Great Small Works

SPAGHETTI DINNER January 31, 2012

2012-01-13T06:20:00.000-08:00

GREAT SMALL WORKS SPAGHETTI DINNER

TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2012

America is Home
2012
LISTENING TO MILITARY FAMILIES AND VETS

Meg McLagan and Daria Sommers, directors of the film LIONESS (http://lionessthefilm.com), about new experiences of women in combat, AND Brian Palmer, director of the film FULL DISCLOSURE

will show excerpts of their films about Iraq

Lead organizers of Veterans for Peace Direct Action Team will share images and ideas from their work followed by general discussion with the whole room, moderated by Jenny Romaine and Joel Kovel.

THE TABLETS (girl band) and their handmade live mixed video projections

BRYN KELLY, singing star and philosopher of the Gay Ol' Opry

CROSBY (rapper, clock maker), The Youngest Mayor of the Lower East Village

One Arm Red

10 Jay Street, 9th floor

DUMBO, Brooklyn

7:30 PM

$15

Info: 917-319-8104

SPAGHETTI DINNER December 30, 2011

2011-12-16T06:56:00.000-08:00

GREAT SMALL WORKS SPAGHETTI DINNER

Occupy The New Year!

Friday, December 30, 2011, 8pm

Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South, NYC

$15 suggested donation (no one turned away for lack of funds)

info: 917-319-8104

featuring...

LEGS ON 'OLIDAY

Little Did Productions

Director/lead puppet designer & builder: Jessica Lorence, performers/builders/designers: Emily Norton, Luke Santy, Sarah Whalen

LITTLE ORPHAN GENDER REVOLUTIONARY ANNIEA toy theater video by Dr. Kate Sorensen, Niknaz Tavakolian, & Killer Sideburns

THROUGH THE HEADLIGHTS

Projections, music, and dance from Montreal by Zuzu Knew (Design), Julia Thomas (Choreography) & Tyr Jami (Sound), and...

SYNGJA

Tyr Jami, manipulated cello, samples, voice & Zuzu Knew, layered overhead projections, re-interpreted traditional Icelandic folk songs, psychedelic-pop and recordings of the sister team's Icelandic great-grandmother, with analogue projections

OCCUPY THE HOLIDAYS

The Occupy Wall Street Puppetry Guild with a holiday tale featuring Mayor Michael Bloomscrooge and the ghosts of Occupations Past, Present, and Future performed by members of OWS Arts & Culture

WOLLESONIC MEETS WOLLESCENIC

Light & sound installation by Kenny Wolleson & friends

BALKAN BOOGALOO

Music for dancing by Jessica Lurie and friends!

SOIREE in Great Small Works studio 10.23.2011

2011-10-18T19:21:00.000-07:00

After a summer-long hiatus, the Soiree is back!

Join Great Small Works for an evening which will include some songs, some puppets, and presentations from members of Organizing 4 Occupation (O4O) who are working to block foreclosures, and members of the newly-formed Occupy Wall Street Puppetry Guild.

20 Jay Street, Room 214

DUMBO, Brooklyn

Sunday, October 23, 2011

7:30 PM

And if you have a story, a poem, a tune, a video, an idea... please bring it to share.

Wine and juice will be served.

And it's FREE!

Info: 917-319-8104

OCCUPY WALL STREET

2011-10-05T07:22:00.000-07:00

Great Small Works member Jenny Romaine will join Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and Domestic Workers United TODAY in a community/labor march to Wall Street. Puppet chickens, the Sukkos Mob, and a squawk for economic justice!

When: Wednesday, October 5th, 4:30 PM
Where: Meet at City Hall (250 Broadway) Look for the JFREJ Banner, the giant shofar, and several giant chickens.
Join unions, worker and community organizations, and the rest of us that make up the 99% to demand that Wall Street and the wealthiest New Yorkers pay their fair share. Join JFREJ as we march to Wall Street with Domestic Workers United and many of our other allies to show the faces of New Yorkers hardest hit by corporate greed and corruption.

BONK! Brooklyn's HONK! Festival

2011-10-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

Just back from the HONK! Festival in Somerville, MA, Hungry March Band writes:

A week ago we learned that our fellow travelers from across the U.S.A., Chicago's Environmental Encroachment (EE) and Seattle's Titanium Sporkestra (Sporks) were coming to NEW YORK CITY after the 6th annual HONK! Festival in Boston, MA. Realizing it'd been two years since we'd hosted these folks in NYC at BONK! -- Brooklyn's response to HONK! - we jumped on this opportunity to make a show for our friends in New York City!

Join us and local Brooklyn Balkan-inspired favorites Raya Brass Band in welcoming EE and a good handful of SPORKS to NYC on Wednesday, October 5th.

