Performances Archives - longlistshort

New Music- Jim E. Brown- “The Queue at Greggs”

Music, Musicians / Bands, Performance Art, Performances

Mar 162026

Jim E. Brown- The Queue at Greggs

Jim E. Brown describes himself as a 19-year-old alcoholic singer-songwriter from Didsbury, Manchester. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he is committed to the bit, as are his fans. There are rumors he may actually be a former animation filmmaker from Philadelphia named Max Marguiles, but Brown frequently denies this in interviews.

Like fellow Mancunian Morrissey, he’s fond of what the British refer to as moaning. His lyrics, filled with the miseries of his daily life, also include things associated with England like pub food, the bakery chain Greggs, and local supermarkets like ASDA. In addition to the music, he also writes books and makes short videos complaining about various things he finds out and about.

He is currently in Europe on his world tour.

Flashback- Nick Cave at Columbus Museum of Art

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Columbus, Conceptual Art, Dance, Fiber Arts, Installation Art, Mixed Media, Ohio Art Shows, Performances, Sculptors / Sculpture, Video and Film, Washington D.C.

Feb 272026

Pictured is one of Nick Cave‘s Soundsuits, created using found fabrics and metal and wood toys. It was on view at Columbus Museum of Art in 2024.

From the museum about the work-

Nick Cave’s Soundsuits are sculptural costumes, some of which were made to be worn, others to remain stationary. Although these suits often appear whimsical and joyful, they also respond to suffering and injustice. Cave created his first suit in response to the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers in 1991, an event that focused attention on discriminatory policing and racial profiling. Reflecting the artist’s lived experience as an African American man, the Soundsuits camouflage the wearer’s body, concealing markers of race, gender, and class.

In the Art21 video below you can see some of his Soundsuits in motion. He studied with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and that influence can be seen here as well.

Art 21-Nick Cave in Chicago- Season 8

Cave’s latest exhibition, Mammoth, recently opened at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C. and will be on view until January of 2027.

About that show from SAAM-

In Mammoth, Cave remakes the museum’s galleries into an immersive environment marked by the crafted hides and bones of mammoths, a video projection of the long-dead animals come to life, and hundreds of transformed found objects—from vintage tools to his grandmother’s thimble collection—presented like paleontological specimens on a massive light table. By showcasing the ordinary and often forgotten bits and pieces of the world we live in, Cave’s work shines light on what we value and how we make meaning together. It evokes the lives and cultures we have lost, as well as the magical possibilities of a universe created through imagination and the humblest of materials.

Focused on the fundamental connections between people and their environment, Cave asks how we can begin to make sense of our relationship with a landscape that continues to evolve. How might we adapt, persevere, even thrive? As the contemporary world increasingly challenges what it means to be human, Cave envisions a space of both grief and possibility.

Films to Watch- “Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music”

Art, Artists, Conceptual Art, Design, Fashion, Films, History, Music, Performance Art, Performances, Sculptors / Sculpture, Theater, Video and Film

Jun 112025

Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music Trailer

In 2016, Taylor Mac performed his immersive 24-Decade History of Popular Music in a theater in Brooklyn for a full twenty four hours. Normally performed in sections, this was the first and only time this had been done. Decade by decade, from 1776-2016, the history of popular music and the history of America merge, with a decidedly queer slant.

The documentary, directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, includes footage from the show combined with interviews with Mac, his incredible costume designer Machine Dazzle, his musical director Matt Ray, and his co-director Niegel Smith. Although Mac is the main performer, the show includes a stage full of musicians, additional singers, and his “Dandy Minions” who can often be found offstage interacting with the audience. Mac’s desire to draw people together and build community is highlighted during several moments focused on the audience’s participation.

Throughout the many hours, performers leave the stage for good leaving only Mac by the end of the show. This is meant to mirror the losses from the AIDS epidemic. Even with only a small selection of these moments, you can feel the effect this creates.

Inventive, beautiful, funny, and often moving, this documentary provides a small taste of the performance and will leave you wanting more.

Mac’s costume for the 1980s

Taylor Mac and Machine Dazzle

Mac’s costume photo shoot for the 1950s

Mac with an audience member

Mar 172025

The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing by former New York magazine editor Adam Moss is a fascinating look at the creative processes of several famous artists. Each artist discusses specific works and gives the reader an inside look at how they came about.

