The Exponential Festival is a month-long January festival dedicated to New York City-based emerging artists working in experimental performance. The participants in this multi-artist, multi-venue festival are committed to ecstatic creativity in the face of commercialism. Exponential is driven by inclusiveness and a diversity of artists, forms and ideas coupled with utopian resource-sharing, mentoring and the championing of risky, rigorous work in eclectic fields. Exponential is artistic directed by Theresa Buchheister.
Highlights Include:
The Complaint Society by Barnett Cohen
January 4-7 @ The Brick
Contextualized by our era of infinite emergency, The Complaint Society documents and synthesizes a pixelated present of ruined meaning, anxious forces, neurotic tendencies and looping violence. A range of urgencies–climate grief, state-sanctioned force, reparative justice, reproductive rights, systems of surveillance, the growing fascist theocracy in the US and the memeification of political mood–appear and reappear in the performance as sirens, propositions for time travel and calls to action.
The Ben Shapiro Project by Ella Davidson
January 16-21 @ The Brick
Ella wants to save America and herself, so Ella becomes Ben Shapiro. Then Ella confronts Ben Shapiro. America can't be saved, but can Ella be saved?
Mx. Piggy Makes An OnlyFans by Tank
February 2-4 @ We Are Here
The artist formerly known as Ms. Piggy is back in the spotlight (Bushwick) after 5 years of radio silence, and like always, they have a lot to say. Chiefly about their ex, a new lover and their mediocre attempt at an OnlyFans.
CRYPTOCHROME by Evan Silver aka Tiresias
January 19-21 @ We Are Here
CRYPTOCHROME is a freewheeling ritual meditation and live art concert on wayfinding and navigation. Named after a protein found in the biochemical pathways of birds and other animals that is believed to be responsible for the ability to navigate across the electromagnetic field, the performance invites audiences on a kaleidoscopic journey to reflect on the invisible perceptual worlds that shape lives across the animal kingdom.
Das Sofortvergnügen (THE INSTANT PLEASURE) by Cosimo Pori & Travis Amiel
January 26-28 & February 2-4 @ Life World
Das Sofortvergnügen (THE INSTANT PLEASURE) is a dance-theatre-spectacle about insatiable desires, [in]convenience, [im]patience and the need to get things now. The show re-contexualizes memes, idioms and a versatile artistic legacy to embrace contrasting ideas on contemporary queer existence in a capitalist society.
COVID-19 Safety Information:
Proof of vaccination and masks are required at The Brick and Target Margin Theater. Masks are optional but encouraged at other venues.