BONK! The 2011 Brooklyn HONK FESTIVAL
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Galapagos Arts Space
16 Main Street
DUMBO, Brooklyn
Doors at 8pm
Tickets $10

with

HUNGRY MARCH BAND
Raya Brass Band
Environmental Encroachment
Titanium Sporkestra

BONK! THE 2011 Brooklyn HONK! Festival is a NYC follow up to the annual HONK! Festival held in Somerville, MA. Celebrating the spirit and artistry of d.i.y. brass band culture, BONK! embraces a street-smart interpretation of global brass music by musicians across north America and Europe. Like its older sibling, HONK!, BONK! places emphasis on community building, inclusivity, and the participatory making of music and merriment.

Great Small Works at DUMBO Arts Festival

2011-09-10T06:08:00.000-07:00

Great Small Works Spaghetti Dinner
Friday, September 23rd, 8 PM
St. Ann's Warehouse
38 Water Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn

With guests THE ASPHALT ORCHESTRA and
Great Small Works productions The Three Graces and
The Sukkes Mob in "Truth in Gay Clothes: Your Goose is Cooked!"
plus other guests TBA.

AND...

Great Small Works Lunar New Year Dumbo Rebirth Procession
Saturday, September 24th
Tobacco Warehouse - Water Street (opposite St. Ann's Warehouse - DUMBO, Brooklyn)
Workshops 11 AM to 1 PM and 2 PM to 4 PM
Processions 1 PM and 4 PM

Open public workshops to create banners and puppets for Great Small Works'
Lunar New Year Dumbo Rebirth Procession for Chickens, Brass Band and Eggs-istential Solutions for our City.

Taking to heart the oft-heard cry to "Go Forth, Dress Up, and Have Fun," we invite the public to help articulate the challenges we face in our city and our neighborhoods. Help stencil on banners, and create egg-centric cardboard cutout icons to hatch creative solutions to our common problems, and then join us in the streets of DUMBO.
http://dumboartsfestival.com/events/great-small-works-workshop/
http://dumboartsfestival.com/events/spaghetti-dinner/

Great Small Works in Huntington, Long Island

2011-07-21T17:59:00.000-07:00

PUPPETS ON THE SOUND
a Puppet Slam Café at the
CINEMA ARTS CENTRE, HUNTINGTON, NY

Thursday, July 28th at 8PM

with GREAT SMALL WORKS as MCs for the evening

Cinema Arts Centre - Sky Room
423 Park Avenue Huntington, NY 11743
(631) 423-7611
www.CinemaArtsCentre.org
www.huntingtonarts.org

Produced by the Huntington Arts Council, Cinema Arts Centre, and The Puppet Company. Funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Suffolk County Office of Cultural Affairs, NYCBF, and the Town of Huntington.

Ice Cream Sunday Is Coming!

2011-07-17T21:25:00.001-07:00

A special GREAT SMALL WORKS Spaghetti Dinner...

Milk Not Jails * Jenny Romaine* Great Small Works Spaghetti Dinner*

Dixon Place Hot! Festival and Gaby Cryan*

invite you to an ice cream social.

Ice Cream Sunday is coming to Dixon Place!

Sunday July 24, 2011 6:30-930

Dixon Place's Hot! Festival of LGBTQ Performance.

$10.00 ice cream, game tickets and the show!

161A Chrystie St. Between Rivington and Delancey www.dixonplace.org

Milk Not Jail's says: “If rural New York’s economic survival depends on my habits,

I’d rather drink their milk than go to their prison.”

Melt your mind with fresh local ice cream and hot queer political desire.

Come to an old fashioned homosexual ice cream social and learn about what milk and jails have to do with one another.

Enjoy ice cream and entertainment

Revel in a garden of glistening glitter cherries, enjoy the milk drunk antics of the Ice cream cone mascot, look exquisite in our photo booth, wander through the flags, the games, the candy stripes, the banners, the costume room,

the hot silk screened patches and zines.

See

Shimmering heavenly MC Killer Sideburns

The Butter Milk Brothers smooth barbershop tones (Xavier, Sully Ross and siblings)
Copper Henningfield (World's Greatest Magician) in a new stage illusion act by Jenny Romainefeaturing

French Phenomenon NiNi, music by Lee Free & Jessica Lurie, additional directing by Jennifer Miller
,
Creamy Cavalcade of Stars

EmJay: creme de la creme of DJ's

Freezy Frozen photo parlor with Jennifer Miller and Lee Houck
Celebrity swirls and rants by The Sylvia Rivera Law Project crew, Becca Blackwell, J. Dellacave, and YOU in the

Full gender spectrum Dairy Princ/ess pageant

Create a persona, project your mission, win amazing economic and political change (and prizes)

ENTER TODAY!

Lovely, delicious, one delightful dream...

Demand a new urban-rural relationship.

And taste good doing it!

"…As an organization MILK NOT JAILS seeks to mobilize and empower new political leaders for criminal justice and economic development reform. The campaign also expects to develop and test new social change strategies, both in it's focus on overcoming the obstacles to criminal justice reform and in its creation of economic incentives-- in this case a dairy marketing cooperative-- for political alliance building."
WWW.milknotjails.wordpress.com
Milk Not Jails on Facebook
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1838599302/milk-not-jails
www.greatsmallworks.org

Ice Cream Sunday Is Coming!

