VALENCIA (THE MOVIES):  

Valencia (The Movies), is an epic, wild DIY collaboration between 21 filmmakers, each of who has accepted the challenge of translating one chapter of the award-winning novel Valencia into a 5-minute short film.

Bringing together filmmakers and other media artists, including photographers and video artists, Valencia will retell the cult classic story of one twenty-something queer girl’s romp through 1990s San Francisco, earnestly chasing urban adventure with a down-the-rabbit-hole sense of wonder.

Once completed, the string of films can and will be shown together, as well as each be able to stand alone as short narrative films, creating 21 short films that operate together to tell a sprawling and energized narrative.

Chapter 9: 

Silas Howard will be directing CHAPTER 9, in which Michelle finds herself, and her lover Iris, in the maelstrom of Iris’s sister’s southern Baptist wedding. Culture clash in the midst of family dysfunction and a near-dog-tragedy come to a head as we witness the complications of judge-y escape artists trying to go home again.

Poster by Cristy Road

Heather Ács ~ this is what we have…

Sometimes what we have is not enough. Sometimes what we have is far too much… Solo performance artist Heather Acs will create something out of nothing to bring you an astronomical evening of storytelling, music, magic, and theatre that needs no stage.

You don’t need to be famous, you don’t need to be rich, dreamin’ is free. Enjoy an intergalactic exploration of adventures, interconnectivity & the story of stardust. Sometimes what we have, is just right.

This weekend’s events also  features two collaborators, Jazzmen Lee-Johnson on Thursday and Saturday, and Geppetta on Friday and Saturday.

		Jazzmen Lee-Johnson is a visual artist, filmmaker, designer, dancer, MC, musician and activist. Upon graduation from Rhode Island School of Design, she traveled internationally to study the “politics of performance” as a Thomas J. Watson Fellow. Her award winning films and animations, such as Beat Back Bush; Songs from The Haven of Despair; Black, White, Whatever; and Soundcheck have been exhibited on every continent except Antartica. Recently Jazzmen has lived and worked between New York and Johannesburg, South Africa, collaborating with artists, musicians, and media professionals on both sides of the Atlantic in a multi-media project and performance tour called Folk Told Me. Jazzmen works with people of all ages wherever folks happen to be, from prisons, schools, and churches to villages and city streets, utilizing art as a tool for social change.
photo by wren warner		Geppetta is a multimedia fabulist, puppeteer, musician and art educator. She presents fairy tales and fables of a darker whimsy crafted from found objects and nostalgic ardor. She has been featured with the Heels on Wheels Glitter Roadshow, Puppet Uprising, and Fresh Meat Productions, among other groups, and has facilitated workshops on gender, art, and activism at colleges and universities around the country. Find her online at stitchingtentacles.co

I have a fantastic list of summer adventures-above and beyond to catch you up on!

My performance at WOW Cafe Theatre’s 30th Anniversary Festival was an incredible success! The audience was full of my closest friends and favorite New York City artists-thanks to everyone for coming!

Shooting a scene for the film, Cooler

In June, I headed out to Los Angeles to be a part of the film, Cooler, directed by Silas Howard and Ernesto Foronda, written by Ernesto Foronda and Valerie Stadler. The cast is a star-studded line up, including actors, like Sung Kang, Sandy Martin and Lee Meriwether, as well as incredible performance artists, such as Justin Bond and Nao Bustamante. There’s too many more to list! Find out more about the cast and film at www.coolerthemovie.com

In Los Angeles, I also acted in another film directed by Abigail Severance-an incredible experimental filmmaker. Abigail’s films have shown at Sundance and many other festivals. Find her work at www.bellecote.org

Before heading back East, I performed and presented at Femme 2010: No Restrictions-the Femme Conference in Oakland, CA. www.femmecollective.com

My feet barely touched the ground and I found myself onstage at Theatre St. Marks as part of the HOWL Festival in the East Village with a phenomenal lineup of performers, poets, and musicians, including M. Lamar, Michelle Krusiec, Geoff Kagan Trenchard, Silas Howard, and Joanna Hoffman, hosted by Reggie Cabico. www.howlfestival.com

AND, the short film Blink, directed by Silas Howard, starring Julia Weldon, Ben Foster, and myself has just been selected for the film festival Mix Brasil in Sao Paulo!

On set of Cooler

Whew! That’s all for now! I will post more details and pictures from all these exciting projects soon. Until then, check out the websites and stay tuned for more!

