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UPDATE: Review by Cate Blouke at the Statesman's Austin360 "Seeing Things" blog, August 17
Found on-line:
Incidents at the 22 Hotel
by Wura-Natasha Ogunji
The Off Center, 2211-A Hidalgo Street (between East 6th and 7th Streets and Robert Martinez)
Friday, Aug 13 and Sat, Aug 14 at 8 p.m.
TICKET INFORMATION
Incidents at the 22 Hotel takes a post-apocalyptic landscape and imagines what it is to be part of that future. The main character, called ‘Unexplained Presence’ struggles to imagine her own existence. During the performance, she lives two lives, one as an African artifact, full of ancient power, yet motionless. In the other, she must choose to be human and imagine herself into the future. The Porter, a trickster-like character, who accompanies Unexplained Presence on her journey, wears a fantastical mask which also doubles as the hotel itself. The Runners keep track of time as they literally run for as long as this futuristic world exists.
 The work is at once performance art and science fiction. Ogunji says, “It’s my hope that the work engages the bodies of the audience members so that when they are watching the two runners, for example, these characters who literally run for the entire length of the play in an effort to pull time along—they feel that exhilaration and power in their own bodies as if they have been up on stage the entire time. And through that experience they are able to imagine their own futuristic world where they push through and imagine the beauty of the impossible.”
photographs by Sonseree Gibson
Click for link to Incidents at the 22 Hotel at Wordpress
Click for link to Wura videos at blogspot
Click to link to Wura-Natasha Ogunji's website
Performances are for two nights only, 8/13 & 8/14. Tickets are $15. To purchase tickets, and/or get more information about the show and the artist, please go to www.incidents22.wordpress.com
Incidents at the 22 Hotel is supported by The City of Austin’s Cultural Arts Funding Programs
About the Artist
Wura-Natasha Ogunji is a visual artist and performer. Her work investigates the connections between physical actions of the body, memory, history and power. Ogunji’s most recent public performance ‘one hundred black women, one hundred actions’ premiered at Fusebox Festival and was nominated for the 2010 Austin Critics Table Award. Ogunji was awarded The Dallas Museum of Art’s 2010 Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant and has received grants from the Idea Fund, The Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the City of Austin. Ogunji is a selected Artist in Residence as part of the National Performance Network’s Visual Artist Network and has participated in residencies at Can Serrat in Spain and Altos de Chavon in the Dominican Republic. Selected exhibitions include Négritude at Exit Art (NY), Screwed Anthologies at labotanica (Houston) and New American Talent: The 22nd Exhibition at Arthouse at the Jones Center (Austin, TX). She is the curator of 2412, a series of twenty-four hour long performances. Ogunji has a BA from Stanford University (Anthropology) and an MFA from San Jose State University (Photography). She lives in Austin, Texas. www.wuraogunji.com
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