2011-07-17T21:25:00.000-07:00

A special GREAT SMALL WORKS Spaghetti Dinner...

Milk Not Jails * Jenny Romaine* Great Small Works Spaghetti Dinner*

Dixon Place Hot! Festival and Gaby Cryan*

invite you to an ice cream social.

Ice Cream Sunday is coming to Dixon Place!

Sunday July 24, 2011 6:30-930

Dixon Place's Hot! Festival of LGBTQ Performance.

$10.00 ice cream, game tickets and the show!

161A Chrystie St. Between Rivington and Delancey www.dixonplace.org

Milk Not Jail's says: “If rural New York’s economic survival depends on my habits,

I’d rather drink their milk than go to their prison.”

Melt your mind with fresh local ice cream and hot queer political desire.

Come to an old fashioned homosexual ice cream social and learn about what milk and jails have to do with one another.

Enjoy ice cream and entertainment

the hot silk screened patches and zines.

See

Shimmering heavenly MC Killer Sideburns

The Butter Milk Brothers smooth barbershop tones (Xavier, Sully Ross and siblings)
Copper Henningfield (World's Greatest Magician) in a new stage illusion act by Jenny Romainefeaturing

French Phenomenon NiNi, music by Lee Free & Jessica Lurie, additional directing by Jennifer Miller
,
Creamy Cavalcade of Stars

EmJay: creme de la creme of DJ's

Freezy Frozen photo parlor with Jennifer Miller and Lee Houck
Celebrity swirls and rants by The Sylvia Rivera Law Project crew, Becca Blackwell, J. Dellacave, and YOU in the

Full gender spectrum Dairy Princ/ess pageant

Create a persona, project your mission, win amazing economic and political change (and prizes)

ENTER TODAY!

Lovely, delicious, one delightful dream...

Demand a new urban-rural relationship.

And taste good doing it!

Ice Cream Social coming soon!

2011-07-01T18:52:00.000-07:00

Milk Not Jails Ice Cream Social--don't forget!

July 24th.

BANNERS AND CRANKS!!

2011-06-15T15:15:00.000-07:00

A Cantastoria Festival

curated by Dave Buchen & Clare Dolan

HERE's Dream Music Puppetry Program presents a week of pre-cinematic technology in the form of contemporary cantastorias and crankies cooked up by puppeteers, artists, and craftspeople from across the country. A millenium-old art form is rejuvenated and re-imagined, as performers animate paintings and banners alongside texts, songs and stories.

Each evening features several original shorts on a given theme such as: Boom or Bust, Phobia & Fetish, or Sink or Swim. On June 22nd and 23rd, Great Small Works will perform a brand-new cantastoria, Three Graces, in which three mythical graces — Harmony, Strategy and Splendor — float down to earth for an Op-Art romp inspired by Grace Kelly, Grace Paley, Grace Jones and Grace Lee Boggs.

AND, ON SUNDAY, JUNE 19th, from 4 to 7:30 PM, Great Small Works will present the opening event for Banners and Cranks at Pier One in Brooklyn Bridge Park (rain location: the Tobacco Warehouse) in DUMBO on the Brooklyn waterfront.

The Greatest Smallest Band will kick off the afternoon with a parade, followed by simultaneous shows throughout the park. Bring a picnic and the whole family and celebrate Father’s Day and the third longest day of the year with Great Small Works, Bread and Puppet Theater, The Dolly Wagglers, Jonny Clockworks & the Cosmic Bicycle Theatre, Clare Dolan, Sara Peattie, Sam Wilson, Daniel Lang-Levitsky, Theater Oobleck, Redwing Blackbird Theater and the Lubberland National Dance Company, all in full view of the New York Harbor and Lower Manhattan. Free of charge!

HERE Art Center - June 22-26
tix: $15 | use code: blast15
www.here.org
www.bannersandcranks.wordpress.com
http://vimeo.com/24626138

2011-05-27T10:55:00.000-07:00

Ice Cream Sunday is coming to Dixon Place!
July 24, 2011

It’s a family Ice Cream Social from 2-4
and one for adults from 6:30-9:30

Milk Not Jails will melt your mind with fresh local ice cream and hot queer political desire.
Come to an old-fashioned homosexual ice cream social and learn about
what milk and jails have to do with one another.
Enjoy ice cream and entertainment.
Find out what you can do to demand a new urban rural relationship.

Revel in a garden of glistening glitter cherries, and enjoy the milk drunk antics of the ice cream cone mascot and the Milk Maids of Mars, look exquisite in our photo booth, wander through the flags, the games, the candy stripes, banners and zines

while bathing in an aura of full frozen fat.

Lovely, delicious, one delightful dream... a party with live dairy smooth music, info tables, and a creamy cavalcade of stars in the full gender spectrum Dairy Princ/ess pageant.

Cool off with live solutions thinking on ice!

Co-sponsored by MILK NOT JAILS and Great Small Works Spaghetti Dinner/Jenny Romaine

Demand a new urban-rural relationship.
And look good while doing it!

next soiree june 12th

2011-05-25T12:50:00.000-07:00

Another evening of works in progress at Great Small Works' new studio.

