Pages

Monday, July 25, 2011

Exhibition and Collaboration: Green Light Arts' "The Dressing Room"


For Immediate Release 7/25/2011
Contact:
Alexandria Dilks Pandola- Executive Producer
Green Light Arts
Green Light Arts Presents The Dressing Room
for the 2011 Philadelphia Fringe Festival

The Dressing Room is a multidisciplinary performance and visual art piece that explores the rituals and customs performed in a dressing room.  The Dressing Room, created and presented entirely by women artists, explores the conflicts women find in their everyday lives - perseverance against abandonment, nurturing against adversity, and personal pride versus objectification.  Inspired by the 1972 feminist installation WOMANHOUSE, The Dressing Room   seeks to show how women survive these small endless battles.
Directed by Malika Oytimein and featuring new plays by Debra Leigh Scott, Gabrielle Corsaro, Cat Hasson West and Bonnie MacAllister, The Dressing Room runs from September 3rd -17th at The Plastic Club on 247 S. Camac Street  in Philadelphia.  The Plastic Club was founded in 1897 as the first women’s art club in Philadelphia.  Green Light Arts is thrilled to present The Dressing Room at this historic landmark.  Tickets are $15 and performances are at 7pm on September 3, 4, 7, 10, 11, 14 and 17th.  Running time is 60 minutes. 
The Dressing Room interweaves visual and performance art, featuring simpatico exhibits by local artists including Bonnie MacAllister, Alexandria Dilks Pandola and a partnership with the Philadelphia Chapter of the Women’s Caucus for Art, whose members are creating an exhibit that will be showcased during the run.
Green Light Arts explores the relationship between art and social change and we are creating The Dressing Room to continue the conversation that WOMANHOUSE started almost thirty years ago.  WOMANHOUSE was the first public exhibition of feminist art.  Judy Chicago (best-known as the creator of The Dinner Party) and Miriam Shapiro rented an old Hollywood mansion and altered its interior through decor and set-pieces to "search out and reveal the female experience...the dreams and fantasies of women."  WOMANHOUSE explored the function of women in society by creating a nurturing environment for artists to test the boundaries of what it means to be a woman in the modern world.  
In 2010, over twenty of our member artists created The Waiting Room, a multidisciplinary performance that explored the experience of women waiting.  The show performed to sell-out audiences at The Old Pine Community Center in Philadelphia and prompted us to host a screening of the documentary film WOMANHOUSE by Johanna Demetrakas, which documented the original work of art.  This film along with our production of The Waiting Room started a conversation among our members about what we could do next to keep this important work alive.  The Dressing Room promises to do just that.

No comments: