New York City Center To Showcase Video Art

A video display wall will be among the highlights of the newly restored and revitalized New York City Center when it reopens this October, adding a modern element to the theater's transformed orchestra lobby. The video wall will showcase an evolving roster of video content and create new synergy between the visual and performing arts and their audiences. The New Museum, located on the Bowery in Lower Manhattan, will curate three installations in the inaugural year, beginning with a series of video works by New York-based artist Rashaad Newsome.

The video wall will feature six 36" x 80" high-definition plasma monitors that will be visible to pedestrians on 55th Street through new glass doorways, making the art accessible to thousands of people each day.

"With the addition of the video display wall, theatergoers' artistic experience will begin the moment they walk through the door," said Arlene Shuler, City Center President & CEO. "We are thrilled to be collaborating with the New Museum on this exciting project. The exhibits will bring a fresh new element to City Center's programming and introduce our audiences to visual artists they might not otherwise have discovered."

New Museum Director Lisa Phillips said, "We are very excited to be partnering with New York City Center and expand our program of institutional collaboration, allowing us to bring contemporary art to a wider audience in NYC."

The inaugural video installation will include a series of video works by New York-based artist Rashaad Newsome (b. 1979 in New Orleans, La). Newsome's powerful video and performance works explore the dynamics of culturally specific material from a diverse range of sources. Long fascinated with the dance form known as vogue, which originated in New York City's gay ballroom scene in the 1960s and '70s, the artist invited contemporary vogue dancers to be recorded performing. The resulting video works, which will debut at City Center, isolate and abstract the dancers' movements in the absence of a soundtrack, as Newsome remixes and reframes footage to choreograph a new dance.

New Museum
The New Museum is the only museum in New York City exclusively devoted to contemporary art. Founded in 1977, the New Museum was conceived as a center for exhibitions, information and documentation about living artists from around the world. From its beginnings as a one-room office on Hudson Street to the inauguration of its first freestanding, dedicated building on the Bowery designed by SANAA in 2007, the New Museum continues to be a place of ongoing experimentation and a hub of new art and new ideas. The New Museum is located at 235 Bowery at Prince Street. Visit newmuseum.org for more information.

New York City Center
New York City Center has played a defining role in the cultural life of the city for nearly 70 years. It was Manhattan's first performing arts center, dedicated by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in 1943 with a mission to make the best in music, theater and dance accessible to all audiences. Today, City Center is home to many distinguished companies, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Manhattan Theatre Club; a roster of renowned national and international visiting artists; and its own critically acclaimed and popular programs. The Tony-honored Encores! musical theater series, now in its 19th season, has been hailed as "one of the very best reasons to be alive in New York." Dance has been integral to the theater's mission from the start, and dance programs, including the annual Fall for Dance Festival and a partnership with London's Sadler's Wells Theatre, remain central to City Center's identity. City Center is dedicated to providing educational opportunities to New York City students, teachers and the general public. City Center is currently undergoing an extensive renovation and restoration to revitalize and modernize its historic theater. A gala re-opening is scheduled for Tuesday, October 25, 2011.

For more information about New York City Center's historic renovation and restoration, and its video art installations and exhibits, please visit www.NYCityCenter.org.

Need more Broadway Theatre News in your life?
Sign up for all the news on the Spring season, discounts & more...