Sunday, June 12th, 7:30 PM
20 Jay Street, Room 214

Info: trudico@gmail.com
917-319-8104

SOIREE in Great Small Works NEW Studio 5.22

2011-05-15T12:57:00.000-07:00

You are invited to our second Soiree, a new series of work-sharing evenings in the Great Small Works studio!
7:30 PM, May 22, 2011

Since our first gathering, Great Small Works has relocated. Please come visit our new home and help inaugurate the space. We will again share developing work, and will toast our new studio and our future together in it!
20 Jay Street, Room 214
DUMBO, Brooklyn

Info: trudico@gmail.com

917-319-8104

Above is a photo of a jolly scene from last month, during a presentation by Alexander Gref and Elena Slonimskaya from Moscow. We were instructed to pound on a table to make their straw dolls dance!

SOIREE in Great Small Works Studio 4.10

2011-04-07T08:37:00.000-07:00

You are invited to a Soiree!
7:30 PM, April 10, 2011
45 Main Street, Room 301-303
DUMBO, Brooklyn

Info: 917-319-8104
trudico@gmail.com

The first in a new series of work-sharing evenings in the Great Small Works studio.

Bring your developing poem, puppet, monologue, song, somersault, dance, photograph, film, painting, political analysis.
Or come to see what others are working on.
And join us for a glass of wine.

HOORAY

PURIM March 19th

2011-03-15T08:13:00.000-07:00

It is Purim time again, that festival of Spring Fever, parodies, and masquerade that centers on the Scroll of Esther. For centuries Jews and the people who love them have fashioned home-made pageants like the one we will present with a whole community of folks and JFREJ on March 19th at
St. Cecilia's Church in Greenpoint!!

YOU BETTER WORK
A VERY PRECARIOUS PURIM
A PAGEANT OF LABORERS & LOVERS

Purim is a holiday of inversions where we get so ritually drunk we cannot tell the difference between our enemy (Haman) and our hero (Mordachai). We get so disguised that we become strange to ourselves and mystical to our friends.
We make a lot of noise!
We get so lost, you might say, that we get found again.

Your Local JFREJ/GSW Purim shpil speaks of over reach, overtime pay, courage, the derangement of those in power, and the Domino effect of successful organizing (Go Domestic Worker's United!). It will be an incredible party where we can practice the political improvisation skills we need to join the world wide effervescence.

Hurry Hurry Hurry! Bands! Giant outdoor Puppet Shows!
Cabaret! Masquerade! Riveting and Right-On Installations!
Dancing, organizing and more!!!!

Hope to see you there March 19th.

DANCING::MUSIC::PROCESSIONS::CABARET::INSTALLATIONS

Show starts at 7:30pm, party and dancing go LATE

Check out these Amazing Performers

* Avi Fox-Rosen's Musical Madness
* Schmeckel: 100% Trans Jews
* Yiddish Princess
* The Rude Mechanical Orchestra
* Amazing Amy, the Yoga Yenta, and her Kosher Kontortion
* Shawn Shafner
* exHOTic other
* Haman's Drag Race
* DJ Shomi Noise
* Mira Stroika

But, How Do I Get There? => St Cecilia’s is located at 2 North Henry Street in Brooklyn
· Take the L Train to Graham Avenue
· Walk East on Metropolitan Avenue toward Humboldt Street
· Make a Left onto Humboldt Street
· Turn Right onto Richardson Street
· Turn Left at North Henry

What Should I Wear?
Anything your heart desires, of course costumes are encouraged, join the fun!

Do a mitzvah and volunteer! We need your help with a range of fun jobs - bar tending, ticketing, even clean-up, please click here or reply to the email to sign up. <3

$12-20 SLIDING SCALE//NO ONE TURNED AWAY FOR LACK OF COSTUME OR CASH

Sponsored by Jews for Racial and Economic Justice + Great Small Works with support from PURSUE: Action for a Just World

Steven Ritz-Barr film screening

2010-12-16T10:41:00.000-08:00

QUIXOTE

a film by Steven Ritz-Barr

Don Quixote by Cervantes is one of the funniest and most touching stories ever written. Told here in the language of film by puppeteer Steven Ritz-Barr, with Michael York as the voice of Don Quixote, QUIXOTE is the story of an aging Spanish gentleman who reads so many books about chivalry that he imagines himself to be a knight. Accompanied by his faithful squire Sancho Panza, he embarks on a series of absurdly fantastic adventures across 16th century Spain. 

Marionettes, exquisitely hand crafted by Russian Puppet artist Eugene Seregin, are remarkably brought to life by master puppeteer Steven Ritz-Barr and co-director Hoku Uchiyama.

Produced by Classics in Miniature, Inc. Music by Jeremy Yeremian.

