Art @ Tongva: The Wonder Room
March 27, 2017 8:01 AM
WHEN: Wednesday & Thursday, April 5 & 6, 7:30 – 9 p.m. nightly
WHERE: Tongva Park, 1615 Ocean Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90401
SANTA MONICA, CA -- Tongva Park’s Art @ Tongva program launches April 5 and 6 with the fourth annual The Wonder Room, two free evenings of performances and visual art by an interdisciplinary group of artists who synchronously activate the intimate “rooms” of Tongva Park.
The latest edition of this enchanting and varied event has been expanded for the first time to two consecutive nights. The Wonder Room features new work by acclaimed L.A. choreographer Sarah Elgart and her company, Arrogant Elbow, transforming the mundane into the magical and Grammy Award-winning vocalist Rosalie Rodriguez, with Pepe Flores and Gino Gamboa, performing rarely heard Peruvian boleros from her new, as-yet-unreleased album. Noted light artist and TED Fellow Christine Marie’s interactive, 3D/stereoscopic light spectacles will create an interactive experience, and visual artist Deborah Aschheim’s stunning, luminous ghost cityscapes will be on view. Ana Prvacki’s celebrated work Tent, quintet, bows and elbows, presents musical guests The Blasting Company playing inside a small tent with rhythmic surprises, and special guests Bridget Rountree and Iain Gunn of San Diego’s Animal Cracker Conspiracy round out the evening with their intricately beautiful shadow play Desire to Fly, inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machines and the human quest for flight.
Audiences are invited to stroll and choose their own artistic adventure, discovering each work or performance at their own pace. The program highlights Tongva Park’s unusual geography of gardens, winding paths, and urban vistas, reimagining the small, exquisite spaces of the park designed by James Corner Field Operations, the creative geniuses behind the High Line in New York.
Art @ Tongva is an ongoing series of intimate and informal events that started in 2014. Two more events follow The Wonder Room. On Saturday, May 13, Great Explorations provides an immersive experience of art and culture for families and individuals of all ages, and on June 7 & 8, from 7:30-9 p.m. a two-evening performance of newly choreographed dance work will be presented within the Tongva Park landscape.
The Art @ Tongva series is co-produced by the City of Santa Monica Cultural Affairs Division and Dyson & Womack. The event is free and open to the public. For images please contact Allison.Ostrovsky@smgov.net.
What: Art @ Tongva, the ongoing series of intimate and informal events presents The Wonder Room, an evening of curated art and performances by an extraordinary, multidisciplinary group of artists.
When: Wednesday & Thursday, April 5 & 6, 7:30 – 9 p.m.
Where: Tongva Park, 1615 Ocean Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90401
Cost: Free and open to the public
Directions: Visit www.bigbluebus.com for bus routes to Tongva Park. Ample bike parking is located near each park entrance (Ocean Ave, Main St, and Olympic Blvd).
Parking: Parking is available at Civic Center Parking Structure, 333 Civic Center Dr. First 30 minutes free, $1 per each additional hour. $5 maximum per day.
More Info: For updated information, visit smgov.net/tongvapark/events.
Future events: Art @ Tongva: Great Explorations, an immersive experience of art and culture for families and individuals of all ages, Saturday May 13th. Art @ Tongva: Dance, a two-evening performance of newly choreographed dance work within the Tongva Park landscape, June 7 & 8, 7:30-9 p.m. nightly.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Sarah Elgart / Arrogant Elbow creates work for stage, site, and screen that meld movement, color, music, and media into seamless, genre-defying, theatrical spectacles. Using light, sound, scale, striking visuals and visceral movement, Elgart creates an experience in which familiar locations are transformed from the mundane into the magical, prompting viewers to see them with new eyes.
Rosalie Rodriguez is a Grammy Award winning vocalist, who has also appeared in numerous feature films and national commercials with celebrities such as Mexican comedian Adal Ramones and American Idol Judge Randy Jackson. As a featured performer she has had the opportunity to showcase her abilities all over the world from the Houston Astrodome to the beautiful Teatro Degollado in Guadalajara, Mexico, sharing the stage with performers such as Linda Ronstandt, Joan Sebastián, Marco Antonio Solis, Vicki Carr and Cristian Castro.
Deborah Aschheim makes installations, sculptures, drawings and videos about memory and place. Recent solo exhibitions include Oficina de Proyectos Culturales in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico; Suyama Space in Seattle; San Diego State University; the Armory Center in Pasadena; Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis, Missouri; and the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh. She has created permanent installations for the Sandler Neurosciences Center at UC San Francisco, for Amazon.com, the Los Angeles Police Department and the City of Sacramento, and her poster series, The Zeitgeist, is currently on view in the bus stops on Market Street in San Francisco as part of the San Francisco Arts Commissions’ yearlong anniversary of the Summer of Love.
Christine Marie is a visual artist and director creating original lo-fi spectacles of large-scale cinematic shadow theater, film and installation. She seamlessly integrates performers, objects and hand-made special effects to elicit connections with concepts, phenomenology and history in emotional and visually stimulating experiences. She has pioneered the use of 3D/stereoscopic shadow theater by inventing lights that project 30’ shadows that move into cubic space. She studied Wayang Kulit traditional shadow puppetry in Bali, is a former member of ShadowLight theater, and has taught shadow animation at Pixar. Christine Marie is a TED Fellow. She also directs, designs and edits for film and video design.
Ana Prvacki’s videos, services, concoctions and drawings use a gently pedagogical and comedic approach in an attempt to reconcile etiquette and erotics. She aims for a conceptual practice with a low carbon footprint. Her work has been included in many international exhibitions including 14th Istanbul Biennial SALTWATER: A Theory of Thought Forms, Istanbul Turkey 2015, Contour Biennial in Mechelen Belgium 2015, dOCUMENTA 13 2012, Sydney Biennial 2007, Singapore Biennial 2006, and the Turin Triennale 2005. Solo exhibitions and projects include the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston; Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Turin; Institute of Contemporary Arts, Singapore and 1301PE Gallery, Los Angeles. Her works are included in private and public collections and institutions such as MOCA, LACMA and Castello di Rivoli.
Bridget Rountree and Iain Gunn are Animal Cracker Conspiracy, a contemporary collaborative hybrid puppet company invested in peering under the surface of things and pushing the boundaries of live kinetic performance. Joining forces in 2004 with a shared desire to collaborate with one another and create performances that would radically decenter expectations, open new avenues of thought and invoke the uncanny. Their ongoing performance practice is an exploration of where fine art, puppetry, performance art, physical theater, and mixed media intersect.
ABOUT THE CULTURAL AFFAIRS DIVISION
The Santa Monica Cultural Affairs Division brings the City’s art scene to life for residents and visitors by supporting engaging and accessible cultural events for all ages throughout the year. Cultural Affairs nurtures local arts organizations, promotes artist involvement in the community, manages the landmark Santa Monica Civic Auditorium and presents and produces innovative programs citywide at the Annenberg Community Beach House, the historic Miles Playhouse, 1450 Ocean and in the city’s parks, enriching Santa Monica’s reputation as an international cultural destination. For more info visit smgov.net/arts.
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Media Contact
Constance Farrell
Communications & Public Information Manager
Constance.Farrell@santamonica.gov