WSB 100 to Celebrate William S. Burroughs at Incubator Arts Project, 4/22-27

As announced last week, Incubator Arts Project is closing its doors. Before the organization leaves St. Mark's, the group is presenting WSB 100 by William S Burroughs as part of its final lineup of artists.

WSB 100 is a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of America's preeminent avant garde literary iconoclast: William S. Burroughs, writer of Naked Lunch, Queer, Junky, and many other experimental works of great American literature. Provocative, disturbing, and exciting as the artist himself, WSB100 and Incubator Arts hosts a series of original world premiere performances in honor of the legendary mindbending troublemaker himself.

James Igenfritz and Stephanie Sleeper's collaboration DELETED SCENES is the focus of the week, with performances Friday-Sunday. Deleted Scenes is a collaboration between composer James Ilgenfritz and choreographer Stephanie Sleeper, pairing Ilgenfritz's Anagram Ensemble with Sleeper's companysleepdance. The work explores the literary and existential legacy of William S. Burroughs, incorporating texts by Burroughs himself, as well as writers George Bataille, Kathy Acker, Austin Osman Spare, and Supervert. The work explores the relationship between action and object, between the mundane and the transcendent. Ilgenfritz's score itself is an anagram, incorporating the world premieres of numerous works, for voices, violin duo, and chamber ensembles of various sizes. These new works, along with unused choreography from past fully developed sleepdance pieces, are cut up cut-up and the materials are presented out of order, in a tribute William Burroughs' and Brion Gysin's Cut-Up technique, giving new meaning to the name Anagram Ensemble.

Additional events will take place at Anthology, as well as at The Stone, CUNY Graduate Center, Incubator Arts, Issue Project Room, and The Poetry Project, and will include musical performances, public readings, academic panels, film screenings, multi-media, and performance art. Burroughs's presence in the East Village in the late 1970s resulted in some amazing cross-pollination between artists working in literature, music, film, and other media, and WSB100 reflects this influence.

SCHEDULE:

Tuesday April 22

8pm Lydia Lunch & Quintan Ana Wikswo

Thursday April 24

8pm Andre Perkowski

9pm Nick Zedd

Friday April 25

8pm Lea Bertucci + G. Lucas Crane

9pm James Ilgenfritz Anagram Ensemble / Stephanie Sleeper Dance: Deleted Scenes

Saturday April 26

7pm Bhob Rhainey (solo)

8pm Ecstacy Mule presents 'Wild Bill's Burro'

9pm James Ilgenfritz Anagram Ensemble / Stephanie Sleeper Dance: Deleted Scenes

Sunday April 27

7pm Anne Waldman & David Little: Artaud In The Black Lodge

8pm Bob Bellerue: "Material Spirits" & "LSD Oh Yeah".

9pm James Ilgenfritz Anagram Ensemble & Stephanie Sleeper Dance: Deleted Scenes

Bassist and composer James Ilgenfritz has worked in New York's experimental music community for ten years, interacting with visual artists, improvisers, composers, and literary figures. As an improviser James has performed with Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Elliott Sharp, Anthony Coleman, Jin Hi Kim, Jon Rose, Steve Swell, Nate Wooley, Jeremiah Cymerman, and Brian Chase. As an interpreter of notated music, he has also worked with composers Lukas Ligeti, JG Thirlwell, Annie Gosfield, Pauline Oliveros, Ted Hearne, David T. Little, Karin Rehnqvist, Duane Pitre, Kevin Norton, & Gordon Beeferman. He recently completed a tour of the Midwest and northeast with his jazz quartet MiND GAMeS (with Denman Maroney, Andrew Drury, Angelika Niescier). His debut solo recording 'Compositions (Braxton) 2011'features his distinctive solo bass interpretations of the music of Anthony Braxton, and was called "a considerable achievement of solo instrumentalism and an important demonstration of the possibilities open to the double bass in the early 21st century" by Avant Music News's Dan Barbiero. Current projects include his longstanding Anagram Ensemble (which has morphed from jazz quartet to experimental big band to avant-garde theatrical chamber ensemble), Hypercolor (with Lukas Ligeti and Eyal Maoz), Red Triangle (with Chuck Bettis and Nonoko Yoshida), COLONIC YOUTH (with Dan Blake, Philip White, and Kevin Shea), The Curators (with Joe Hertenstein and Mikko Innanen) and Radiant Tongues (with Jason Ponce). In 2011 James was Artist In Residence at Issue Project Room, where he premiered his opera The Ticket That Exploded (based on the 1962 William S. Burroughs novel of the same name). He is coordinator of the WSB100 festival, New York City's month-long celebration of the life and legacy of William S. Burroughs on the occasion of his 100th birthday. James Ilgenfritz holds degrees from University of Michigan & University of California San Diego, and is on faculty at Brooklyn College Preparatory Center & Brooklyn Conservatory.

Tickets can be purchased in advance at incubatorarts.org or by calling TheaterMania at 212-352-3101. Incubator Arts Project (located inside St. Mark's Church) • 131 East 10th Street (at 2nd Ave.) • L to First or Third Ave; R, W to Broadway/8th St.; 6 to Astor Place; N,Q, 4, 5 to Union Sq. Tickets: $13/Single Performances; $23/Full evening pass; $100/Full Incubator WSB100 Week Pass.

Incubator Arts Project cultivates and presents a multi-generational community of artists who challenge the conventions of live performance by producing original work at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery. IAP programs provide access to a fully equipped venue along with personalized career support and strategic investment of resources individually tailored to the needs of each artist.

By providing production opportunities for emerging to mid-career artists, Incubator Arts Project functions as a training ground where formative repertoire is conceived and new work can be constructed as each participant's artistic voice develops a distinct style. In addition to offering artists exclusive access to a theater, technical assistance and administrative support, staff provides professional mentoring and advisement to assist in the process of making well-considered choices in support of artists' long-term stability and success during all stages of their careers.

Core programs include the New Performance Series, Other Forces, Music and Short Form. Incubator Arts Project is fiscally managed by Performing Artservices Inc., a New York based non-profit arts organization, and is artistically led by a team of curators who collectively make programmatic, artistic and organizational decisions.

Since 2006, Incubator Arts Project has presented award-winning work by artists including: Alec Duffy, Banana Bag & Bodice, Bluemouth Inc., Debate Society, Daniel Fish, Half-Straddle, Karinne Keithley, Object Collection, Vampire Cowboys, and Witness Relocation. Incubator artists have seen their work tour nationally and internationally and go on to Off-Broadway runs.