Satellite Collective will present Satellite Tribeca, at Satellite Gallery, over May 9-21 for two weekends of premieres and events from artists across all disciplines, plus new prints, projections, film and photography from featured artists Kevin Draper and Lora Robertson.
Formed in 2010, Satellite Collective features members of the New York City Ballet, visual artists, writers, and composers from across the country. Since then, Satellite has produced 14 seasons of multi-disciplinary work in New York City with an imposing cross section of the city’s young talent. Satellite has evolved since its inception, spinning off several dance and arts nonprofits, and incubates artists collaborating as equals. The company designs performances, arts exchanges, and publications that bring talented artists from all disciplines to work together.
Satellite is working in a new kind of venue for the collective. We are bringing the athletic performance and production values of our performing arts work into a gallery space. Here, we have the opportunity to engage in longer conversations with our audience and more prominently feature the compelling visual artists driving Satellite’s collaborations.
the Satellite Collective team
Satellite Tribeca is designed to foster intimate moments in a classic New York gallery space. In addition to new prints and projections from featured artist Kevin Draper and new film and photography by featured artist Lora Robertson, the Tribeca Show will consist of two busy weekends of new music, dance, discussion, and visual art, and film presented by Satellite Collective. Satellite Tribeca will include direct art experience with panels, performances, visual art, screenings, and a view into how creativity informs collaboration.
Satellite Tribeca will also reveal the New York premiere of Sad Blimp Twins, a pair of forty foot long blimps coming to New York for the first time as Satellite’s official mascots. Sad Blimp Twins are a pair of aerostats designed to fly from tall masts and act as cinema screens for public performances. They first flew on the lawn of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum and will premiere in New York inside the gallery at 101 Reade Street. At full inflation, the blimps are fourteen feet in diameter and nearly forty feet long. Designed by Kevin Draper, they act as reminders of distant technologies of observation.
To purchase a “Festival” ticket, giving access to multiple events go here. For more information, go here.
Satellite Tribeca Program
Thursday, May 9, 7:00 – 8:00 pm
SITE SPECIFIC DANCE
NYC Premiere of BODYSONNET’S “please come alone”
From creator-performers Moscelyne ParkeHarrison and Mio Ishikawa of BODYSONNET, “please come
alone” is a series of solo dance performances exploring what it means to be alone, and to come together. In the piece, performers participate in exercises to explore their artistic and narrative values as they devise movement solos. Each performer’s process will culminate in a twenty-minute movement score that shares the same music score and includes movement references to the other solo. The soloists rehearse apart from each other, thus experiencing each other’s work for the first time in performance.
The work was originally performed in The Berkshires, MA in June 2021, and workshopped further with
MFA drama students at Yale University in winter 2021 with Dramaturg Hannah Gellman.
Friday, May 10, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
GIANT PRINTS ON CANVAS, PHOTOGRAPHS ON METAL, and BLIMP MASCOTS
Reception for visual artists Kevin Draper and Lora Robertson and New York premiere of “Sad Blimp Twins”
Open to the public; Register for a free show poster
Kevin Draper’s show “The Cartoon Before The Movie” features large scale prints on paper and canvas created with aerospace 3D software and innovative hand printing techniques. Beginning with nostalgic imagery of an older New York, the imagery looks out toward space, along the avenues of Central Park and the sidewalks of Park Avenue, and sees a future of artificial intelligence and buildings seeking autonomy. Images feature bold industrial colors and a unique, expressionistic use of the architectural drafting language.
Lora Robertson’s show “Agony In The Scrub Pines” features large, complex photographic compositions reproduced on smooth sheet metal. Robertson works with digital cameras produced as part of the Hubble telescope program, and the intense focus on color and light is almost pre-Raphaelite in complexity. With her digital tools Robertson translates the naturalistic settings and historical lighting techniques into photographs that are easily mistaken for paintings until a closer view shows how these have been brought into the present with a wily eye for metaphor and visual easter eggs.
“Sad Blimp Twins” are a pair of forty foot long blimps coming to New York for the first time as Satellite’s official mascots. They first flew on the lawn of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum and will premiere in New York inside the gallery at 101 Reade Street. At full inflation, the blimps are fourteen feet in diameter and nearly forty feet long. Designed by Kevin Draper, they act as reminders of distant technologies of observation. Satellite intends to continue development of Sad Blimp Twins and their use as mobile cinema screens.
Friday, May 10, 7:30 – 9:00 pm
SPOKEN WORD, SOLO PIANO AND ACCORDION, AND VIOLIN-PIANO DUO
NYC Premiere of Stelth Ulvang’s “The Heartbeats of Stars, In Which Aliens Love Louis Armstrong,” a spoken word and music collaboration with Satellite Collective, and violin-piano duo Upstream debuts with co-compositions for piano and violin. Refreshments served.
Stelth Ulvang premieres “The Heartbeats of Stars” inspired by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan’s data capture of love that left our galaxy on Voyager’s gold record. This solo performance for piano and accordion is a meditation on the many orbits in two lives, and the many points of intersection between them.
