Treasures in the Underworld: the Eleventh Annual Transmodern Performance Festival | Get Tickets
Full festival schedule below. Images are from past festivals.
Baltimore’s annual Transmodern Festival has long been a beacon of experimental, subcultural, and radical art, music and performance. Organized by Sandy Triolo, Jaime Kauffman, Priya Bhayana, Shana Palmer, and Laure Drogoul, the festival will be showcasing artists, musicians, and performers throughout a week-long stretch, between the 21st and the 27th. The Festival will kick off with a reception and parade-making festivities, before moving into the Twilight Parade, a procession to EMP Collective.
The theme for this year’s Transmodern Festival is Underworld, something Drogoul ties into the Festival’s tradition of celebrating subcultures of people and art that thrive in Baltimore even while being unknown by the wider worlds they inhabit. “More hybridized work, and maybe expressions and artwork that are nuanced and maybe not celebrated or even understood as much as art… We’re celebrating the many ways this city in particular has a particularly well-knit cultural theme, but very often you don’t see it expressed in a lot of more mainstream places. We’re also celebrating the in between state of things. We’re celebrating the limbo state, the state of consciousness before creation, what you’re thinking about making, a state that is still fluid and mutable, one that is open to improvisation and open to new ideas and changing ideas,” Drogoul said.
The LabBodies Performance Art Laboratory is interacting directly with that theme, launching the Over/Under Limbo Lab in Subbasement Studios. Over two nights, twenty-three local and international artists will be performing their interpretations of various underworld mythologies, Greek and otherwise. Curators Ada Pinkston and Hoesy Corona describe their performances as “both a performance and a curatorial project that deconstructs the elements and limitations of performance and art.” The two started a Kickstarter in order to crowdfund their performance, helping their artists bring their work to the Festival. “The Over Under Limbo Lab is an exploration and deconstruction of the theme of the Underworld. We wanted to present the audience with a diversity of performers’ interpretations of the nuances of traditional mythological stories,” Pinkston said.
Corona mentioned that the curators’ approach to the performance was relatively open. “Through an open call for performance works we were able to attract local/regional, national, and international performers exploring elements of myth in their work.” Funding limitations made the selection process a bit of a challenge: “We found ourselves having to turn down proposals simply because it was not feasible to transport and accommodate the many national/international artists and groups we were interested in bringing together.” The performances will definitely feature Greek mythology prominently, but encompasses other world mythology as well: “The notion that Greek mythology was born from and interrelates to a variety of other mystical narratives including but not limited to Egyptian and Yoruba deities is something that we considered when we wrote the call for performers,” Pinkston explained.
Curator and performance artist Lexie Mountain also crowdsourced her event for the festival, but in a different way. Recently Mountain realized an interest in standup comedy, but was disappointed at the relative dearth of women at open mic events in the city. That lack, as well as a reaction to Christopher Hitchens’s provocative 2007 essay “Why Women Aren’t Funny,” inspired her to create the Christopher Hitchens Memorial Comedy Night and Ice Cream Social, a women-only standup comedy event. To that effect, Mountain put out a call on the Transmodern Festival website for anyone who is “a woman at all” to sign up to perform at the event. “I think women still have to prove they’re funny constantly,” Mountain said. “You could frame it that this is a crowdsourced event that will depend largely on the audience to make it a positive experience for the performers, many of whom have never done stand up but are curious to do it. But it also depends on the performers. I like the idea of it being a new talent situation. And it’s nonhierarchical. It’s untraditional for Transmodern, which is kind of what Transmodern is all about.”
The performances will take place in groups of four or five, MCed by Mountain, with ice cream tastings from local ice cream makers occurring in between each group. The ice creams were chosen with an especial focus on female and minority-owned businesses. To make the event more fun, performers will have their names entered in a raffle to win prizes, including money, Moleskine notebooks for jotting down ideas, and Tina Fey’s Bossypants. All in all, Mountain said, her event is mostly an attempt to get more women into comedy, disrupting the existing male-dominated dynamics of the scene and getting women to “just try it. Standup is necessarily a self-reliant form of performance. The only way you can practice it is by doing it,” Mountain said.
