Enter 29.6

PRESS ENTER AT ONASSIS.ORG AND WATCH THE NEW SERIES OF ORIGINAL WORKS MADE AT HOME IN 120 HOURS

WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF ENTER. VISIT ONASSIS.ORG/ENTER.

Video Enter: https://youtu.be/ia-8XRkOcjk

Photos: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7bijlzv0r5gh44c/AABfAKSW_u0kk3v7XV7SYeGma?dl=0

Athens, Berlin, Amsterdam, New York, Los Angeles. Darwin in the garden of Isabella Rossellini; Aris Servetalis fighting with nature; three famous dancers dancing about the new beginning; a collective performance about the here and now; masks in the time of the pandemic; dancing with the clouds; a live-streamed work with six performers in six different locations. Welcome to the world of ENTER. Visit onassis.org/enter.

New works by: Isabella Rossellini and Paul Magid, Effie Birba, Kat Válastur, Okwui Okpokwasili, Liesbeth Gritter (Kassys), Ramsess, Emily Mast & Yehuda Duenyas

The first cycle of Enter comes to a close with a series of works from Europe and the USA. In their second film for Enter titled Darwin, What? What?, Isabella Rossellini and Paul Magid talk to us, from a farm in New York State, about the power of allurement, wondering if beauty is to be found in the eyes of the spectator. In her work Laocoon Syndrome performed by Aris Servetalis, Effie Birba (Athens) creates an allegory on the poetics of human nature in times of anguish. In Slothian days, Kat Válastur enlists three famous dancers in Berlin to declare the new restart with humor and dance. In The Script: Make Yourself at Home, Liesbeth Gritter (Kassys) in Amsterdam creates a work in two parts, consisting of the simultaneous performance of six performers in six different locations, to be followed by a video/film of the production (edited by her), which will be hosted in the digital platforms of the Onassis Foundation. From Los Angeles, Emily Mast and Yehuda Duenyas mobilize artists, writers, computer programmers and lawyers to collectively create How are We, a performance that captures the ongoing situation. From Leimert Park, Los Angeles, Ramsess sends beauty to the world with his masks in the time of the pandemic in Quilted Masks. Finally, in Altostratus: An Allegory, Okwui Okpokwasili dances in Brooklyn with the grey blue clouds as her background.

Works by important artists from all over the world, belonging to different generations and artistic fields, are already available online. Since its launch on April 24, each week, the project has released new groupings of commissions, and in the coming weeks Onassis Foundation will continue to collaborate with exciting partners. For the series’ eighth week, Onassis USA has brought on NEW INC as organizer. Founded by the New Museum, NEW INC is the world's first museum-led incubator for art, technology, and design. They have invited artists and creative technologists including Kristin Lucas, Ari Melenciano, Zhenzhen Qi, Laurel Schwulst, and Molly Soda to contribute to Week 8. Week 7 of ENTER featured artists including Katerina Andreou, Maria Diakopanagiotou, Ioannis Mandafounis, and Eun-Me Ahn. Week 6 included works by Yorgos Zois, Simos Kakalas, Eric Baudelaire, Tim Etchells - Jim Fletcher - Chris Thorpe, ITCHY-O, Ethan Lipton & his Orchestra, Daniel Wetzel. Week 5 was curated by The Chocolate Factory Theater with the following artists: Madeline Best & Brian Rogers, Tei Blow, keyon gaskin, Dynasty Handbag, Annie-B Parson. Week 4 of ENTER was curated by the Queens Museum, who engaged artists including Xin Liu, Samita Sinha, Frisly Soberanis, QUEENSBOUND, and Alina Tenser & Gabo Camnitzer; Greek artists who contributed to Week 4 included Lena Kitsopoulou, Maria Papadimitriou, and RootlessRoot. Week 3 included: acclaimed Independent Spirit Award-winning and Golden Globe-nominated actress and writer Isabella Rossellini and Flying Karamazov Brothers member Paul Magid; Ziad Antar; Evi Kalogiropoulou; Kareem Kalokoh; Risa Puno and Avi Dobkin; RootlessRoot; Kostis Stafylakis, Theo Triantafyllidis, and Alexis Fidetzis; and Akira Takayama. Elias Adam, Simos Kakalas, Vasilis Kekatos, Andonis Foniadakis, Emily Johnson, Kathryn Hamilton (Sister Sylvester), RootlessRoot, and Stefanos Tsivopoulos were featured in Week 2; and the series launched in Week 1 with works from Dimitris Karantzas, Efthimis Filippou, 600 HIGHWAYMEN, Maria Antelman, Kimberly Bartosik, Annie Dorsen, and Radiohole.