“what the brain forgets, and the heart denies, the body remembers…”

written and performed by Heather M. Ács

with special guests Topiary and Erin Markey

Thursday, May 20, 8pm

WOW Café Theatre- 59-61 E. 4th Street, 4th floor (btw Bowery & 2nd ave)

F, V to 2nd Avenue, 6 to Astor place

$15, but pay what you can-no one turned away from art for lack of capital

Heather Ács’ piece “what the brain forgets and the heart denies, the body remembers…” explores loss, grief, survival, and memory refracted through working class Appalachian and Mexican cultural imagery, creating a nonlinear world layered with movement, soundscape, video, and storytelling. In this multi-media solo performance piece, time and testimonies loop and break apart, sparrows descend, tortillas and tears sizzle on the comal, a river flows with dirt and glitter, and 60s girl groups croon cotton candy lyrics laced with razor blades, while dust gathers in an empty house. Stitch it all together with string theory and skeleton keys, stuff into a mason jar, shake until your heart might break, check your pulse, make a wish, and see what rises to the surface…www.wowcafe.org 

Topiary’s, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, is a multi-media performance with video, music, aerial and sock puppets about the uncanny rhyming schemes of history, empire and recklessness and will be showing at Dixon Place on Tuesday, May 18 at 8pm.

Erin Markey is an “outlandishly riotous” (Village Voice) playwright, actress, comedienne and performance artist.  She regularly presents original work at Our Hit Parade at Joes Pub, Dixon Place and Envoy Enterprises Gallery and has shown work at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Comix, and Ars Nova. Her solo musical, Puppy Love: A Stripper’s Tail, is playing at PS 122 May 13-22 with the SOLOnova festival. www.facebook.com/erinmarkey

Sunday, May 2, 2:30-5*(note time change)                                         

Triskelion Arts Studio Z-118 N.11^th St, 3^rd Fl, Wburg, BK 11211

(bw Berry & Wythe next to Beacon’s Closet)

SLAPSTICK FOR THE MASSES with Ariel Federow

Presenting Artists: Heather Ács, Erica Cardwell and Open Mic

Slapstick is a style of physical comedy often associated with big red clown noses — and that’s what makes it great. But the lessons of slapstick have as much to do with finding your place inside a strict formal structure as they do learning how to take a pie in the face. Come join Ariel Federow and learn a classic slapstick routine and a little bit more about the magic and history of this ritualized, ridiculous art. Comfortable clothes and a willingness to give it a try are essential. After the workshop segment, please join Heather Ács and Erica Cardwell in sharing new writing and performance work. Heather will workshop new sections of her solo performance show (that may or may not include ABBA!) and Erica will share from an ongoing project on Jean Genet. Then, it’s your last chance for Open Mic! Be bold! Be brave! Art of all kinds is welcome!

*Note on Location: If coming from the L Train-walk on Bedford and make a Left on N. 11^th. If coming from the G Train-walk on Nassau towards Lorimer, then take a beautiful walk through McCarren Park, which will bring you out on Bedford, make a Right on N. 11^th. Now, don’t let the numbers fool you-they get a little crazy bw Bedford and Berry for some reason. Keep going until you pass Berry, then Triskelion (118 N. 11^th) will be on the lefthand side halfway down the block. (For those of you who have been there, it is literally around the corner from Collect Pond.) Also note, that there are 3 flights of stairs to walk up. Please contact me if this presents a problem for anyone, so we can figure out a solution.

Ariel Federow’s work has been seen extensively on Broadway, Lafayette, Fulton, Chrystie, Avenue A, Leonard, and many other fine streets and avenues throughout New York City. Trained as a modern dancer, Ariel’s inherently interdisciplinary work has taken many forms — interactive sculpture, modern dance and dance theater, drag performance and burlesque, collective mapmaking, clowning, and an artistic interrogation into the nature and form of the kitchen sink. Most interested in the intersections of storytelling, participatory environments, magic, and democratizing knowledge, Ariel tap dances about limericks, lectures about unicorns, makes slapstick about apartheid, and builds telephones that tell secrets.