The 43 artists included are visual artists, writers, musicians, editors, designers, and many other creative categories. Moss is also an artist and you can see that in his desire to both inform the reader, and to learn for himself, what makes these individuals tick.

Many of the names will be familiar, but these behind the scenes looks are incredibly enlightening. These discussions often also inspired, for me, a deeper dive. I found myself watching videos of Twyla Tharp‘s choreography, reading Guy Talese’s essay and Sheila Heti’s book, listening to Moses Sumney, watching Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, and so on, as I progressed through the book.

While some artists will appeal more than others depending on your interests, all of them had something interesting and valuable to say. This book was one of my favorites of 2024.

Delaware Art Shows- “we are what we lose” at The Delaware Contemporary

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Ceramic Art, Conceptual Art, Dance, Delaware, Installation Art, Mixed Media, Performance Art, Performances, Photographers / Photography, Sculptors / Sculpture, Video and Film, Wilmington

Dec 202024

Chau Nguyen, “Bài Học Về Phong Cảnh / Landscape Didactics”, 2022, sand painting

Zalika Azim, “Blood Memories (or a going to ground)”, 2023, video

Azza El Siddique, “Vessels”, 2019, ceramic, rust

Suneil Sanzgiri, “Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken)”, 2023, video

Currently on view at The Delaware Contemporary is we are what we lose, an exhibition featuring artists Zalika Azim, Suneil Sanzgiri, Azza El Siddique, and Chau Nguyen. Through sculpture, dance, video and photography, these artists investigate issues of loss through what gets left behind.

From the museum-

“The real phenomenon of loss is both the inventory of what no longer exists and the impossible measure of what survives.” —Canisia Lubrin

What does the fugitive offer to sites of ruins? Is it a hum, a murmur, a cry, a shadow, a haunting, a poem, a memory, a scene, a loved one, a vessel, a movement, a gathering?

Fugitivity routes and unroutes our understanding of topographic terrains created through the unfolding of displacement, relocation, and exile. In the wake of migratory catastrophes, ruins are the aftermath of loss and devastation, leaving behind vestigial remnants and residuals. Reaching for traces, illegibility, and livability, the fugitive attempts to depict and texture multiple lifeworlds within ruins marked in loss and devastation. Gesturing towards the specter, how might placing what happens within sites of ruins —the permeable, usable, corporeal, and inhabitable—at the heart of our critiques and interventions enliven our imaginative possibilities?

Ruins present a set of spatial, material, visual, and psychic dimensions of un/being and becoming, as well as modes of fugitive resistance and expression. Tending to the juxtaposition of being unplaced, we are what we lose focuses on the provoking void that ruins leave behind and expresses spatial, narrative, and material practices actively and painstakingly situated in the hold of the catastrophes as means of reworlding and unworlding towards livable possibilities.

Partaking in worlding decomposition, Zalika Azim, Suneil Sanzgiri, Azza El Siddique, and Chau Nguyen present visual, narrative, and sonic performances that desire and action towards the otherly present meaning and aliveness by uncomposing time and working with the permeability of the artistic mediums. By engaging with the barely perceptible imaginations, unplaced yearnings, and tactile and vulnerable terrains, the artists orient toward spectral terrains that suture, resist, and refuse the knowability of the fugitive. Viewers will reflect on the histories of ruins haunting our contemporary sites and their capacity to mutate to make complicated ways of knowing, feeling, and seeing the world.

More information on Suneil Sanzgiri’s video installation, pictured above, from his website–

How do we live through and narrate moments of revolution and revolt, and how do we understand these experiences across time and distance? Using imaging technologies to meditate on what it means to witness from afar, Suneil Sanzgiri explores the complexities of anti-colonialism, nationalism, and diasporic identity. His work is inspired by his family’s legacy of resistance in Goa, India, an area under Portuguese occupation for over 450 years until its independence in 1961. Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?), the artist’s newest two-channel video installation, combines archival footage, animation, interviews, and a script written by poet Sham-e-Ali Nayeem. The film tells the stories of the mutual struggle in India and Africa against Portuguese colonialism, highlighting the solidarity that developed between the two continents during the 1960s and 1970s.