Press ΕΝΤΕR to visit more than 55 works, which are already available free of charge or time limitations, and explore artistic works that reflect on the current situation. ENTER will return with new works in September.

In brief

Isabella Rossellini & Paul Magid, Darwin, What? What?

Video | Duration: 8΄01΄΄

What is Darwin doing at Isabella Rosellini’s garden? Following the video Darwin, What?, presented by Isabella Rossellini and Paul Magid on the 3rd week of Enter, the two well-known artists get out of the house and create the 8-minute video, Darwin, What? What? in their garden, this time throwing a glimpse into one of the most controversial aspects of the theory of evolution, sexual selection. Isabella is reading Darwin’s book “Descent of Man” where Darwin makes his case for sexual selection. She dozes off and Darwin’s ghost appears. Isabella’s clothes have a peacock motif that is giving Darwin a headache. He famously stated, "The sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I gaze at it, gives me a headache.” This stupendous tail could have undermined his theory of evolution by natural selection. While natural selection is the struggle for existence via ever evolving and improving abilities to survive, sexual selection is the struggle for existence using the power of seduction in order to mate. The peacock’s ornate feathers could only be justified by sexual selection. Darwin attributed the development of colorful plumage, songs, and courtship dances to sexual selection. This was very controversial in particular because it recognized that females were not passive at all but have great power in shaping species through their choice of a mate.

A successful model appearing in numerous covers of magazines, a remarkable actress in numerous films who has worked with some of the greatest directors of international cinema, Isabella Rossellini was never the one to rest on her laurels. She has a keen interest in animals, she has made an award-winning series of shorts ("Green Porno", "Seduce Me" and "Mammas offer") after completing a master’s degree on Animal Behavior and Conservation.

Paul Magid, the co-founder of the theatrical comedy musical juggling group the Flying Karamazov Brothers (FKB), has appeared numerous times on Broadway, London’s West End, on TV and in film, has written many plays and has won many awards including an Emmy and an Obie. He is also the co-founder and current director of the New Old Time Chautauqua (NOTC), a not-for-profit organization which, since 1981, has brought education, entertainment, and laughter to underserved communities in the Greater Northwest.

Darwin, What? What? by Isabella Rossellini and Paul Magid

Filmed and edited by Kirsten Tanjutco

Music by Doug Wieselman

Technical support by Roberto Rossellini

Commissioned by: Onassis Foundation

https://www.onassis.org/video/darwin-what-what-isabella-rossellini-paul-magid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1j2b9f6qLI&feature=emb_title

Efi Birba, Syndrome de Laocoon

Video | Duration: 16΄12΄΄

Efi Birba and Aris Servetalis create for ENTER an allegory about the human condition. A native acanthus (Acanthus mollis L.) is torn apart. Arvo Pärt's “Triodion” begins with Trisagion and ends with it. Laocoon’s Group and the allegory of Saint Paisios of Mount Athos. Every beginning of Spring, Aris suppresses the momentum of weeds in the garden.

Efi Birba (b. 1976, Athens) studied fine arts at the Athens School of Fine Arts and graduated delivering a medium-length film (featurette). Since 2008 she is mainly active in the fields of performative arts, theater, cinema, performance, video art, and set design. She is co-founder of the artists’ “Rēs Ratio Network.”

