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Doors 7:30pm / Show 8pm
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As part of the arcane transmissions performance series, cloaca projects and The Lab present Alex Tatarsky’s MATERIAL, with live music by Shane Riley.

A trained clown, Alex Tatarsky makes performances that are highly responsive to venue and audience, blurring disciplinary categories as they careen between scripted sequences and unfettered improvisation.

Considering the word “material,” as both the physical substances that comprise an object and the experiences that become a performance, Tatarsky will gather an array of items — from their clown closet, from the garbage, and from the audience — to generate scores and screeds towards a clown fever dream in which they attempt to be possessed, rather than possess, and to follow pleasure amidst the mess.

Show includes rant-songs, associative monologs, and possible an unpleasant birthday clown and a cat in heat: unashamed to scream and writhe all day long.

With live music by Shane Riley. Originally organized by guest curator Taja Cheek for Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing. MATERIAL was commissioned by the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Alex Tatarsky makes performances in the uncomfortable in-between zone of comedy, poetry, dance-theater, and deluded rant—sometimes with songs. Their original solo performances Americana Psychobabble, Untitled Freakout, Dirt Trip, and Sad Boys in Harpy Land have been presented by venues including Abrons Arts Center, The Kitchen, La Mama, MoMA PS1, Playwrights Horizons, The Whitney Museum, and many bars and basements. As curatorial fellow at the Poetry Project, they organized a series on the poetics of rot. Research interests include bootlegs, hellscapes, and compost.

The Lab graciously acknowledges the support of the National Endowment forthe Arts’ Grants for Arts Projects program in the production and presentation of arcane transmissions.