The entirety of the festival is, in its way, almost a crowdsourced activity, simply because of how artists are found and invited to perform. “We individually invite artists to perform, and invite artists to organize or curate events. When somebody’s curating the event they’re kind of conceiving of an idea of how they would fit into the idea we have of Underworld, which is pretty open to interpretation. They invite as many people as they like, and then we tailor a venue,” Drogoul said.
The Festival will take place on a five to seven block radius of galleries and studios, as well as Subbasement Studios and Gallery, the 14Karat Cabaret, and Current Gallery. Festival visitors will also be able to access walking tours, audio tours, and projections that activate the spaces in between various venues. The Festival will kick off officially on the 21st with a parade, a particularly date because of the Festival’s interest in transitions and liminal states, as well as interacting with this year’s theme of Limbo and the Underworld. “We’re going to do it at twilight to celebrate the in between state of day and night, and it’s also the equinox, which is moving from summer to autumn in that day,” Drogoul explained.
Artist and curator Lisa Dillin’s Allogrooming Lounge II will be taking place in the Current Gallery. A follow-up to a previous work performed at the Hamiltonian Gallery in Washington, D.C., the lounge focuses on using braiding, combing, shaving, and manicures to “compare and contrast human social interaction with that of our primate relatives,” Dillin said. The concept of allogrooming comes from primates, who use it to form bonds, create and maintain trust, and diffuse tension in their groups. “Humans have evolved to develop relations in a comparable manner. Our brains are wired to expect familiarity, connection and cooperation with members of a small and intimate community,” Dillin explained. “It was not until relatively recently that humans have joined vast communities with populations beyond that which make it possible to know all of the members of the ‘tribe’ physically and in person. Due to these dramatic shifts in social norms that today’s environ requires, we are becoming increasingly physically isolated from one another and are experiencing a new pattern of touch-deprecation.” Members of the community will be invited to interact with the stylists and volunteers of the lounge through contact with hair, examining the relationship between trust and physical contact. Dillin labels this particular piece “participatory” and not “performance.” However, she considers the two to be related: “They are both live and ephemeral – the difference is that the viewer can engage a participatory piece and even alter the work through their actions.”
This year, the Festival received the 2014 PNC Transformative Art Prize, enabling the organizers to make a “more robust festival,” Drogoul said. Especially exciting is the ability to support the free events the Festival offers, including the free day events, outdoor events, and the parade. Also, the prize will allow the festival organizers to extend more of a stipend to the performers and curators, and to support the general artist community at large. “It’s a community that’s not in a geographical location, per se, it’s a community of performance artists that could be all over the place,” Drogoul said. “We are a community of artists that create with sound, light, action, movement, music, video, film. I think that’s sort of a really awesome move for the prize this year and we were delighted to be able to get the prize.”
Both Mountain and Drogoul have attended the festival for many years, as performers, curators, and visitors, while this is Dillin’s first time as a performer but certainly not her first as a visitor. They have watched the festival change and evolve from its origins eleven years ago to the sprawling, epic event it is today. Yet the intent of the festival, to give a showcase to those whose work inhabits the cracks between the mainstream and subculture, between establishment and experimental, holds true: as Mountain said, “people don’t realize that they have these real treasures floating around in their midst.” Like Hades, whose underground domain held many treasures, the Festival gives Baltimore the chance to enter the Underworld and be amazed.
Full Transmodern Schedule | Get Tickets
Sunday September 21, 2014
3:00-7:00pm EXHIBITION RECEPTION in the Current Gallery featuring
the works of Lisa Dillin, Kirsten Rook, Shana Palmer & Joanna Fields
Allogrooming Lounge II performance by Lisa Dillin
Current Gallery
421 N Howard Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
3-7pm PARADE MAKER-FESTIVAL @ the Current Gallery Backlot
Featuring workshops by Fluid Movement, Music Making byGamalamadingdong, mask-making, lantern making, movement workshops with Alexander D’Agostino and Noelle Angelic Tolbert , audio walking tours by Ruby Fulton and Anna R-g , yoga with Brian Daniloski , popcorn by Queerstories and more
7:00pm the TWILIGHT PARADE steps-off from the Current Gallery Backlot with an illuminated procession to EMP Collective.