Aris Servetalis (b. 1976, Athens) graduated from Diomedes Fotiadis drama school. Since 1997 he has acted in theater and dancetheater productions. He has also worked in films, television, and radio. He is co-founder of the artists’ “Rēs Ratio Network.”

Concept, direction, editing: Efi Birba

People appearing: Aris Servetalis

Music: Arvo Pärt, “Triodion”, performed by the Latvian Radio Choir, dir. Sigvards Klava (1998)

Commissioned by: Onassis Foundation

https://www.onassis.org/video/syndrome-de-laocoon-efi-birba

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D5lR0KZZnY&feature=emb_title

Kat Válastur, Slothian days

Video | Duration: 5΄

“Slothian days” is a sci-fi story filmed in various locations around Berlin. Featuring three notable performers of Berlin’s dance scene, Τy Boomershine, Ogbitse Omagbemi, and Leah Katz, “Slothian days” is liberating in these striving times, with its humor and dance motivating us to start all over again.

Kat Válastur is a choreographer and dancer born in Athens (Greece) and based in Berlin. Her works are defined by the creation of a distinctive dance and visual language in which our desires, fiction and reality merge into speculative notions creating highly intense atmospheres that challenge the senses with the shifting and intimate qualities. She was acclaimed as a promising talent for dance by the “Tanz” magazine (2016), was a nominee for the George-Tabori award (2017), and was an invited artist at the Institute of spatial experimentation – a project initiated by Olafur Eliasson and the University of the Arts, Berlin. In her latest series of works, “The staggered dances of beauty,” the digital process of ‘morphing’ where an image or a shape transforms into a seamless transition to another, becomes a kinetic technique of bodily transformations. Her latest group piece, “Arcana Swarm,” was supported by the Foundation Hermès in the frame of “New Settings,” and was presented as a work in progress in the context of Live Works -Performance Act Award, volume 7, in Centrale Fies, Italy (2019). It premiered in Berlin at HAU Hebbel am Ufer, in November 2019, and later the same month staged in Paris at the Théâtre de la Cité internationale, as part of the program of Théâtre de la Ville, Paris.

“Slothian days” was created (direction, music, editing, script) by Kat Válastur

Performed by: Omagbitse Omagbemi, Ty Boomershine, and Leah Katz

Camera assistance by: Leon Eixenberger

Commissioned by: Onassis Foundation

https://www.onassis.org/video/slothian-days-kat-valastur

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzYvypANHmM&feature=emb_title

Liesbeth Gritter | Kassys, The Script: Make Yourself at Home

Live performance on Zoom | June 29 & 30 | 20:30 (UTC +3)

Zoom & video

What will happen if a director gives the same solo to six different performers? A solo with a description in painstaking detail what the performer should do and especially how? With action, text, movement, tempo, mise-en-scène and film framing thorough and detailed written out? And what will happen if the director demands these six actors to perform it on the same night, at the same time, with their camera on, in a Zoom meeting? How strictly follows each performer the directions in the script? Will they give each other a place in the spotlight? Will they become selfish-performers, or will they serve each other? In the script, there’s no main cast or supporting cast. There’s only one role and six performers simultaneously bring their own interpretation of the same solo. There is no contact. The performers do their thing separately. They are bound by the script. The script reveals how the interpretation of the solo may differ. The show focuses on the frustration of 'living alongside each other’. The feeling that you, even though you're part of a group, you can’t escape an existential loneliness. “The Script: Make Yourself at Home” will show the uncertain, absurd and ordinary situation most of us are in right now.

A work in two parts: live streamed simultaneous performance from 6 performers in 6 different locations, and subsequent video / film of the performance (edited by Liesbeth Gritter / Kassys) which will be hosted by Onassis’ digital platforms.