Heather M. Ács is a multi-media theatre performance artist, activist, educator and high-femme troublemaker. Her gritty, glittery work has been featured in festivals, galleries, theatres, colleges and universities across the U.S., Canada, and Europe. She has worked with Nao Bustamante, Karen Finley, Claude Michelle-Wampler, J. Ed Araiza of the SITI Company, and director, Steven Soderbergh. www.heatheracs.com  

Erica Cardwell is a writer/director/teacher from New York City, living in Astoria. Her favorite color is green and she loves pretending to hate technology. She is currently at work on a project inspired by the life of French poet and playwright, Jean Genet. www.theomnivorous.net

Living the Dream,

Heather

Saturday, April 24, 3-5*(note time change)

Triskelion Arts Studio B-118 N.11^th St, 3^rd Fl, Wburg, BK 11211

(bw Berry & Wythe next to Beacon’s Closet)

L to Bedford, G to Nassau

Open Artists’ Share hosted by Erin Markey and Darren Mayhem

This Saturday, EVERYONE will have a chance to share work at our Open Artist’s Salon! Anyone can bring up to 7 minutes of work to share. This means performance work, video, a presentation of a visual piece, etc. Please note that if you are showing video you’ll have to provide your own technical equipment, i.e. laptop etc. We’ll be giving one another directed feedback after each piece, facilitated by performance artist, Erin Markey and photographer, Darren Mayhem. So be brave, bring some work, and connect with other amazing artists in your community!

*Note on Location: If coming from the L Train-walk on Bedford and make a Left on N. 11^th. If coming from the G Train-walk on Nassau towards Lorimer, then take a beautiful walk through McCarren Park, which will bring you out on Bedford, make a Right on N. 11^th. Now, don’t let the numbers fool you-they get a little crazy bw Bedford and Berry for some reason. Keep going until you pass Berry, then Triskelion (118 N. 11^th) will be on the lefthand side halfway down the block. (For those of you who have been there, it is literally around the corner from Collect Pond.) Also note, that there are 3 flights of stairs to walk up. Please contact me if this presents a problem for anyone, so we can figure out a solution. www.triskelionarts.org

Erin Markey is an “outlandishly riotous” (Village Voice) playwright, actress, comedienne and performance artist.  She regularly presents original work at Our Hit Parade at Joes Pub, Dixon Place and Envoy Enterprises Gallery and has shown work at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Comix, and Ars Nova. Her solo musical, Puppy Love: A Stripper’s Tail, will play at PS 122 May 13-22 with the SOLOnova festival. www.facebook.com/erinmarkey

Darren Mayhem is a queer photographer living in Brooklyn. She was first introduced to photography in high school where she fell in love with film and printing in the darkroom. Since then, she’s found that she’s most interested in shooting portraits & events exploring gender and identity. With a love of shooting people (and personas) Darren has recently been focusing on shooting Roller Derby and Burlesque.

Upcoming:

Sunday, May 2, 2:30-5*(note time change)

Triskelion Arts Studio Z-118 N.11^th St, 3^rd Fl, Wburg, BK 11211

SLAPSTICK FOR THE MASSES with Ariel Federow

Presenting Artist: Erica Cardwell and Open Mic

Slapstick is a style of physical comedy often associated with big red clown noses — and that’s what makes it great. But the lessons of slapstick have as much to do with finding your place inside a strict formal structure as they do learning how to take a pie in the face. Come join Ariel Federow and learn a classic slapstick routine and a little bit more about the magic and history of this ritualized, ridiculous art. Comfortable clothes and a willingness to give it a try are essential.

Ariel Federow’s work has been seen extensively on Broadway, Lafayette, Fulton, Chrystie, Avenue A, Leonard, and many other fine streets and avenues throughout New York City. Trained as a modern dancer, Ariel’s inherently interdisciplinary work has taken many forms — interactive sculpture, modern dance and dance theater, drag performance and burlesque, collective mapmaking, clowning, and an artistic interrogation into the nature and form of the kitchen sink. Most interested in the intersections of storytelling, participatory environments, magic, and democratizing knowledge, Ariel tap dances about limericks, lectures about unicorns, makes slapstick about apartheid, and builds telephones that tell secrets.

I’m back from a fantastic tour with the Heels on Wheels Glitter Roadshow! We had an amazing tour from Brooklyn to Austin, TX! Now for building some artistic community at home-I’m excited to announce the next Boxcutter Artists’ Salon this Thursday, April 15 from 7-9:30! Grant-Writing, Glitter House, Daniel Lang-Levitsky-what more could you ask for on a Thursday night? And don’t forget, we have a half hour of Open Mic scheduled at each Salon, so be brave and bring some work to share. Trust me, we want to know what’s going on in your crazy artistic brains! Hope to see you there! Details below…

Living the Dream,

Heather

Thursday, April 15, 7-9:30

Glitter House 16 St. Francis Pl., Prospect Heights, Brooklyn 

(one block East of Franklin, bw Lincoln & St. John)

 2/3/4/5 to Franklin

Grant Writing with Quito Ziegler

Presenting Artist: Daniel Lang Levitsky and Open Mic

Getting grants from foundations or NGOs requires strategic thinking and a certain amount of savvy.  It ain’t rocket science, but there are some tricks.  In this workshop, Quito Ziegler will help us deconstruct and demystify the grant application process from initial research to proposal writing to best practices in maintaining relationships with foundations once the grant is awarded.  We’ll discuss how to decode the language of guidelines and RFPs, plus gain perspective of what arts grantmaking looks like from the inside.