8-11pm TMod OPENING CELEBRATION @ EMP Collective featuring
WOLF DOWN UNDER performance curated by Regina Armenta,
In Spite of, or Because performance by Carly Bales
FLOWER PYRAMID by Wynnie Crews and John Somers and MORE
PROJECTION COLLECTION curated by Kelley Bell
PAINTINGS by Susan Lowe
and MORE
EMP Collective
307 W Baltimore Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
Monday September 22, 2014
7:00-8:30 FILM (!Women Art Revolution) & 8:30-11:00pm CONVERSATION WITH SUSAN LOWE
EMP Collective
307 W Baltimore Street,
Baltimore, MD 21201
Tuesday September 23, 2014
8:00-12:00pm FILM SHORTS Curated by Virginia Warwick,
Music by THE ICEBERGS & BONFIRE MAGDIGA
The 14Karat Cabaret
218 West Saratoga Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
Wednesday September 24, 2014
8:00-12:00pm SYNC (Carrie Fucile and Dan Zink) – MONOTONE MONOLOGUES(Hannah Hiaasen) – MINOR TROPHIES (Paul Shortt) – NEVER PUT A BABY IN A CORNER IN THE RAIN (DIANE HUGE and KATIE DUFFY) – THE REFRIGERATOR IS MAKING CRAZY NOISES (THERESA COLUMBUS) –THE LITTLE PRINCE
The 14Karat Cabaret
218 West Saratoga Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
Thursday September 25, 2014
7:00-8:00pm TONGUE TIED curator Sophia Mak and again at 9:15-10:15pm (doors open 30 minutes ahead of time for sign-up)
8:15-9:15 PENELOPE performance
EMP Collective
307 W Baltimore Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
ALSO
8:00-12:00pm CRAWL THROUGH (Noelle Angelic Tolbert and Alexander D’Agostino) – A Manifesto – Pirate Jenny aka PJ – MONICA MIRABILE + SIGRID LAUREN – DARSOMBRA
The 14Karat Cabaret
218 West Saratoga Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
Friday September 26, 2014
6:00-9:00pm EXHIBITION in the Current Gallery featuring the works of :
Lisa Dillin, Kirsten Rook, Shana Palmer & Joanna Fields
Allogrooming Lounge II performance by Lisa Dillin
7:00-8:00pm TONGUE TIED installation/performances curated by Sophia MakAnd again at 9:15-10:15pm (Back Gallery)
7:00-8:00PM SPOKE curated by Megan McShea (Front Gallery)
8:15-9:15 PENELOPE performance(Front Gallery)
EMP Collective
307 W Baltimore Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
AND
9:00-12:00pm CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS MEMORIAL COMEDY NIGHT AND ICE CREAM SOCIAL curated by Lexie Mountain
The 14Karat Cabaret
218 West Saratoga Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
AS WELL AS
9:00pm- 12:00pm over|under LIMBO LAB curated by Labbodies (Ada Pinkston and Hosey Corona) Installation/Performances
Sub Basement Artist Studios
118 N Howard St.
Baltimore, MD 21201
Saturday September 27, 2014
TONGUE TIED curated by Sophia Mak 8-9pm and 9:30-10:30pm @EMP Collective
8:00pm-11:00pm BENEATH/WITHIN curated by Eames Armstrong
FLOWER PYRAMID by Wynnie Crews and John Somers
PROJECTION COLLECTION curated by Kelley Bell
PAINTINGS by Susan Lowe (Front Gallery at EMP Collective)
and MORE
AND
6:00-10:00pm EXHIBITION in the Current Gallery featuring the works of :
Lisa Dillin, Kirsten Rook, Shana Palmer & Joanna Fields
Allogrooming Lounge II performance by Lisa Dillin
Current Gallery Backlot
8:00-11:00pm CALDERA’CADABRA curated by Shana Palmer
SWAN SONG(after-life karaoke) and LOOP-OFF curated by Kelley Bell
MEANWHILE AT SUB BASEMENT
9:00pm- 12:00pm Installation/Performances over|under LIMBO LAB curated by Labbodies (Ada Pinkston and Hosey Corona)
AND THEN!!
THE TRANSMODERN FESTIVAL VIPP AFTER PARTY FEATURING P3CULIAR
A discoliscious dance party featuring jamz from DJ Gino Fieri, your hostess Ellen Degenerate, and more!
Myspace at Franklin and Paca St.
FREE entrance with Tmod wristband