Liesbeth Gritter studied Visual Arts before she followed the Master Theatre Academy DasArts in Amsterdam. In 1999 she cofounded Kassys and became the artistic director of the company. She directed, filmed, and edited more than twenty performances, and short movies, always motivated by curiosity, annoyance, amazement, and concern about human behavioral mechanisms. The blurry line between being yourself and pretending plays a major role in her work. The Kassys style is observing, detailed, stylized, visual, hypodermic, physical, and dryly humorous. The performances of Kassys were shown from Amsterdam via Sidney to Brussels, and from Seattle via Lisbon to Frankfurt.

A production of Liesbeth Gritter (Kassys) with Tristero, co-commissioned by Teatro do Bairro Alto and the ENTER program of the Onassis Foundation

Written and directed by: Liesbeth Gritter

Co-written by: Peter Vandenbempt

People appearing : Anne Gridley, Cédric Coomans, Frans Poelstra, José Miguel Vitorino, Leyla Çimen, Marco Mendonça

Commissioned by: Onassis Foundation

https://www.onassis.org/video/script-make-yourself-home-liesbeth-gritter-kassys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CyW7eTqpBs&feature=emb_title

Collectively-created work

Emily Mast & Yehuda Duenyas, HOW ARE WE

Video | Duration: 25΄42΄΄

HOW ARE WE is a collectively-created performance consisting of fifteen 90-second solos made in quarantined isolation during the first wave of Covid-19 in May of 2020. In the week prior to LA's scheduled reopening date, artists made work that responded to 10 prompts proposed by Emily Mast and Yehuda Duenyas. HOW ARE WE is an artifact that at once captures a now seemingly distant moment in time and also engages with a wider set of questions cracked open by the conditions of the pandemic. The final work will be uploaded onto the blockchain as an immutable digital “artifact.” Artists, writers, programmers and a lawyer co-own the work through a “smart contract” ensuring transparent and equal distribution of wealth, thus upending traditional notions of the art market and exchange. HOW ARE WE asks how artistic imagination can come together with technological innovation to reimagine the world at a time when value, equality and humanity are demanding to be radically reconsidered.

Emily Mast's work pulls from a combination of practices – visual art, theater and dance – and is anchored in the production of multi-compositional projects that employ live performance, sculptural installation and video. With every project Mast gathers a micro-community of collaborators with whom she engages in the collective exploration of a given work’s subject matter. Mast believes she has something to learn from everyone. She has staged “choreographed exhibitions” and presented live performances all around the world. In 2018 Emily opened a non-profit space in Los Angeles called Mast on Fig that is dedicated to the development and communal sharing of experiential, live events. It is currently closed to the public due to Covid-19.Born and raised in Los Angeles, Yehuda Duenyas is an experiential artist and director working in a spectrum of mediums from performance to commercial directing. Yehuda creates immersive encounters and interactive environments that sensuously evoke the mythic, the intimate, the ridiculous, and the sublime. His techniques emerge from his passion and experience working in the arenas of immersive theater, intimacy direction, interactive technologies, ride design, reality television, large-scale events, gaming, and physical computing. His work and collaborations have received a Primetime Emmy award, 2 Webby awards, 8 Cannes Lions, 11 Clios, 2 Facebook awards, and an OBIE award, among others. Yehuda received an MFA in Integrated Electronic Arts from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and was a founding member of the award winning New York theater collaborative the National Theater of the United States of America (NTUSA). In addition, his work has been supported by the New York State Council on the Arts, the Greenwall Foundation, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the 9/11 Fund, the Downtown Theater Alliance, the Jerome Foundation, Arts International, Chashama, the Durst Organization, Two-Trees Realty, as well as private funders. Yehuda is also an Intimacy Coordinator for TV, Film, and Theater. He is currently collaborating on a new venture to specifically train Los Angeles-based BIPOC to become Intimacy Coordinators.