And Upstream, with 2023 Leonard Bernstein Award Winner Will Healy, debuts violin-piano duo Upstream with George Meyer, performing a live program of co-compositions for piano, cello, viola, violin by these Juilliard-trained composers, reaching into hip-hop, bluegrass, and jazz.
Between and among world tours, Stelth Ulvang of the Lumineers has crafted spoken word and developed scores and theme songs for Satellite Collective films. He first appeared with Satellite on the stage of BAM Fisher.
Thursday, May 16, 7:00 – 8:30 pm
BALLET SCORE FOR STRINGS AND NEW INDIE CLASSICAL
NY Premiere of “Liar Lear King” ballet score for strings by Ellis Ludwig-Leone. Performed live, with a performance of his “Past Life” for violin, cello, and piano. And three compositions by Will Healy, 2023 Leonard Bernstein Award Winner and Founder, SHOUTHOUSE. “Root Position”, “Chimes”, “Mariners” performed live with violin, viola, cello, and piano; and reception for visual artists Kevin Draper and Lora Robertson
“Liar Lear King” premiered in 2022, co-produced by Grand Rapids Ballet with choreography by San Francisco Ballet Alum and Oregon Ballet Theater Artistic Director Danielle Rowe, score by Brooklyn-based composer and indie classical phenom Ellis Ludwig-Leone, and film and scenery by Kevin Draper and Lora Robertson. In the runup to the New York premiere of the full ballet, the full thirty minute score will be performed live at Satellite Gallery, 101 Reade Street, with Ludwig-Leone conducting. “Liar Lear King” explores themes of narcissism and bullying, and their impact on our families.
Juilliard-trained composer and bandleader Will Healey will present solo piano work inspired by his Opus in development, Orbit – a piece that lays out a musical galaxy in which heavenly bodies interact, evolve, and eventually reach consciousness. Healy served as Music Director for the premiere of Aaron Severini’s score for “Echo & Narcissus” with Satellite Collective at BAM Fisher in 2018. This new work draws from Healy’s compositional experiments with hip-hop, jazz, and classical music.
Friday, May 17, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
FILMMAKER’S SYMPOSIUM
“Adventures in Film Funding” and a Sneak Preview of “Liar Lear King” Animated Short
Filmmaker’s Symposium: The toughest, wildest, and least talked-about challenge of independent filmmaking is finding the money. Join a group of award-winning filmmakers as they share the horrors and triumphs of getting their films green-lit. Hosted by Nikhil Melnechuk, and featuring directors working across the indie film landscape, Abby Kollek, Sylvia Ray, Manon Gage, DJ Daughtry, BODYSONNET, and more! Followed up by a sneak preview and discussion of the inventive animated short Shakespeare adaptation “Liar Lear King” by Lora Robertson and Kevin Draper. Drinks will be served.
Saturday, May 18, 7:00 – 8:30 pm
ARTS PANEL w/FILM AND LIVE BALLET
“The New York of Gordon Matta-Clark: Alive in the City Today”
Feature Performance: “Central Park, Earlier In Time”, inspired by Satellite Collective’s “Echo & Narcissus”
Panel moderator Paulina Ascencio Fuentes lives and works between Guadalajara and New York City. She has worked with the Gordon Matta-Clark archives and the Estate on several research projects and exhibitions. Her research outlines transdisciplinary modes of knowledge production and transmission.
Registration Required; includes performances and refreshments.
This intimate panel discussion will focus on creative collaborations between the Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark and Satellite Collective, Site:Lab, and other arts organizations in the US and UK. Panelists will explore how Gordon Matta-Clark’s vision and work in the 1970s can inform 21st Century multimedia performance, dance, and contemporary art. Following the panel, Satellite presents the New York premiere of Central Park, Earlier In Time, a dance work with projection incorporating the drawings of Gordon Matta-Clark. This work is in development for stage presentation.
In his short but prolific career, Gordon Matta-Clark centered collaboration at the core of his artistic practice. Ensconced in the downtown art scene of the 1970s, he not only incorporated film, dance, performance and food into his own work but also regularly participated in other artists’ projects such as performing in Joan Jonas’s film Song Delay, designing set ideas for Mabou Mines, or dancing with the Trisha Brown Dance Company.
Collaboration being central to Gordon Matta-Clark’s legacy, the Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark works with contemporary artists in the generation of new pieces in dialogue with his ideas. Satellite Collective is inspired by similar collaborative methods brought forward into a digital age. Although the art economy has radically changed since the 70s and 80s, the city remains a powerful source of raw material for commentary and transformation. How can engaging in a dialogue with an artist of the past inspire new work that addresses our present moment?
The evening will include a screening of a Gordon Matta-Clark short film with introduction by Co-Director of his Estate, Jessamyn Fiore and a feature performance of live ballet and projection. Using Gordon Matta-Clark’s drawings as source material, Satellite artist Kevin Draper has translated them into three-dimensional space bringing Matta-Clark’s images into a futuristic New York.
Panelists include: Jessamyn Fiore, Co-Director, Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark; Artists of SITE:LAB, and Kevin Draper and Lora Robertson, Satellite Collective.
Feature Performance : “Central Park, Earlier In Time”