One showing only at Great Small Works’ Studio. FREE!
Friday, Dec. 17, 2010, 8pm

45 Main Street, Studio #303 (betw. Front & Water Sts.)
F Train (York Street Station), A/C (High Street/ Brooklyn Bridge), 2/3 (Clark Street)

Meet the Artist! DVDs on sale at 25% off for your holiday delectation.
Interested in coming? RSVP Stephen Kaplin skactw@tiac.net

END OF YEAR SPAGHETTI DINNER DECEMBER 30

2010-12-09T06:10:00.000-08:00

Judson Memorial Church

55 Washington Square South

New York, New York

Doors open at 7:30

Featuring the Golden Angel Waltz Orchestra for your dancing pleasure!

The Golden Angel Waltz Orchestra will be hosting a "Waltz Ball", which is a ball filled with the most intensely beautiful Waltzes. Waltzes that are from all over the world, dense in sound, seemly sweet but sometimes chaotic and always in three. Yes it is a ball as well, so everyone is required to be in their most flamboyant, most dazzling, most Victorian, most risqué garments. We believe that people these days need a little encouragement for those romantic couples dances so we have also hand-made 19th century dance cards that will facilitate budding waltz enthusiasts to share in the joys of waltzing with all on the dance floor. We also are bringing in four of the most cutting edge dance instructors, who are charming yet slightly twisted in the dance instruction. You see, they are really clowns, the charmers, the instigators, the fashion consultants and yes the dance instructors as well. We have a quite a show that will engage even the most curmudgeon of a fella to experience the joys and silliness of our waltz ball. Everyone will have the opportunity to wear your most beloved fancy party dress that you never get to wear, to share your secret waltz obsession, and most of all to share in a silly night of delightful music and clowning.

Stay tuned for more details.

Great Small Works seeks partner for new space

2010-11-04T06:26:00.000-07:00

GREAT SPACE AVAILABLE !!!!!

SHARE OUR EXPANSIVE studio/office/workshop/rehearsal space

or

Just an office if that is what you need…

Great Small Works seeks a partner for our new studio. The u-shaped space could include an office, storage, and shared workshop and rehearsal space. 24 hour access, elevator, windows, view of the Brooklyn Bridge.
If you just need an office (in a very creative environment) we would consider renting that to you/your business as well!
The Office/Workspace is 120 square feet $750
The office/workspace plus storage and shared workshop/rehearsal space $1,100
The rehearsal space foot print is 18 wide by 36 long

45 Main Street, Room 303
DUMBO, Brooklyn
917-319-8104/646.207.5525
office@greatsmallworks.org

SUKKOS MOB SCHEDULE UPDATE

2010-09-27T12:15:00.001-07:00

The Sukkos Mob has been hitting the streets of greater New York City, disrupting the capitalist landscape, flipping the script on who is “normal,” expanding the notion of who gets to talk to who, making it possible for the streets to belong to us.

Update on Sukkos Mob schedule for this week:
9/27 Show at Sarah Lawrence college cancelled due to rain
9/29 9pm Sarah Lawrence College, Andrews Lawn
9/30 noon Columbus Circle/Central Park (look for us just inside the park)

If it is raining enough to damage cardboard the Mob will perform noonish in the lobby of the
Manhattan JCC
334 Amsterdam Avenue
1, 2 and 3 go to 72nd street
a/c to 59th and change to 1 train
HOTLINE 917.727.0662
COME OUT COME OUT COME OUT!!

SUKKOS MOB

2010-09-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

THE SUKKOS MOB
returns to the streets and sukkahs of New York City with their latest production

“Don’t Let the Sheep Get in Your Eyes!”
an intimate science fiction story knit together with authentic sheeps' wool and music.

You’ll smell the MOB before you see them!
You’ll hear them before you bump into them. How great!

This year’s production features:

-- New compositions by Jessica Lurie
-- Mind expanding sound beds by Wollesonic Labs
-- Spectacle design by Alessandra Nichols, Jennifer Harris, Abigail Miller, and Gaby Cryan, Celia Hart Caro
-- Yiddish translation by Itzik Gottesman
-- Choreography by Abigail Levine
-- Directed by Jenny Romaine

The amazing cast and band includes:
Alicia Gerstein, Joe Dobkin, Gaby Cryan, Daniel Lang-Levitsky, Shane Baker, David Mandelbaum, Amy E. Alterman, JR Hankins, Avi-Fox Rosen, Tina Richerson, Jessica Lurie, Kenny Wolleson, Abigail Miller, BUGZ, Rabbi Alissa Wise (not performing), Sarah Bendix, and Jenny Romaine.

The Sukkos Mob will play exclusively during the holiday of Sukkos from September 23 to September 30.

This year's show is an homage to film maker Alex Rivera.
The Sukkos Mob is a Jenny Romaine/Great Small works production sponsored by Tablet Magazine, The Sonya Staff Foundation
and Grilli Earth Walls.

