Roarke Menzies

Upcoming: SIDEWALK at Bushwick Open Studios 2012

Mon, 21 May 2012 13:32:00 -0400

SIDEWALK @ BOS ‘12
June 2-3, 2012, Noon-7pm
Wyckoff Ave between Troutman & Starr (map)

Project Description:

How does a block inform identity? Where does wardrobe meet vernacular? What effect does proximity to iced coffee have on social context?

SIDEWALK is a site-specific, post-durational, conceptual installation that engages an inquisitive meta-conversation at the intersection of personhood and neighborhood by examining the signifiers of the street.

Upcoming: New York Premiere of "Two Alike"

Tue, 15 May 2012 20:46:00 -0400

Jacker Ferver and Marc Swanson: Two Alike

Thursday–Saturday, May 17–19, 8pm
Tickets $15

The Kitchen
512 West 19th Street
New York, NY

Two Alike, a collaboration between Jack Ferver and Marc Swanson, is a visceral and darkly humorous performance exploring the shattering effects of abused queer youth. Existing in an alter-space housing childhood fantasies and turbid adult obsessions, Ferver acts as the emotive flesh and voice inside of Swanson’s eerie mirrored set/sculpture. The performance twists and turns between past and present, with text ranging from pastoral prose to the jarringly confessional, and haunting choreography built from interviews between the two artists, improvisation, and states of trance.

Two Alike premiered as part of the first co-presentation between Diverse Works and the Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston.

Choreographed and Written by Jack Ferver
Set by Marc Swanson Associate
Director: Joshua Lubin-Levy
Music: Roarke Menzies
Costume: Reid Bartelme

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From the New York Times:

“Dark humor is what Jack Ferver does best, but the darkness in “Two Alike” may outweigh the humor, as he and his collaborator, the visual artist Marc Swanson, explore the turbulent psychology of abused queer youth. There is just one performer — the bewitching Mr. Ferver — but his reflection may never be far away: mirrors are central to Mr. Swanson’s sculptural set, which frames the time-distorting solo.”

From The New Yorker:

“The choreographer and dancer joins forces with the visual artist Marc Swanson for their first collaboration, the dance-theatre work “Two Alike.” Ferver, who performs solo, created the movement and text. Swanson, who designed the sets, grew up in rural New England and took part in the San Francisco gay counterculture scene in the nineties. He makes sculptures that deal with male identity. Ferver’s performances are so extreme that they sometimes look and feel like exorcisms.”

Dance critic Theodore Bale reviewing last year’s premiere in Houston:

“It is a mysterious, beautiful, angry and violent work with perplexing sculptural sets by Swanson and a murky sound-scape by Roarke Menzies.”

(Photo: Ricornel Productions)

Upcoming: "Calypso" at The Bushwick Starr

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 21:07:00 -0400

Calypso - a literary performance by Paul Rome and Roarke Menzies

May 9-12, 2012 at 8:00 PM
Tickets: $10 in advance; $15 at the door
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/237333

The Bushwick Starr
207 Starr Street (btwn Wyckoff and Irving)
L Train to Jefferson Ave.

Brooklyn writer Paul Rome and performer-composer Roarke Menzies return to The Bushwick Starr on May 9 – 12, 2012 with their latest collaboration: Calypso.

Penned in what Bushwick BK calls Rome’s “endearingly neurotic” prose and accompanied by Menzies’ “haunting” (T-Rex NYC) soundtrack, Calypso pairs a personal account of a 21st century Manhattan romance with irreverent retellings of two of Western literature’s most iconic epics: Homer’s Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid.

A pair of 20-somethings embarks on a fateful tandem ride through the West Village after hitting it off over a shared love of Haruki Murakami and 1970’s Calypso records. Meanwhile back in Ithaca, Penelope’s patience wears thin as her long-distance relationship is tested by temptation and an unbearable mother-in-law. And on Mount Olympus, Aeneas relives his most conflicted decision: deserting the one woman he ever truly loved.

In Spring 2011, a one-act version of Calypso had Storefront Gallery in Bushwick “packed to the rainy threshold and glow[ing] with laughter” (Bushwick BK). The work has now been expanded into an evening-length production designed for the black box theatre.

Taking cues from innovative monologists like Joe Frank and Spalding Gray, and audio storytellers like Ira Glass and Garrison Keillor, the alternating narratives are read aloud by Rome and Menzies in a vibrant back-and-forth between ancient and current, mythic and commonplace, academic dissertation and bar room confessional. The show’s spare physical presentation gives way to a consuming aural environment wherein storytelling takes the foreground.

About Paul Rome and Roarke Menzies:

Longtime neighbors, Rome and Menzies live and work in Bushwick, Brooklyn where Rome manages the Wyckoff Starr coffee shop. Their most recent collaboration, a studio recording entitled The You Trilogy, was applauded by The Faster Times as “writing that dazzles” delivered “in Rome’s unassuming and quiet, yet commanding monotone.”

Calypso is the latest in Rome’s explorations of audio-centric fiction. The Paris Review Daily cited him as one of the authors using online sound sharing tools in “amazing” ways. Jacob Grimfeld, a twenty-minute boombox-accompanied monologue with “suspense in each sentence” (Bushwick BK), premiered as part of The Bushwhack Series 2011 produced by Bushwick Starr Presents. And once again, a two-act ‘radio’ play featuring a cast of four and live on-stage sound effects, sold out The Bushwick Starr for an “engrossing” (Bushwick BK) single-night performance in Spring 2010.

A frequent collaborator on music, audio and stage works, Menzies recently scored Two Alike, a solo performance by choreographer Jack Ferver that premiered in September 2011 as a co-presentation of Diverse Works and the Contemporary Art Museum of Houston and will be presented in 2012 at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and The Kitchen in NYC. Match Box Dances, a short dancefilm choreographed by Adam H Weinert with music and sound design by Menzies, was selected as Editor’s Pick by Dance Magazine in May 2011 and included in a feature article about making dances for camera in its April 2012 issue. Snag, a duet choreographed by Adam Barruch with music by Menzies, was commissioned for the Reverb Choreographic Project at SUNY Purchase in 2010 and presented at Jacob’s Pillow in 2011.

Rome and Menzies are planning their next audio release, a studio recording of Jacob Grimfeld, for Summer 2012.

(Read the full press kit here.)