artists from India, Serbia, and China.

Akuzuru is an experiential artist known for her many multi-layered performances and large sculptural-installation works, which have been shown internationally at venues in the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Interdisciplinary in approach, she creates intense experiences, working primarily in the natural environment in site-specific situations. She has presented and exhibited her work at Notting Hill Carnival in London, LIFT-London International Festival of Theatre, the 2nd Biennale de Martinique, and the Rockstone & Bootheel exhibition at Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut. She has received a Commonwealth Fellowship Scholarship to Nigeria and a Commonwealth International Artist Residency to India, among other awards. In November 2009 she presented her installation and performance work Vein at Alice Yard.

All are invited.

Alice Yard Players: When Arima Rained

Detail of costume from When Arima Rained

“When Arima rained, soul-dears from the constellation of life showered breaths of light from a colourful night sky.”

Since 2007, siblings Lupe and Sean Leonard have produced a children’s Carnival masquerade band based at Alice Yard. Every presentation has attempted to sensitise young people to their environment, Trinidad and Tobago, by drawing reference to the culture, geography, flora, and fauna of their homeland. The costumes incorporate found and recycled objects from the natural and man-made environment.

The Alice Yard Players’ 2011 presentation is called When Arima Rained. Arima — which means both “place of the beginning” and “water” — is an indigenous Amerindian place name for what is now a large town in eastern Trinidad. The band’s mythical narrative attempts to bring these two definitions together, in three elements:


Canopy: Spectrum — The Night Cloud

Players: Soul-dears of Light

Character: Arima Night


For further details:

http://nimblett.no-ip.biz/kiddies/
Email: lupeleonard@hotmail.com
Telephone: (868) 490-8853

Vulgar Fraction: Coalition

Carnival 2011



Photographs by Arnaldo James

Vulgar Fraction, the independent mas band led by designer Robert Young of The Cloth, launched its Carnival 2011 presentation, Coalition, at Alice Yard on Tuesday 25 January. Coalition is a collaboration between Young and designer Lupe Leonard.

The designers explain:

“Coalition represents a pact or treaty among individuals or groups, within which they co-operate in joint action. While each individual serves his own interest at times, they have all come together for a common cause. However, since the alliance may have been formed as a matter of convenience, it may last only temporarily.”

Leonard has been producing children’s mas for approximately five years, while Young has maintained an almost fifteen-year presence “on the road” for Carnival.

“Vulgar Fraction has consistently advocated a return to true creativity, art and design for masqueraders”, says Young. “But the process becomes even more interesting when each person gets involved in designing and building part of their own costume themselves.”

Vulgar Fraction will provide potential masqueraders with a variety of design components they can use to decorate their costumes themselves — a practice similar to elements of the sailor mas tradition. (For further information, contact Robert Young at 471-2041.)

The Alice Yard launch included music by 3canal, Moyenne, tilla the sound boi killer, and North West Laventille Cultural Movement.