Schedule of performance times and locations:

Sept 23 SUNY PURCHASE sukkah - 7ish
Sept 24 Union Square Square - 9:30
Sept 25 Dumbo Arts Festival - 7:30 as a prelude to GSW Spaghetti Dinner in front of 10 Jay Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
Sept 26 3 shows!
12 noon in Prospect Park in the Nethermead near the music pagoda
Enter the Park through the Willink Entrance at Empire Boulevard and Ocean Avenue, and follow the Blue Trail directional signs.
4 PM Flushing Meadows Park in front of the Queens Museum of Art, near the Unisphere.
7:30 PM Bronx Sukkah 3338 Bainbridge Ave (for Bronx directions 917.930.0295)
Sept 27 Sarah Lawrence College sukkah 7ish
Sept 29 open looking for nyc club

Sept 30 noon, tba Manhattan

Call Hotline for Rain/ Location Updates (917) 727-0662.

OPEN HOUSE at our NEW STUDIO

2010-09-17T12:23:00.000-07:00

WE INVITE YOU!

Come to an Open House at Great Small Works' new studio:
45 Main Street, Suite 301-303, DUMBO, Brooklyn

Sunday, September 26, 2010, from noon to 5 PM
Come lift a glass with us and check out the new space--
We are still looking for partners to share it with us!!

SPAGHETTI DINNER SEPTEMBER 25th

2010-09-17T12:07:00.000-07:00

GREAT SMALL WORKS SPAGHETTI DINNER
THINKING ABOUT OIL

Saturday, September 25, 2010
during the DUMBO Arts Festival
tickets: $15 (no one turned away)
info: 917-319-8104

we begin with a PROCESSION through the streets of DUMBO!
starting at 7 PM in front of 45 Main Street

The spoon will be delivered! Illumination! Color! Music!
Featuring Brooklyn’s all-volunteer luminary-studded
Greatest Smallest Street Band!

Procession ends in front of 10 Jay Street, at 7:30 PM
Intimate street performance by the SUKKOS MOB
in their latest sci-fi harvest vehicle, Don’t Let the Sheep Get in Your Eyes.

In the year 2010 the Sukkos Mob was too panicked to feel joy. They did not know how to protect themselves. The earth was bleeding. They knew their strategy of non-engagement was not a strategy. So, once again, as they had so many times before, the Yiddish Mob left their homes and set out wandering in the desert of the human spirit for 40 years. They left home to find home again, to find an enhanced idea of the human spirit, to find solutions to take care of each other and the planet…
Stay tuned for the full Sukkos Mob show schedule which will be posted on GSW's web site blog and on Tablet Magazine's Facebook page. The Sukkos Mob is a Jenny Romaine/Great Small Works production sponsored by Tablet Magazine and Grilli Earth Walls.

AND THEN, indoors at

ONE ARM RED, 10 Jay Street on the 9th floor,
SPAGHETTI WILL BE SERVED!

followed by PERFORMANCES:

David McDonough and Adda Birnir of PAPER TIGER TELEVISION will present images and video from the Gulf, which is part of a new Paper Tiger Television production focusing on the BP Oil Spill. In the DIY spirit of Paper Tiger Television, the piece focuses on how individual, private citizens employed whatever tools they had at their disposal to respond to the BP Oil Spill.

GREAT SMALL WORKS
The latest installment of the news-based serial
“Toy Theater of Terror As Usual, Episode 12: Desert and Ocean”
A response to the Gulf oil spill, drone warfare in Afghanistan, and immigrantophobia.

THE CURIOUS SHAPE OF HENS

Emma Alabaster – bass, Emily McCabe – cello, Laura Vuksinich – drums,

Cassandra Burrows - alto sax, and Erin Bell - tenor horn.

They really, especially like it when people have a good time at a show. Their musical brains are coming from some of the branches of American folk music, mostly jazz and the occasional nod to southern hymns and ballads. They also like experimenting. Frankly, they poke around in puddles of dissonance. But, sometimes they just care that their music sounds beautiful. At the end of the show, if you've squinted your eyes to better see if they are making those notes on purpose, thought about dancing even a little bit, and laughed with your teeth showing, they would feel like they've done a good weird deed for the day.

THE HOLLERING MOTLEY ENSEMBLE
Motley Holler of How Do You Do

Tanya Solomon, Rebecca Heinegg and Billy Schultz bring their clown, ballet and eccentric dance backgrounds together to form this evening’s work. Individually they have performed on variety stages the western world over and are happy to come together for this evening. The piece was ensemble generated and directed by Billy Schultz.

Performed with The Curious Shape of Hens.

The Motley Holler of How Do You Do is a motive agent used to increase the volume and diversify the texture of spectacles such as weddings, funerals, religious ceremonies, walks through the park, poker games and North American shopping holidays.

Special guest vocalist XAVIER will sing songs of uncertainty.

His vocal skills have received uncoerced praise from the some of the music industry’s best including TV on the Radio, Mary J. Blige, The Rapture, Pete Tong, D’Angelo, Ashford & Simpson and Lena Horne, as well as a Diesel U Music Award nomination. He’s hollered on records with Scissor Sister Del Marquis, Basement Jaxx vocalists Vula Malinga and Sharlene Hector, Stephin Merritt, and LL Cool J. UK-based music magazine NME calls his music “glorious” and Billboard magazine contends he’s “pure magic.” His recent collaboration with the late Arthur Russell’s bandmates and vocalist Nomi Ruiz is set to be released this fall.

