| 7:30 to 8:30pm Eastern Time (EDT)
| Performances by Angela Angel’s, Margaret Chase, and Milenka Berengolc
| Hosted by Jake Johnson
Join us for an evening of performances and spoken word art by some of the Socially Distant Artists-in-residence - Margaret Chase, Angela Angel’s and Milenka Berengolc! This series of works will feature poems, songs, and performances exploring solitude, social connection, community, and loneliness.
Event Recording (CC)
Milenka Berengolc
| A cibachrome print by the artist, rendered in blues, purples, and greys. A deep blue amorphous figure on the left side of the image disappears into a fluid cloud of cool colors.
“I uncover a slide of myself buried in a mound of earth. Mold eats at the emulsion, creating a chemical reaction. This transfer of energy now comes to symbolize a psychological shift or metamorphosis. I appear suspended in a moment of self-recognition before the illusion of shattered glass.” |
Bio
Milenka Berengolc is a performance artist and curator. She was awarded a DCA Fund Grant from Staten Island Arts in 2020 for her work-in-progress Jazz Hands,a performance about trembling. Berengolc showcases original material in numerous venues, such as SIA’s Waterfront Festival LUMEN, (Pop-Up Psychiatric Center, 2015-2017); ETG Café (3 Loose Marbles, 2016) and the Brooklyn Museum (La Mer e, 2012). She was the recipient of a DCA Fund Grant from Staten Island Arts (SIA) for Artists Undeterred in 2018, a curatorial project showcasing artists addressing disability in their work. Co-curated with Margaret Chase, this multi-faceted project included RE/Configurations: art, disability, identity at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, SI, and Artists Undeterred: boldly exploring disability at the Pride Center of Staten Island. She moderated the panel discussionWidening the Lens on Disability and interviewed Dr. Carrie Sandahl, as part of the programming at the Newhouse. Berengolc was also awarded a Premier Fund Grant from SIA for the exhibition Life as Art in 2004, at the Vlepo Gallery, SI, which included works by renowned artists Hannah Wilke, Allan Kaprow and Linda Montano. In 2002, she curated Healing/Transforming at the Snug Harbor Studios, SI. Berengolc has an MFA from Bard College. She has long worked in the disability community and is now special projects director at the Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled. Her passion for art and connection to disability are informed by her experiences with neurological and mood disorders.
Statement
Maneuvering through the rough terrain of a bipolar world, I also know the glory. “Touching the Masters,” one of my most significant theatrical performances, led me to focus on becoming a medium for personal healing, an advocate for societal change, and a warrior fighting to end the stigma attached to mental illness – and any disability. For I also rock to the rhythms of Parkinsonian tremor, a condition that will infuse “Jazz Hands,” the performance I am now developing. I create because of – not in spite of – my disabilities. I join my voice with the voices of all disabled artists and people with disabilities.
Formative elements in my work include experimentation with light – passing and blocking light through varied materials and spaces. As I punctured surfaces, the networks of holes and constellations of vibrating light I created became metaphors for what I think of as passing through, emotionally, mentally and bodily. From a deep enclosed place, I reach out to the world beyond the self. I also explored the abandonment I experienced as a child, and in a moment of discovery, found that I could transform the wall inside of me - I could make it smaller, I could make it soft. Here was a portable wall, now enclosing no space! I began to laugh. Vulnerability and anger were joined by humor, and together, formed the living core of my artistic work.
My fascination with sources of healing energy led to new interactive performances. I surge with empathy toward others who also struggle with pain, especially mental and emotional pain. I have found the universal in the personal. I continue creating a lifelike, connective art that is not ironic, but compassionate.
Angela Angel’s
| A blue and purple tinted photo of artist Angela Angel’s sitting on a couch. A close of on her face, while she looks calmly at the viewer, shows glimpses of the living room in the background. A sunbeam shines from behind the artist, creating a warm light on her cheek. |
Bio
Angela Angel’s is a spoken word artist and singer-songwriter raised in the foothills outside of Los Angeles. Although Seattle, Washington has been her home where she has developed her sound, she continues to draw from her Caribbean roots to create music. Her life path has led her to music and teaching at community college in rural Washington.
Angela grew up with a deep love for reading poetry. “I saw Maya Angelou speak at an event when I was 11 years old. Shortly after I read her book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and I admired her strength to tell her story and be authentic at the same time. When I started making music in 2010 that’s all I ever wanted to do. I didn’t grow up singing. I grew up writing. Yet one day I made a decision for my writing to be heard, music was my way.”
Statement
Life continues to be a source of inspiration, and music remains as a medium I use to reflect upon it.
Margaret Chase
| Image Description: (Above) Surrounded by blurred shapes in purple, yellow and white, Margaret Chase performing passionately in front of a microphone. |
Bio
Margaret Chase began doing political street theatre as a teenager, and has worked in the theatre and the nonprofit sector as an artist and fundraiser all her life. She’s a writer, director, actor, and poet, with a BFA in Theatre from Boston University. In 2018 she co-curated “Artists Undeterred,” featuring two exhibitions at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art and the Pride Center of SI that showcased cutting-edge art and performances by more than 75 disabled artists from the US and abroad, supported by a DCA Art Fund grant from Staten Island Arts. For that project, she was awarded a grant from NY Humanities. “Pendulum,” her 2-woman play about mind games in the age of terror, was produced for Manhattan Repertory Theatre’s spring short play competition. She has long been engaged with issues of civil rights, women’s rights, and later, disability rights, after being diagnosed years ago with progressive bilateral hearing loss. She relies upon a cochlear implant and a hearing aid, and likes being bionic. She is working on her 4th play, "Resurrecting Lady Dada: 3 Voices for Now," about female artists of the Dada movement.
Statement
I am captivated by the human impulse toward transcendence, and how that quest affects behavior. I love the rogue’s gallery of humanity, and am drawn to understand what drives people to give themselves over to a vision. I dwell in and explore the intersections of art and disability. Imagining and portraying women’s lives compels me. Environments that push the individual to break through, from strange dystopias to sumptuous dreamscapes, intrigue me. I am curious about transgressors. History and its ghosts interest me. The willingness to be vulnerable and to take risks in performance attracts me, and unexpected theatrical combinations in physicality, voice, characterization, and interaction. All forms of art are living languages, and catalysts to expand the vocabulary of the imagination. Our country’s legacy and practices of racial injustice and division are finally catapulting us into inexorable change. Artists have a critical role to play in this positive evolution. And while the pandemic presents its own complications, I believe that we can find new ways to approach content, presentation, and experience, and create art that matters.
Digital Accessibility
Live Captioning (CART) available
Event information available via shared Google Doc
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