The Moving Company and Friends invites you to Handle with Care, a one night performance event featuring Kyoung eun Kang, Rebecca Pristoop, and C. Tai Tai.
Organized by Laura Bernstein and Rebecca Pristoop.
Handle with Care offers glimpses into vulnerable spaces and private exchanges with objects, the self, and others. Finding ways to contend with external pressures through disarming acts of intimacy, these three performance works ask us to consider the freedom one can obtain through sharing the internal with others.
Care package is an ongoing performance series that Kyoung eun Kang has developed over the last 14 years. For Handle with Care, Kang presents Care Package V, the latest performance in the series. It begins with the artist carrying a care package from her mother in South Korea. This package is unpacked over the course of a performance incorporating sound, objects, and movement. This performance invites the audience into the uniquely intimate relationship that has evolved between the artist and her mother over their period of long separation, exploring the notions of home, time, care, and distance. The Care Package series is one part of the artist's expansive practice created to better understand human nature and the bonds that tie us together.
Rebecca Pristoop’s Another Box explores boundary setting and the lines we draw to make ourselves feel safe and secure while also acknowledging that these boundaries can lead to isolation. How can we balance the need for autonomy with the desire to connect and be seen? Can these boundaries cultivate growth and the ability to thrive? When the Boing Boing leaf withers and turns yellow, do we try to nurture it back to life or simply wait until the leaf falls off its stem to regenerate and grow at its own accord? How do we communicate the invisible thresholds between our performing selves and the pain, fear, and anxiety we carry and hold within ourselves? Using movement, audio recording, and spoken word, Another Box animates the many voices contained within the artist’s psyche, questioning the space between herself and another.
C. Tai Tai’s performance A hard baby tries climbing (to success) is part of the artists ongoing performance series A hard baby. Within the performance, Tai Tai embodies a figure adorned in full body ceramic armor that uses Iyengar yoga inspired movements to move through everyday situations and circumstances. The weight of the ceramic armor physicalizes the negative imprints, or samskaras, that delineate a person's worldview. The performance at FiveMyles begins on the street in front of the gallery. Using gelatin tools, the artist creates a soft path on which her heavy armor pieces can move more easily. As she lubricates her way, Tai Tai is able to remove well worn impediments, both physical and metaphorical, to ease her entry into the gallery.
Biographies:
Kyoung eun Kang is a New York-based artist born in South Korea. Kang works in a wide range of media, including live performance, video, painting, photography, installation, text, and sound pieces. Her work explores geographical and cultural identity and universal human themes such as affection and attachment, raising questions about how we foster and maintain human connection in an ever-changing world.
She received a BFA and MFA in painting from Hong-ik University in Seoul, South Korea, and an MFA from Parsons, The New School for Design, New York, NY. Her work has been exhibited in numerous galleries and museums, including Collar Works, NY; NURTUREart, NY; BRIC Project Room, NY; Soho 20 Project Room, NY; Here Arts Center, NY; A.I.R gallery, NY; The Momentary, AR; The Korean Cultural Center, Washington, DC; Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, Australia; Museum of Imperial City, China, and the National Museum of Modern Art, Korea.
She is a recipient of residencies and fellowships at ISCP ground floor residency, Elizabeth Murray artist residency, I-Park Foundation, ChaNorth, Bric Media Arts, NARS Foundation, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, LES studio program, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and New York Foundation for the Arts. kyoungeunkang.com
Rebecca Pristoop is a New York-based curator, performance artist, and collaborator committed to working with art through the lens of social justice. As a performance artist, Pristoop co-directs The Moving Company and Friends, teaches workshops, and presents solo work that integrates intuitive movement with site and context responsive narratives. Her ongoing “Box” series puts on view her investigations into interpersonal relationships, her sense of self, and her struggle to navigate expectations and restrictions (whether perceived or actual).
Currently, Pristoop is Curator and Senior Program Manager at ArtBridge where she spearheaded their presentation of PRESENT POWER / FUTURE HOPES, which celebrates 50+ outdoor exhibitions by 59 New York-based artists at 16 public housing developments across New York City. The exhibition is on view at The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center from July 8 - 23, 2022.
Rebecca has contributed to and curated exhibitions at numerous museums, non-profit spaces, and universities. She is the recipient of a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and a research award from the Hadassah Brandeis Institute. Pristoop received an MA in art history from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts and a BA in art history and dance from Skidmore College. pristoopcuratorial.com
C. Tai Tai is an artist with roots in New York and California. She is currently in the MFA program for Visual Arts at the University of Chicago, studying how to make ceramic armor, create installations for her performances, and speak more clearly about her art making. Historically, she danced under the name, Tina Wang. Identity, fragility, and resilience are key themes in her work, which draws on her cultural experience as a Taiwanese citizen raised in Latin America. By immersing the body around objects of menial labor, her performances challenge assumptions about where these objects belong, who belongs with them, and their relationship to living bodies.
Her work has been supported by the EMERGENYC 2020, Creative Capital's taller para artistas profesionales, The Sable Project, and the NYFA Immigrant Artist Program. Her work has been hosted by Judson Church, New York Live Arts, Governor's Island, The Lighthouse (with the Mycelial Artists Collective), The Exponential Festival, Chashasma (UES), Dixon Place, the Immigrant Artist Biennial fundraiser, Center for Performance Research (with Donna Costello) and Chinatown Soup to name a few. Grants from Dance/NYC, California Arts Council, and The Foundation for Contemporary Arts have also supported her art making. For other information on her art work and influences, visit taitaistudios.com.
The Moving Company and Friends produces events and performances to create social spaces and temporary communities where people can interact and connect to one another on an immediate human level. At this time, when people are exploring various ways to care for themselves and others, The Moving Company is highlighting artists who create experimental works around themes like healing and intimacy. Some of the pieces are humorous, some are poetic, but all offer a unique perspective on moving from shadow to light. Our particular model of network building empowers our collaborators to invite future collaborators, expanding the variety of voices we support and communities we build.
The Moving Company was formed in 2013 by Tamar Ettun as a collective of artists who focused on researching movement as an expression of empathy. Over time, The Moving Company evolved from a hands-on study group to an active international performance ensemble directed by Tamar. Tamar led the company to perform throughout New York City, New York State, The United States, Israel and Sweden.
In 2019 The Moving Company returned to its roots as a collective and became The Moving Company and Friends. Tamar remains a central instigator, connector, and co-conspirator. The company is now led by Laura Bernstein and Rebecca Pristoop. The Moving Company and Friends.
Kyoung eun Kang, "Care package II," 2017. Photo by Carol Saft