This exhibition closes 12/29/24.

Los Angeles Art Shows- Art Share L.A.- “Plateaus: Art That Resonates”

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Ceramic Art, Collage, Conceptual Art, Drawing, Fiber Arts, Glasswork, Los Angeles Art Shows, Los Angeles Music, Mixed Media, Music, Painting / Painters, Performances, Photographers / Photography, Sculptors / Sculpture

Nov 152024

Sculptures by Emily Sudd

Sculptures by Kyung Boon Oh

Work by Cheyann Washington

Photography by Kate Turning

Pictured above are some selections from Plateaus: Art That Resonates, a multisensory group exhibition at Art Share L.A. exploring the dualities of life that artists bring into their work.

From the gallery-

Art Share L.A. is pleased to present Plateaus: Art that Resonates a multidisciplinary and multisensory immersive art exhibition that explores dualities: art and craft, death and life, grief and love, and activity and stillness. These contrasts exist with an interdependent bond, reminding us that bonds are intrinsic and often intertwined partners. In multiple materials, processes, and scales, monument-like creations are revealed through thoughtful burnishing of passion. The exhibition curated by Stacie B. London features seven visual artists: Amanda Maciel Antunes, Kyong Boon Oh, Hadley Holiday, Soojung Park, Emily Sudd, Kate Turning, and Cheyann Washington, along with additional contributions of ikebana by members of Sogestu Los Angeles, music by Rocco DeLuca, perfume by Lesli Wood (La Curie Eau de Parfume), and seating by Hunter Knight. Through a shared refinement of intentional experimentation with their mediums – acrylic panels, clay, glass, ink, photography, scent, sound, stone, thread, tree stumps, and wire– these artistic achievements reveal work that is brave, meditative, resilient, and vulnerable.

Our five senses inform our experiences and knowledge and assist us in ordering the world. In Plateaus: Art that Resonates the traditional forms of visual art of painting, photography, and sculpture are broadened to include aural art — via music and sound — and olfactory art. These multisensory and immersive pieces enhance the experience of viewing visual art and introduce additional dualities: sight with smell, smell with hearing, and hearing with sight. The expanded human experiences in an art gallery switch the expected experiences and invite the possibility of a familiar experience in a new way, or a breakthrough!

Breakthroughs often occur after long periods of what often seems like stagnation, or a plateau. It’s instinctual to want growth to be a continual upward trend, but instead it’s usually a series of long, flat periods (plateaus) of work with few visible results. Seemingly out of nowhere the plateau makes space for a breakthrough of creativity or growth—an intermittent moment when everything comes together. Instead of focusing on the result, it’s good to get comfortable in the plateau.

The artists and artisans of Plateaus: Art that Resonates use a broad range of approaches and techniques towards creative creations that are examples of how to grapple dualities, navigate the plateaus of life, and share breakthroughs that transmute our awareness of mortality into loving engagements with life and it’s contradictions and opposing perspectives that inspire and infuse life with meaning, immediacy, awareness, and appreciation.

Below are two of the ikebana created by members of Sogetsu Los Angeles.

This exhibition closes this Saturday (11/16) with a closing reception from 6-9pm.

NYC Art Shows- Charles Atlas at Luhring Augustine

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Dance, Films, New York Art Shows, Performances, Video and Film

Mar 092023

It often feels like we are oversaturated with images in today’s world, but the energy at the Charles Atlas exhibition A Prune Twin at Luhring Augustine gets the balance right.

From the gallery’s press release-

Luhring Augustine is pleased to announce A Prune Twin, the gallery’s third solo exhibition with pioneering film and video artist Charles Atlas. The presentation will mark the American debut of this major multi-channel installation with sound that was originally commissioned by the Barbican Centre, London as the centerpiece of their 2020 exhibition, Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer; which traveled to the Victoria and Albert Museum in Dundee, Scotland in 2021.