Concept: Emily Mast & Yehuda Duenyas

People appearing: Comma, Constance Hockaday, Darrian O’Reilly, David Adrian Freeland Jr., Dorothy Dubrule, Elisabeth Carpenter, Em, Faye Driscoll, Galen Swords, Heyward Bracy, Jay Carlon, Jessica Emmanuel, Mireya Lucio, Shannon Hafez, Stacy Dawson Stearns, Terrence Luke Johnson

Music/songs: “Theme From ‘A Summer Place’” by Percy Faith and His Orchestra

Commissioned by: Onassis Foundation

https://www.onassis.org/enter/how-are-we-emily-mast-and-yehuda-duenyas

https://youtu.be/nV_IVVFdx-k

Okwui Okpokwasili, Altostratus: An Allegory

Video | Duration: 10΄27΄΄

Altostratus clouds are grey or blue grey. The sun or moon may shine through these clouds but it's signaling that a storm is on the way. This is a piece involving movement, sound, and text. It is meant to hold a space for reflection, to consider what hangs above us and how it all may fall.

Okwui Okpokwasili is a Brooklyn-based performance maker. Her work includes two Bessie Award winning productions: “Pent-Up: a revenge dance” and “Bronx Gothic.” Other productions include “Poor People’s TV Room,” and “Adaku’s Revolt.” Okpokwasili recently co-curated the Danspace Project Platform “Utterances from the Chorus.” Her commissions, residencies and awards include: 10th Annual Berlin Biennale Commission, 2018 Doris Duke Artist Award in Contemporary Dance, 2018 USA Artist Fellow, 2018 Princeton Hodder Fellow, 2018 Herb Alpert Award in Dance, LMCC’s Extended Life Program (2013-2016, 2019); The Foundation for Contemporary Arts’ Artist Grant in Dance (2014), MoMA, The Young Vic, Tate Modern. Okpokwasili is a 2018 MacArthur Fellow.

Text & Choreography by: Okwui Okpokwasili

Videography and Sound by: Peter Born

Commissioned by: Onassis Foundation

https://www.onassis.org/el/video/altostratus-allegory-okwui-okpokwasili

https://youtu.be/1-HKR8MqHgM

Ramsess, Quilted Masks

Video | Duration: 5΄25΄΄

"I do what I do as an artist to bring beauty to the world. These masks are my contribution to and acknowledgment of my place as a useful and productive member of our human society."

Ramsess is a self-taught artist and educator who works in multiple mediums, including textiles, painting, mosaic, illustration, and stained glass. He contributed political cartoons and illustrations to “The Los Angeles Times” from 1976 to 1994. A Los Angeles native, Ramsess is a longtime resident and leading creative voice in neighborhood of Leimert Park. A life-long fan and lover of blues and jazz music, much of his art is a reflection of that interest, honoring the musicians and the music they create. Ramsess is a member of the Afro-American Quilters of Los Angeles, a partner of the Alliance for California Traditional Arts.

Created by: Ramsess

Commissioned by: Onassis Foundation

https://www.onassis.org/video/quilted-masks-ramsess

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoI0ljtS4Z8&feature=emb_title

New entries from June 29, 2020

Isabella Rossellini & Paul Magid, Darwin, What? What?

Video | Duration: 8΄01΄΄

Efi Birba, Syndrome de Laocoon

Video | Διάρκεια: 16΄12΄΄

Kat Válastur, Slothian days

Video | Duration: 5΄

Liesbeth Gritter | Kassys, The Script: Make Yourself at Home

Live performance on Zoom | June 29 & 30 | 20:30 (UTC +3)

Zoom & video

Emily Mast & Yehuda Duenyas, HOW ARE WE

Video | Duration: 25΄42΄΄

Okwui Okpokwasili, Altostratus: An Allegory
Video | Duration: 10΄27΄΄

Ramsess, Quilted Masks

Video | Duration: 5΄25΄΄

Already available

Elias Adam, HAMLET, a desktop performance

Video | Duration: 34΄11´´

Eun-Me Ahn, Body & Seoul

Video | Duration: 15΄34΄΄

Katerina Andreou Feat.JULIE

Video | Duration: 16’

Ziad Antar, The Little Boat [Il Était un...]