Quito Ziegler is a queer photographer and visual artist based in Brooklyn. By day, she works at the Open Society Institute’s Documentary Photography Project on projects that explore the intersection of photography and social justice.  By night, she makes installations and sculptures, takes photos, plays the piano and makes trouble on the board of JFREJ.  After midnight, you will find her on the dance floor. Quito received her MFA from the International Center of Photography/Bard College in 2008, where she now teaches courses on collaborating with NGOs and grant-writing.

Thought-Provoking Glamour

Heels on Wheels Roadshow is a flashy femme caravan from Brooklyn touring the South with a queer performance-art cabaret. Starring dazzling troublemakers Heather Ács, Damien Luxe, Princess Tiny & the Meats, and Sequinette, the show features a multi-media format of high femme drag, electro music, and piercing, poetic theatre. Expect to see Dolly Parton transformations, stilettos flying, eggs breaking and moods changing. Heels on Wheels delivers a trashy-fancy night of radical extravagance and thought-provoking glamour.

New York City-to-Austin, TX

March 25 – April 3

• 3/25 – Philly
• 3/26 – Baltimore
• 3/27 – Richmond
• 3/28 – Raleigh-Durham/Chapel Hill
• 3/29 – Asheville
• 3/30-31 – Atlanta
• 4/1-2 – New Orleans
• 4/3-6 – Austin

BIOS:

Heather M. Ács is a multi-media theatre performance artist, activist, educator and high-femme troublemaker. She creates nonlinear worlds layered with movement, soundscape, video, and storytelling, refracted through working class Appalachian and Mexican cultural imagery. Her gritty, glittery work has been featured in festivals, galleries, colleges, conferences, divy bars, crowded living rooms, and queer feminist spaces across the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Heather has worked with Nao Bustamante, Karen Finley, Steven Soderbergh, and regularly collaborates with Silas Howard.

Damien “Hadassah” Luxe is a Brooklyn-based queer femme, liberationist artist, writer, creative, and activist. Her work focuses on celebrating extremes of femininity; feminist / queer archiving and storytelling, and on building and skillsharing new frameworks. D’Luxe is co-founder of New York’s Femme Family [femmefamily.com]; the co-creative director of the Hart Collective [hartcollective.com]; and she Art Directed the award-winning $pread Magazine [spreadmagazine.org] for three years. A repatriated expat by way of Toronto, DIY tech geek and communications designer [heelsonwheelsdesign.com], and working-class gone hustling-class high femme fatale, Damien loves rhinestones and anything dramatic on wheels. Download tracks, read stories and her how-to blog: www.axondluxe.com

Sequinette Called a “Drag Impresario” by the New York TImes and a “Dolly Parton-esque beauty” by the Village Voice, Sequinette is one of the most stylized of NYC’s “Female to Female Drag Queens.” She relies on fine couture costuming in drag performances that contain elements of burlesque. She was crowned Miss LEZ 2008 in Murray Hill’s queer beauty pageant, and also starred in Michelle Handelman’s Dorian in 2009. She is the co- producer of multi-media queer dance party “Love Muscle,” and also produced Coney Island’s first ever full fledged drag show, “Hollywood Bitches.”

Chicago is a solo artist who performs under as Princess Tiny and the Meats. Their debut electronic album, “Will S UR D 4 Coin” is to be released early this summer. You can check out their music at [www.myspace.com/princesstinyandthemeats]. Their music brings awareness and education to a broader audience about queer culture. Princess Tiny and the Meats also performs acoustic songs on guitar and piano in a theatrical fairy tale called “Confessions of a Love Sick Teenager”. Chicago is an artist that is dedicated to breaking down the walls of ignorance that have saturated the music industry for what has been – up until now – way too long!

Heels on Wheels Roadshow is a flashy femme caravan

We’re getting in our dreamy van for this epic NYC-to-Austin trip March 25 – April 3!