September SPAGHETTI DINNER

2010-07-30T06:03:00.000-07:00

Saturday, September 25th, 8 PM

One Arm Red

10 Jay Street, #903

Dumbo, Brooklyn, NY 11201

$15.00 (no one turned away)

Great Small Works will present its first Spaghetti Dinner of the season at the beautiful One Arm Red during the weekend of the Dumbo Arts Festival. An evening of music, puppetry, performance, pasta, and glimmering vistas of Lower Manhattan and the East River. Program includes music by The Curious Shape of Hens, and the latest in Great Small Works' news series "Toy Theater of Terror As Usual." Let us talk about oil...

Stay tuned for more program info!

Toy Theater Festival a Huge Success! Still needs help.

2010-07-13T20:05:00.000-07:00

Great Small Works' Ninth International Toy Theater Festival is now ended, and words of praise and thanks are coming in from around the globe. But--time is running out for us to meet our Kickstarter goal. Please make a contribution now and help us fight back the forces of Being-in-the Red! Go to: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1256400278/great-small-works-9th-international-toy-theater-fe-0

We thank you!

Here are some unsolicited comments from our friends:

"Just wanted to congratulate on the fantastic breadth and scope of the 2010 Toy Theater Festival so far and the whimsical variety, ingenuity and glorious playfulness of the Temporary Toy Theater Museum. .. I know I speak for many in sharing with you our gratitude for the conscientiousness, coordination and thoughtfulness that is evident in the design, direction and presentation of this outstanding theatrical event."
----Carol Sterling, Brooklyn Arts Council

"I can't thank you enough for your valor, expertise and patience with the students and me throughout the experience. You should certainly consider this one of your resounding successes."
----Robert Tomlin, Queens High School for Arts and Business

"The festival had such a positive and affirming air. .. I am perpetually struggling to reconcile my belief in the importance of art with a sense of extreme urgency about the myriad social and ecological crises we face... Thank you for all of your immense work to continue the Toy Theater Festival, for bringing so many people together, celebrating the small and the intimate, portable, home-made and historic..."
----Valeska Populoh, Puppeteer

coming up at the Toy Theater Festival!

2010-06-08T12:28:00.000-07:00

Program 3--

Wednesday, 6/10 and Thursday, 6/11 at 7:30 PM

A MINI-INVASION FROM LOS ANGELES

Dan Froot (L.A.) and Dan Hurlin (NYC) team up to present "Who's Hungry - West Hollywood," a full-length Toy Theater production based on personal stories from West Hollywood's homeless.

Marsian (also from L.A.) presents "Fudgie's Death"

and local puppeteers Concrete Temple Theatre present "Hudson to China"

Program 4--

Thursday, 6/10 at 10 PM and Friday, 6/11 at 7:30 PM

Renowned puppeteers from all around the country!

Bread and Puppet Theater (VT)

Clare Dolan (VT)

Kyle Loven (Seattle)

Open Eye Theater (Minneapolis)

2010-05-29T07:59:00.001-07:00

Opening Reception for Temporary Toy Theater Museum and Greatest Smallest Parade

The Great Small Works
Ninth International Toy Theater Festival

opens the

Temporary Toy Theater Museum

with a

Reception & Parade!

Come to St. Ann's Warehouse and see the finest examples of historical and contemporary Toy Theaters, with works by collectors and
visual artists reinterpreting the Toy Theater form, including a group of
classic Spanish stages. (FREE!)

Greatest Smallest Parade • 3:00pm
The Opening Reception will be heralded by the first-ever Greatest
Smallest Parade! Tiny floats accompanied by a full-force marching
brass band will wind through the sidewalks of DUMBO and finish at the
Warehouse, where all the shoebox-sized rolling masterpieces will be
displayed. (FREE!)

Reception • 4:00 to 7:00pm
Meet the artists and view the expansive exhibition!

Sunday, May 30th, 2010
3-7pm
St. Ann's Warehouse
DUMBO, Brooklyn
www.stannswarehouse.org
www.greatsmallworks.org

Great Small Works performs at Queens Museum of Art

2010-05-25T20:11:00.000-07:00

On June 6^th Great Small Works will perform a brand new episode of their signature photomontage news serial, The Toy Theater of Terror as Usual (their first since 2002). The performances will take place at the Queens Museum of Art as part of their “First Sunday” event. The live shows are part of a “Terror As Usual” retrospective included in the Curse of Bigness Show currently running at the QMA.

An extra special attraction of the premier will be a co-performance with a team from The High School For Arts and Business in South Corona Queens. The students have been working with Great Small Works teaching artists all spring to devise their own news based, montage, toy theater shows.

