Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble's presents THE ART OF LUV (PART 5): SWIPE RIGHT/ROKE CUPID

The Bushwick Starr is thrilled to present the world premiere of The Art of Luv (Part 5): Swipe Right / ROKÉ Cupid, created and performed by Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble ("ROKE"). The Art of Luv (Part 5): Swipe Right / ROKÉ Cupid is a cycle of sacred love songs for the era of Internet Romance, a meditation on selfhood and intimacy in a mediated society. Three officiants perform an elaborate courtship ritual inside a kaleidoscopic video tent. The ritual is accompanied by live music and text taken from online dating profiles, internet scams, how-to dating guides, and the works of ecstatic poets. In Swipe Right / ROKÉ Cupid, ROKE attempts to imbue our modern search for love with a forgotten spiritual resonance.

The Art of Luv is a multi-part, multi-year, multi-disciplinary series which addresses the mythologies behind normative 21st Century codes of romantic conduct. The products of their practice have taken a range of forms: public ritual-performances, video, sculpture, installation, lecture, and party. The Art of LUV (Part 5): Swipe Right / ROKÉ Cupid is commissioned by The Bushwick Starr.

The Art of Luv is a project of Creative Capital. Location: The Bushwick Starr theater: 207 Starr Street, Brooklyn, NY [between Irving and Wyckoff].

Subway take the L Train to Jefferson Street, exit at Starr Street, walk against traffic on Starr, and the theater is 3/4 of a block on the right. For detailed driving directions visit: www.thebushwickstarr.org/DIRECTIONS Tickets are $20 starting 4/25 at www.thebushwickstarr.org About Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble: Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble [ROKE] is a musical priesthood that explores the metaphysics and mythologies of love, desire, and connectivity in the the VHS and Internet Ages. Formed by artists Tei Blow and Sean McElroy, ROKE generates contemporary ritual out of found media, synthesizing strategies of video, meme, party, opera, theater, social practice, and installation.

ROKE has performed rituals in New York at The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival, Guggenheim Museum, Under the Radar's Incoming! Series, Gibney Dance Center, Kate Werble Gallery, Special Effects Festival at Participant Inc., Prelude Festival, AUNTS Arts@Renaissance, and JACK, and in Philadelphia at FringeArts. ROKE received a 2016 Creative Capital award for The Art of Luv series, and has been awarded a Franklin Furnace Fund grant (2013) and a BAX Space Grant (2014). They were part of The Public Theater's Devised Theater Working Group and PS122's RAMP residency program. They spent the summer of 2014 at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and were 2015 CUNY Hunter Artists-in-Residence in ceramics.

"A conceptually heavy, extraordinarily reflexive, and ultimately mind-expanding piece that questions our contemporary understandings of intimacy and love through our use of the Internet as both a means of communication and a means of reflexivity." - Howlround (review of The Art of Luv (Part 1): Elliott) "ROKE's stated aim--take it as sincere or, given the hokey costumes, decor and projections, ironic or possibly both--is to heal the world, particularly where masculine insecurity is concerned. Maybe everything seen and heard here shares a certain underlying pathology. And maybe, through the wizardry of highlighting those toxic interconnections, these dedicated karaoke masters are among the best healers going." - Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody (review of The Art of Luv (Part 1): Elliott) "Made me a bit queasy. ... Vaguely funny." - Charles Isherwood, The New York Times (review of The Art of Luv (Part 1): Elliott)

About The Bushwick Starr: The Bushwick Starr is an Obie Award winning non profit theater that presents an annual Season of new performance work. We are an organization defined by both our artists and our community, and since 2007, we have grown into a thriving theatrical venue, a vital neighborhood arts center, and a destination for exciting and engaging performance. We provide a springboard for emerging professional artists to make career-defining leaps, and we are a sanctuary where established performance companies come to experiment and innovate. Our past Seasons have included new work from groundbreaking artists such as The Mad Ones, Clare Barron, Dave Malloy, The Debate Society, the TEAM, and Half Straddle.