The Avant-Garde Ascendant

(09/16/2009)    Committee members as diverse as Jonathan Safran Foer, the writer, Gérard Mortier, the general manager of the Opéra de Paris in Belgium, and Ida Nicolaisen, an anthropologist and president of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, among others, have made the final

Katharina Martin, above, will come to the Watermill Center this fall to work on her performance piece called “Forest Time.”

selections for the Watermill Center’s fall and spring artist residencies.

    The program provides the “time and space to create new original works in all artistic fields,” according to a press release.

    A total of 19 projects carried out by 79 artists from around the world were awarded in a wide range of mediums and subjects. In September, Joshua Seid­ner, an emerging French-American writer and actor, will undertake the early stages of “Powder Burn,” a theatrical work that draws upon the slang and languages, traditions, dances, and fighting forms of Russia, Israel, Turkey, the Middle East, and Latin America to explore “otherness” in America.

    Katharina Martin, a German-born artist based in Rotterdam, will come to Water Mill in September, too, to work on a solo performance-film piece called “Forest Time,” “living (and filming herself) in excessive makeup, a dress, and platform shoes in the woods surrounding the facility.”

    In November, Steven Vega will develop “Harbor,” a work combining dance, music, and film, created in collaboration with several artists who are both musicians and visual artists. Also in November, Sarah Ortmeyer, the youngest artist featured in the “Political/Minimal” exhibit at Kunstwerke Berlin, will present “Elegant Kant,” a piece about the “thought and fashion of the philosopher who, like Watermill, found inspiration in nature.”

    A French company, Les Vraoums, will use its December residency to work on “Let’s rock around a new folk, a new freedom and a new woman,” a piece in which four female performers will practice making music together without instruments.

    That same month, Gwendolyn Warnock will develop “Baby Universe,” a piece inspired by contemporary scientific theories, incorporating hand and rod puppets, robots, video projection, and animation. 

    The artists will present open auditions during their residencies that the public can watch for free.     E.D.H.