Two performances at 6:00 and 7:00 PM sharp.
*Please arrive 15 min. prior to each performance.
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there is a limited capacity for in-person attendees of this performance at Smack Mellon. Free tickets are available via Eventbrite; tickets are limited to 3 per order and one performance per person. If you are no longer able to attend, please cancel your ticket(s) via Eventbrite to free them for the next guest.
In conjunction with her solo exhibition at Smack Mellon, Always Begin At The End, Diana Shpungin will present a multidisciplinary performance created for and staged within the installation’s environment. This fifteen minute performance grew out of the artist’s desire to create a wildly cross-disciplinary collaboration among other creative practitioners amidst the loneliness and isolation of the ongoing pandemic. The resulting work incorporates a hybrid of experimental dance and ballet, choreographed by the artist in collaboration with classically trained ballerina dancer Tatiana (Tati) Nuñez, who will also perform in the piece. An original experimental score by renowned musician Mick Rossi (of the Phillip Glass Ensemble) will accompany the performance, into which he incorporated Shpungin’s own amateur out of tune playing on her childhood piano shipped from Riga, Latvia. The title Day For Night, which is also the title of the score, references the eponymous 1973 film by François Truffaut who famously used a filter on the camera lens to turn footage shot during the daytime into night scenes. Day For Night also features costume design by renowned NYC fashion and costume designer David (Debs) Quinn, who used Diana Shpungin’s sculptural work as inspiration.
Concept and Direction: Diana Shpungin
Co-Choreographers: Tatiana (Tati) Nuñez & Diana Shpungin
Dancer: Tatiana (Tati) Nuñez
Musical Composition:
Original Score: Mick Rossi
Out-of-tune Piano: Diana Shpungin
Costume Design: David (Debs) Quinn
Bios:
Diana Shpungin is a Brooklyn based, Latvian born American multi-disciplinary artist who has been exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions in both national and international venues including: The Bronx Museum of Art, Bronx, NY; Sculpture Center, Long Island City, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, AZ; Bass Museum of Art, Miami, FL; Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; SiTE:LAB, Grand Rapids, MI; MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA; The Children’s Museum of Art, New York, NY; The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Locust Projects, Miami, FL; Franconia Sculpture Park in Minneapolis, MN; Fieldgate Gallery, London, England; Futura Center for Contemporary Art, Prague, Czech Republic; Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; Carrousel du Louvre, Paris, France; Invisible Exports, New York, NY; Galerie Zurcher, Paris, France; Marc Straus Gallery, New York, NY; New Discretions, New York, NY; and Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY; in addition to being included in numerous public and private collections in the United States and abroad. Shpungin was awarded the 2019/20 Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant and the 2017 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture. And has also been the recipient of awards, fellowships and residencies from The Foundation of Contemporary Art, The MacDowell Colony, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, CEC Artslink, Dieu Donne, Montello Foundation, Guttenberg Arts, Bronx Museum AIM Program, and Art Omi. Shpungin’s work has been reviewed in publications such as Artforum, Flash Art, New York Magazine, Art in America, Art Papers, Sculpture Magazine, The New York Times, Timeout New York, Zing Magazine, Bloomberg, Timeout London, Connaissance des Arts, Le Monde, Hyperallergic, Whitehot Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, The Boston Globe and The Miami Herald among others. Her work was the subject of PBS’s Art Assignment, Object Empathy and was cited in the introduction of Jerry Saltz’s book Seeing Out Louder. An extensive hardcover book was published in 2016 documenting Shpungin’s monumental project, Drawing Of A House (Triptych) with essays by Paul Amenta and Caryn Coleman, and a book supporting Shpungin’s solo exhibition Bright Light / Darkest Shadow, a decade of hand-drawn animation at MOCA Tucson was published in 2021 with essays by Ginger Shulick-Porcella, Lisa D. Freiman and Richard Klein. Born in Latvia’s seaside capital of Riga under Soviet rule, Shpungin immigrated as a child to the U.S. where the family settled in New York City in the mid 1970’s. She received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, NY and is currently an Assistant Professor at Parsons: The New School for Design in New York City.
Tatiana (Tati) Nuñez is a generous and well‑rounded multi‑disciplinary artist, recognized for her profound physical instrument that articulates at the highest level in the techniques of contemporary, ballet/pointe, and tap dance. A few highlights of her career include being a featured dancer in Ally Bank’s TV Commercial “Anthem”, performing at The Joyce Theater, and Battery Dance Festival. Tati has had the opportunity to work with Camille A. Brown, Ayodele Casel, Anthony Morigerato, Molissa Fenley, Francesca Harper, Milton Myers, Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, Jason Samuels Smith, Derick K. Grant, Ray Mercer and many more. She is also an alumna of various dance programs; The School at Jacob’s Pillow, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ballet Hispánico, and Joffrey Ballet School. Tati is completing her B.F.A (2022) in Dance at NYU Tisch School of the Arts and remains devoted to continue learning throughout her journey as an artist while furthering her artistic and professional career.
David (Debs) Quinn is a fashion and costume designer working in a variety of mediums from theater and dance to burlesque and red carpet gowns. Quinn has designed dance costumes in collaboration with countless NYC based choreographers and soloists including, The Martha Graham Company, Merce Cunningham, and Stanley Love. These collaborations have been presented at The Kitchen, New York Live Arts, Judson Church, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Guggenheim Museum, and many other notable venues and art spaces. Dance View Times said, “Quinn is cutting and draping and coloring the most beautiful dance costumes to be found in New York.” Quinn’s theater work has appeared in numerous traditional and non- traditional venues across America and internationally. One of Quinn’s longest collaborations is with dancer and burlesque star Dirty Martini. Quinn’s work has appeared in many publications including The New York Times and Art Forum and has been immortalized in several books and films.
Mick Rossi’s career has long been defined by the inability to comfortably formalize him or his work. Performing diverse and progressive work rooted in the New York Downtown scene at venues including the Knitting Factory, The Stone, MoMA, Spectrum (Outliers Series), and most recently on the faculty of The New School and the Philip Glass Institute, Rossi is celebrated as “an exemplar of the cross-fertilization between jazz and classical music worlds” and “one of the most lucid, original and creative minds of the New York scene” (All About Jazz). He is simultaneously a twenty-one year veteran of the Philip Glass Ensemble as well as a long-time member of the Paul Simon band as pianist and percussionist, showcasing not only technical proficiency but capable of divergent idiomatic disciplines. He has appeared on ten recordings with Philip Glass, and nine with Paul Simon (including Koyaanisqatsi Live with the NY Philharmonic and So Beautiful Or So What respectively). Rossi has also conducted for Mr. Glass, most recently Book of Longing (Sydney Opera House), Einstein On The Beach (Olivier Award) and Dracula with Philip Glass and the Kronos Quartet.
Image courtesy of Tatiana (Tati) Nuñez.