The collaboration between the two artists began in 1984 when the young dancer, Clark, performed in two single-channel films by Atlas: Parafango and Ex-Romance. However, it was not until the groundbreaking Hail the New Puritan in 1986, that the relationship between the two artists was deeply cemented. Originally commissioned as an arts documentary by Channel 4 of the BBC, Hail the New Puritan turned the genre on its head, presenting a highly stylized and fictionalized version of a typical day in Clark’s life – an “anti-documentary”, as Atlas has called it. The two artists also worked closely together on another Channel 4 production, Because We Must (1989), which was full of extreme theatricality in its dance, choreography, scenery, costumes, and directorial position.

In A Prune Twin, Atlas pulls material from these two major films to create an immersive eight-channel installation of sound and moving image. He extends the idea of choreography to camera and sound, flowing across and throughout screens and monitors; in this sense, Atlas choreographs his own past material into a new and compelling dance all of its own. Evident in this work, and many others by Atlas, is his strong affection and attraction to exceptionally creative collaborators, his sensitivity to movement and how to capture it on film, and his novel skills as both a storyteller and observer. Much like MC9, an immersive installation that compiles Atlas’ extensive work with Merce Cunningham, A Prune Twin surrounds the viewer in a beautifully choreographed spectacle. The work captures the spirit and passion of a 35-year collaborative relationship, one that continues to this day – currently realized through the lighting design that Atlas produces for all of Clark’s live performances, an endeavor he has undertaken since the 1980s.

Murals of La Jolla- Alex Katz’s Portrait of Bill T. Jones

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Street Art, California Travel, Dance, New York Art Shows, Painting / Painters, Performances, Places to Visit, Public Art, San Diego Art Shows, San Diego Street Art, San Diego Travel

Jan 202023

Artist Alex Katz created this mural, Bill 2, a portrait of modern dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones, in 2019 for Murals of La Jolla in San Diego. Murals of La Jolla is a project started in 2010 by The Athenaeum and the La Jolla Community Foundation. It commissions artists to create work to be displayed on buildings around La Jolla. A map of all the murals currently on view can be found here.

From the Murals of La Jolla website about the work-

Alex Katz’s mural, Bill 2, celebrates Bill T. Jones, one of the most noted and recognized modern-dance choreographers of our time. Executed in Katz’s bold and simplified signature style, Bill 2 depicts Jones’ visage, through a series of distinct expressions. The repetition of his face has a cinematic and lyrical quality, reinforcing his place in the world of dance, music and film. Portions of the face are dramatically cropped, giving the viewer only quick and gestural glimpses of Jones. Bill 2, is a striking homage to two artists, Katz and Jones, both renowned in their respective fields of visual and performing arts. The mural’s proximity to the new Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center gives a nod to the interconnected worlds of art, music, and dance.

The Guggenheim museum in NYC is currently showing Alex Katz: Gathering, a retrospective of the artist’s work from the late 1940’s until the present. The exhibition will be up until February 20, 2023.

From their website about the exhibition-

Emerging as an artist in the mid-20th century, Katz forged a mode of figurative painting that fused the energy of Abstract Expressionist canvases with the American vernaculars of the magazine, billboard, and movie screen. Throughout his practice, he has turned to his surroundings in downtown New York City and coastal Maine as his primary subject matter, documenting an evolving community of poets, artists, critics, dancers, and filmmakers who have animated the cultural avant-garde from the postwar period to the present.

Staged in the city where Katz has lived and worked his entire life, and prepared with the close collaboration of the artist, this retrospective will fill the museum’s Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda. Encompassing paintings, oil sketches, collages, drawings, prints, and freestanding “cutout” works, the exhibition will begin with the artist’s intimate sketches of riders on the New York City subway from the late 1940s and will culminate in the rapturous, immersive landscapes that have dominated his output in recent years.

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company has numerous performances every year. Conceived and directed by Bill T. Jones, and choreographed by Jones with Janet Wong and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, the latest work, Curriculum II, will be performed at on March 10, 11, and 12, at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston.

Jones also hosts the series Bill Chats at NYC’s The New School. On January 30th, he will be in conversation with Bessie Award-winning theater director and performance artist, Niegel Smith and curator, producer, and director, Kamilah Forbes. For more events check out the New York Live Arts calendar.