Video | Duration: 3΄

Maria Antelman, AntiBody

Video | Duration: 1´12´´

Kimberly Bartosik, The Game

Video | Duration: 5´19´´

Eric Baudelaire, The Glove

Video | Duration: 8’

Madeline Best & Brian Rogers, 4 Fixations | The Chocolate Factory Theater

Video / audio: 9΄35΄΄

Tei Blow, Essay in Idleness | The Chocolate Factory Theater

Video | Duration: 8’

Maria Diakopanagiotou, perspective

Video | Duration: 17΄46’’

Annie Dorsen, Training Text, Step 2250

Video | Duration: 6´16´´

Dynasty Handbag, Untitled Emergency | The Chocolate Factory Theater

Video| Duration: 2΄21΄΄

600 HIGHWAYMEN, Fighting World

Video | Duration: 10´57´´

ITCHY-O, Milk Moon Rite

Video | Duration: 13΄35’’

Tim Etchells - Jim Fletcher - Chris Thorpe, We are the King of Ventilators

Video | Duration: 9’

Alexis Fidetzis, Kostis Stafylakis, Theo Triantafyllidis, Notes to Readiness: Step 1

Role-play Game, Video in live-streaming on YouTube

Efthimis Filippou, Video 2: Body Parts, Fabrics and Sports

Video | Duration: 15΄37΄΄

Andonis Foniadakis, st Dominique bd Arago

Video | Duration: 4΄01΄΄

keyon gaskin, How to Get Away With Westworld | The Chocolate Factory Theater

Video| Duration: 2΄43΄΄

Kathryn Hamilton (Sister Sylvester), Every Hologenome For Themselves

Video | Duration: 8΄49΄΄

Emily Johnson, inbetween Kwimiak, blue

Video | Duration: 22΄47΄΄

Simos Kakalas, Tarantino

Video Series |1st | Duration: 3΄04΄΄

Simos Kakalas, Destination Acropolis

Video Series | 2nd| Duration: 3’55’’

Evi Kalogiropoulou, Tiles

Video | Duration: 10´28´´

Kareem Kalokoh, Swim

Video | Duration: 3΄30΄΄

Dimitris Karantzas, Houseplants

Video | Duration: 4΄03´´

Vasilis Kekatos, As you sleep the world empties

Video | Duration: 12΄33΄΄

Lena Kitsopoulou, Lalka

Video | Duration: 13´21´´

Xin Liu, Sleepwalk | Queens Museum

Videogame

Ethan Lipton & his Orchestra, Sleep Train

song | Duration: 6΄30’’

Kristin Lucas, Eat me | NEW INC

generative animation WebXR

Ari Melenciano, Electrocology of Sound Travel | NEW INC

WebVR

Ioannis Mandafounis, Can I take you to the bridge beyond the scene

Video | Duration: 7΄35΄΄

Maria Papadimitriou, Alter Ego

Video | Duration: 2´41´´

Annie-B Parson, 6΄ | The Chocolate Factory Theater

Re-purposed video of live performance | Duration: 3΄10΄΄

Risa Puno & Avi Dobkin, The Quiet: Part 1

Game

Zhenzhen Qi, Quarantinediary.ai | NEW INC

Custom software

QUEENSBOUND 2020 (Nadia Q. Ahmad, Rosebud Ben-Oni, Pichchenda Bao, Nana Brew-Hammond, Jared Harel, Abeer Y. Hoque, Joseph O. Legaspi, Robert Ostrom, KC Trommer), In the Here and Now | Queens Museum

Video | Duration: 4´46´´

Radiohole, Happy Hours

Video | Duration: 10´29´´

Isabella Rossellini & Paul Magid, Darwin, What?

Video | Duration: 8´22´´

Laurel Schwulst, Sunshine Piece | NEW INC

Website

RootlessRoot, Untitled, Part 1

Video Series | 1st video duration: 2΄56΄΄

RootlessRoot, Take your Time

Video series | 2nd video duration: 2’46’’

RootlessRoot, Our Feet