Exiled Iranian multimedia artist Neshat was awarded the Silver Lion (Best Director) Prize at the Venice Film Festival for her first feature film, a magic-realist chronicle of the intertwined fates of her characters. Shirin’s art explores issues relating to her native Iran, especially the position of women. Her photographs and videos, which have been included in many international exhibitions (including TBA) and have received numerous awards, communicate universal ideas about loss, meaning, and memory. WOMEN WITHOUT MEN examines the lives of four women against the backdrop of the summer of 1953, a pivotal moment in Iranian history when an American-led coup brought down the democratically elected prime minister and reinstalled the shah to power. Each of the characters suffers from social, cultural, or sexual oppression, their lives mysteriously converging in an orchard where they attempt to create their own utopian society. In this haunting work, Neshat creates a stark portrait of how difficult life was, and still is, for Muslim women.

WATCH THE TRAILER

VISITING ARTIST—Atlas, who worked with the late modern dance icon Merce Cunningham beginning in 1970, will present a special tribute to the late choreographer that includes excerpts from noted films created with and about Cunningham, as well as rarely-seen footage of the artist and his company. The material will range from early Super-8mm films, to Atlas/Cunningham media-dance collaborations of the late ’70s and early ’80s and recent documentation of the Cunningham repertory.  Among the inclusions: JOINTS (1971), FRACTIONS (1978), CHANNELS/INSERTS (1981), MELANGE (2000), VIEWS ON VIDEO (2005), and INTERSCAPE (2008). In addition to his work with Cunningham, Atlas has made pioneering media/dance works, video installations, documentaries, and video art works in collaboration with numerous choreographers and performers, including Marina Abramovic, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Leigh Bowery, Diamanda Galás, Bill Irwin, and Yvonne Rainer.

Charles Atlas will introduce the film.

WATCH THE TRAILER

VISITING ARTIST—Working at the junction of dance, film, music, and experimental theater, Dayna Hanson makes provocative movies that surface the undercurrents of human interactions. A co-artistic director of Seattle’s innovative dance company 33 Fainting Spells, her films have screened at film and dance showcases internationally. This program of her dance films, experimental shorts, and kinesthetic music videos is highlighted by MEASURE (2001), a moody meditation on rhythm and relations; ENTRY (2003), a solo dance on a sidewalk punctuated by a mistake; DIESEL ENGINE (2006), in which a woman masquerading as Gena Rowlands scrounges for dumpster oil to run her Mercedes; RAINBOW (2007), in which three people react to the mysteries that disturb the air around them; and IMPROVEMENT CLUB (2009), featuring music by Fleet Foxes, which offers a glimpse at a new suite of work that ties Hanson’s rock musical, “Gloria’s Cause,” to a feature film tracing the fictional creation of that piece.

Danya Hanson will introduce the screenings.

WATCH THE TRAILER

CURATED BY STEPHANIE SNYDER—“‘Hard Edge, Hard Work’ presents a group of works by women artists that explore the physical, spiritual, and social properties of abstraction. The program spans the birth of experimental cinema to the present and includes works by non-Western and anonymous artists. Painter Agnes Martin described abstraction as revolution—a continual return to awareness, attention, repetition, and dedication. The films in the program consider abstraction’s modernist legacy while seeking to consider the obsessions and impulses of women abstractionists: their generative relationship to the fundamental reorganization of the world through spiritual, artistic, and activist movements. Among the works featured are Maya Deren’s unfinished Surrealistic collaboration with Marcel Duchamp, WITCH’S CRADLE (1943), and Kate Gilmore’s volatile performance pieces BETWEEN A HARD PLACE (2008) and STANDING HERE (2010), included in this year’s Whitney Biennial.”—Stephanie Snyder.

Program Curator Stephanie Snyder will introduce the programs.

WATCH THE TRAILER

Meticulously adapted from David Morrell’s “First Blood,” which introduced the world to Rambo and his one-man, infuriated rampage against a small town sheriff, FLOODING is in itself a one-man cinematic war. Shot for all of $96 in a 220-square-foot studio apartment in Manhattan and directed, filmed, acted, designed, and edited by Oberzan (an original member of the Nature Theatre of Oklahoma), the film is a testament to the animal ingenuity and triumphant spirit of the lone artist with no resource except creativity. An action-filled drama that gives new perspective to the notion of low-budget filmmaking, Oberzan displays a determination lifted from Rambo’s own passion. “An absolutely amazing concept. Wildly creative and energetic.”—David Morrell. “A deliberately naive piece of work, and even if Oberzan’s performances suggest multiple personality disorder run amok (at one point, using crude double exposure, he looks up his own ass), you can’t say he didn’t mean it.... So far, it’s the best movie of 2010.”—Village Voice.

WATCH THE TRAILER

“Separated by geography, time, and cultural divides from their ancestry, Native Americans have a varied and complex experience of displacement. This program explores some of these feelings through short films and video works from artists across the country including Elizabeth Day’s SUNSHINE (2006), Nicholas Galanin’s TSU HÉIDEI SHUGAXTUTAAN PART I (2006), Savana Rose’s I AM ANISHINAAG (2009), Mona Smith’s BDOTE MEMORY MAP (2009), Emily Johnson’s YUP’IK EYES (2009), Carter Meland’s DIMESTORE HEADDRESS (2010), Andrew Okpeaha MacLean’s THE SNARLING MADMAN (2010), and Priscilla Naungagiaq Hensley Holthouse’s THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING (2009). Co-curated by Minneapolis-based artists Carolyn Lee Anderson, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, and Emily Johnson, of Yup’ik descent, THIS IS DISPLACEMENT is shown in conjunction with Emily Johnson/Catalyst’s performance piece, “The Thank You Bar.”

Program Curator Emily Johnson will present the programs.

Last year, TBA audiences experienced the Young Jean Lee Theater Company’s sly and dark comic THE SHIPMENT. Lee challenged herself, as a Korean-American, to create a politically engaged theater piece about black American identity. Subversive, sharp, and irreverent, THE SHIPMENT raises pointed questions about ethnic appropriation and race relations, distorts stereotypes, and unsettles the audience’s certainties. Young Jean Lee exposes the racial filter through which we unconsciously perceive reality and, beneath the humor, reveals how difficult it is to see the world in terms other than black and white. This year, new and returning fans can catch the performance courtesy of OntheBoards.tv. Seattle performance presenter On the Boards captured the Company’s performance live, one of many high-quality documentations of some of today’s most provocative dance, theater, music, and performance artists they have done.

Mature audiences.

WATCH THE TRAILER