Song of the Day- Machinedrum (tstewart)- “Isle of the Blest”

Dance, Los Angeles Events, Los Angeles Music, Music, Musicians / Bands, Spotify Playlist

Dec 302022

tstewart- isle of the blest

This song is from Elysian, the 2022 ambient album from Machinedrum, released using his alias tstewart. The album draws its inspiration from Elysian Park in Los Angeles.

For New Year’s Eve, Machinedrum will be playing a less relaxing set in Los Angeles at The Echo with Jimmy Edgar, DJ Bianca Oblivion, and Jubilee

Los Angeles Weekend Planner 2-20-20

Dance, Los Angeles Events, Los Angeles Music, Los Angeles Weekend Planner, Music

Feb 202020

Metronomy- Walking In The Dark

Things to do in Los Angeles this weekend (2/20-2/23/20)-

Thursday

Hammer Museum is hosting Constitutional Happy Hour a chance to have a few cheap drinks while learning about the US Constitution. This week Loyola Law School professor David Glazier will be discussing the War Powers Clause (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11)

Runnner are playing at The Echo with Beauty Queen

Artist Gala Porras-Kim will be discussing her work and MOCA’s permanent collection with UCLA Professor of Art History and Conservation of Material Culture Glenn Wharton and MOCA Assistant Curator and Manager of Publications Bryan Barcena at the Grand Avenue location

Hip-hop supergroup Czarface (Inspectah Deck, 7L & Esoteric) are performing at Catch One

Little People, Frameworks, and Yppah are playing at The Paramount

Andy Shauf is playing at The Fonda Theatre with Molly Sarle

Pianist Joep Beving is performing at Lodge Room

Friday

Mutual Benefit are playing at the Bootleg Theater with Sonoda and Nicholas Krgovich

As part of the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s John Sayles series, they will be showing Sayles’ film Sunshine State at Hammer Museum with Sayles in attendance for a conversation and book signing ($9)

Here the Birds Burn: A Phantasmagoria Revival, a horror theater performance, is taking place throughout the Victorian era homes at Heritage Square. “Incorporating working authentic 18th & 19th century magic lanterns with hand painted glass slides, along with being joined by fellow period-era theater guests, this immersive performance, set in the 1830s, promises an evening of frightful delight”. (running Thursday-Sunday)

No Age are playing at The Smell with Würm and Milo Gonzalez

HUNNY are playing at the El Rey Theatre with Bay Faction and Michi

Holychild are playing at Moroccan Lounge with Hollander and Tiffany Stringer

Saturday

Metronomy are playing at The Fonda Theatre with Bodega and Faux Real opening

No Sesso will be presenting their performance piece/ runway show “A Vignette of the Renaissance on 24th Street” at WAREHOUSE at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA (free)

Not From England are playing at The Smell with Moon Fuzz, Poll Tax Riot and Buddha Trixie

ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries is hosting a book launch with editors Allyson Mitchell and Cait McKinney for Inside Killjoy’s Kastle: Dykey Ghosts, Feminist Monsters, and Other Lesbian Hauntings. The contributors to this volume consider the role of lesbian feminist histories and direct-action aesthetics in contemporary queer and feminist communities, particularly the ways in which political artwork can produce new ways of knowing about the past. The book launch will include readings and performances by Deirdre Logue, Nao Bustamante, Kyla Tompkins, Karen Tongson, Jennifer Doyle, and David Evans Frantz, and a pop-up feminist gift shop by Otherwild.

FEELS are playing an early show at Zebulon with Gustaf, Gesserit and Cumgirl8

Sunday

Zebulon has a free screening of Walter Hill’s The Driver (1978) with a performance by Charade to follow

Mamalarky are playing at the Bootleg Theater with Girl Friday and Eyeshadow

The Debbie Allen Dance Academy DADA Ensemble will be performing dances inspired by Cross Colours: Black Fashion in the 20th Century at the California African American Museum (free)

WAREHOUSE at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA is hosting a conversation with artist Ivan Morley to launch his new book

Artist Samira Yamin will be discussing work from her exhibition To View A Plastic Flower at LAMAG

Lodge Room’s programming series for Black History Month continues with performances tonight by Lonnie Liston Smith, The Katalyst, and Cut Chemist

Orchin are playing at Moroccan Lounge with Goldcage, Lovergirl, and Drowsy

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