The Terror As Usual series began in the fall of 1990, during the countdown to the first Gulf War, as a way to respond to the everyday terror of reading about current events in the newspaper. Come out on June 6^th 2010 to see how 3 generations of politically engaged artists turn the news of the day into prismatic useful and entertaining spectacle. Get inspired to re-mix the images and tell your own story!

Great Small Works will perform at 1:00 and 3:30.

Great Small Works Toy Theater Festival in the Schools and at the Queens Museum of Art

During the Spring of 2010 fifty five students from The High School for Arts and Business in South Corona Queens began working with Great Small Works teaching artists to create photo montage news based toy theater shows. The project was inspired by a retrospective Great Small Works was asked to create by Larissa Harris as part of the Curse of Bigness Show at the Queens Museum of Art. While preparing the 13 stages that would be installed around the Panorama of New York City at the museum, and by looking at old video footage and piecing together an historic timeline we remembered how useful these mysterious little news shows actually were for collective thought. In the twilight of the newspaper era we thought it would be very cool to share the tools we had learned for responding to the news with a younger generation of artists.

We are grateful to Robert Tomlin, the students, and the principal of the High School for Arts and Business for dedicating classroom time to critical thinking and writing about the news. Also, for allowing messy processes like puppet building, rehearsing and the collaborative work that goes along with this art form to take over for a while.

Schedule:

Great Small Works, and students from the High School for Arts and Business will present three premier Toy Theater of Terror As Usual shows during the Festival. We hope you will attend!

June 6^th Queens Museum of Art

1:00pm--Great Small Works and students

3:30 PM-- Great Small Works

June 6^th 8PM St Ann’s Warehouse

Toy Theater Festival Cabaret--Great Small Works

June 8^th 5:30 PM at St Ann’s Warehouse

with students

GSW Teaching artists: Jenny Romaine, Laura Ayers, Stephen Kaplin, John Bell and Sam Wilson

Faculty partner at High School for Arts and Business: Robert Tomlin

Special Thanks: to the staff of the Queens Museum of Art--Laura Groskinsky and the education department, Larissa Harris, and many others. Also to the Emily David and Joseph S. Kornfeld Foundation for their generous support of this project.

Opening Reception for Temporary Toy Theater Museum and Greatest Smallest Parade

2010-05-25T20:09:00.001-07:00

"Toy Theater of Terror as Usual" at Queens Museum of Art

2010-05-09T13:57:00.000-07:00

In the mid-19th century, home entertainment often involved toy theater: a mass-produced proscenium theater performed on a living room table with flat cut-out characters and scripts based on the popular hits of the day. The tradition thrived in Europe and the United States until it was superseded by film and television (a different kind of box that sits on the living room table). In the early 1990s, an experimental theater group now known as Great Small Works rediscovered the medium as a tool to address major contemporary events shaping New York City and the world. Using excerpted philosophical works and cut-out images from newspapers and magazines glued to stiff backing, moved expressively and given voice by five visible puppeteers hovering around a tabletop proscenium stage, The Toy Theater of Terror as Usual (1991- 2002) satirized with Dada-inspired photomontage the run-up to the first Gulf War, the L.A. riots, and intersections of art, AIDS, and real estate that characterized New York in the Bush Sr. and Clinton years. For the Curse of Bigness, the group restages selected scenes as tableaux in 13 rudimentary theaters installed on the walkway surrounding the Panorama of the City of New York, in a dramatic juxtaposition of miniature spectacles. Recreated scenes include a moment from Episode 7: Metro Section, in which Olympic athletes soar above a two-level backdrop of New York City's skyline while at ground level a recumbent skeleton marks the 1991 discovery of the African Burial Ground and the final scene from Episode 9: Doom, which illustrates an urban utopia as described by downtown artist and visionary Jack Smith, with a chorus of Greek women atop an old Bronx bank building rebuilt as a cultural center; a gaggle of naked babies and yellow baby chicks; two giant hands with crossed fingers for luck framing the top of the stage opening; and a herd of cows draped with dollar bills. "I can imagine a million ways," Smith writes, "for the world to be completely different."

Although most New Yorkers now associate the word terror with the September 11th attacks, the majority of these works were created before that date. The title and content of the series were inspired by anthropologist Michael Taussig’s essay “Terror As Usual,” which drew on Walter Benjamin’s 1940s idea that “‘the state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule." Great Small Works combined this concept with the group's own perception of the media complicity in the run-up to the first Gulf War, and discovered that re-using images and texts from the daily news on a toy theater stage allowed them to articulate and communicate their own sense of what was taking place all around them.

Video footage of performances at venues such as P.S.122, the Bread and Puppet Museum, the Henson International Puppet Festival, and 1991 anti-war events will also be on view. The group’s reinvention of the toy theater form spurred a world-wide revival, which Great Small Works showcases bi-annually with an International Toy Theater Festival, the ninth iteration of which will take place at St. Ann’s Warehouse from May 30 – June 13th 2010. Great Small Works will create first new episode of the Toy Theater of Terror as Usual since 2002, to be performed at both QMA and St. Ann's Warehouse on June 6th.

Larissa Harris

Curator
Queens Museum of Art