{"id":47523,"date":"2019-10-01T10:52:40","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T16:52:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=47523"},"modified":"2023-11-13T13:55:34","modified_gmt":"2023-11-13T19:55:34","slug":"salt-lake-city-library-to-be-transformed-by-the-performance-art-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/salt-lake-city-library-to-be-transformed-by-the-performance-art-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Salt Lake City Library to be Transformed by the Performance Art Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Spectre at The Performance Art Festival, 2018. Photo by Winston Inoway.<\/p><\/div>\n

The 7th<\/sup>\u00a0annual Salt Lake City Performance Art Festival is fast approaching, and the festival\u2019s founder, Kristina Lenzi, has curated 24 presenters whose works are appropriate for all ages, visually and conceptually interesting, and unrehearsed. Lenzi demands that \u201cunrehearsed\u201d remain an emphasized component and descriptor of these works. Unrehearsed, however, does not mean unplanned. Successful performance artists thoughtfully devise tasks, actions, and interactions that force themselves and their audiences to respond to the present moment. The resulting finished products are heavily shaped by decisions made in real-time as opposed to decisions made and honed in advance. Sometimes, performance artists can be as unaware of what to expect as their audiences and as Lenzi shares, \u201cperformance art is experimental \u2026 the risk of failure is always present.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The main branch of the Salt Lake City Public Library will host this gathering of imaginative risk-takers, as it has every year since the festival\u2019s inception. Lenzi finds the library to be the perfect venue for such an event because it\u2019s an accessible community-oriented space with lots of curious passersby. Occupying the urban room, the auditorium, the fireplace, the stairwells, and several other spaces within the building, artists will engage audiences by questioning our existence and what we\u2019ll leave behind (Marilyn Arsem\u2019s \u201cThe Remains of Memory\u201d); auctioning off newborn alien babies (Emma Wilson, Molly Mostert, and Natalie Allsup-Edwards\u2019 \u201cShm00fi3zZ\u201d); and reflecting upon the abominable conditions of the immigration camps at the Mexico\/U.S. border (Jorge Rojas\u2019 \u201ccage\u201d) to list only a few. Some works were created to respond directly to the building\u2019s unique architecture, like Joseph Ravens\u2019 \u201cDefying Duality.\u201d If the prospect of being a bystander to unrehearsed, experimental performance leaves you a little uneasy, fret not: Lenzi has graciously assigned each piece in the festival a \u201cspotter\u201d whose job is to inform and direct viewers, and keep everyone safe.<\/p>\n

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Alastair MacLennan at The Performance Art Festival, 2017. Photo by Winston Inoway.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Jeff Huckleberry at The Performance Art Festival, 2018. Photo by Winston Inoway.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Gustaf Broms at The Performance Art Festival, 2015. Photo by Winston Inoway.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Jorge Rojas at The Performance Art Festival, 2018. Photo by Winston Inoway.<\/p><\/div>\n

Though the performance art scene in Salt Lake City is relatively small and underground, the city’s performance art festival is becoming a prestigious event. It is one of two performance art festivals in the country that pays the presenting artists, and its international profile attracts artists from around the world. This year\u2019s traveling presenters include Chelsea Coons of Melbourne, Australia; Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Donnell of Belfast, Northern Ireland; Rosalie Winard of New York City; Joseph Ravens of Chicago, Illinois; and Marilyn Arsem of Boston, Massachusetts. Many of the local artists have also exhibited works nationally and internationally, and include professors from the University of Utah and Weber State University, as well as University of Utah current students and alumni.<\/p>\n

The festival takes place on Friday, October 4 from noon \u2014 5:30 p.m. and on Saturday, October 5 from 9 a.m. \u2014 4:30 p.m.\u00a0It\u2019s a packed schedule, but has been organized in such a way that you could see a few minutes of everything with a little advanced planning.<\/p>\n

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Kristina Lenzi at The Performance Art Festival, 2018. Photo by Winston Inoway.<\/p><\/div>\n

This article is published in collaboration with loveDANCEmore.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 7th\u00a0annual Salt Lake City Performance Art Festival is fast approaching, and the festival\u2019s founder, Kristina Lenzi, has curated 24 presenters whose works are appropriate for all ages, visually and conceptually interesting, and unrehearsed. Lenzi demands that \u201cunrehearsed\u201d remain an emphasized component and descriptor of these works. Unrehearsed, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1662,"featured_media":47525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,34,14],"tags":[325,1678],"class_list":["post-47523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dance","category-performing-arts","category-visual_arts","tag-kristina-lenzi","tag-performance-art-festival"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Spectre-at-PAF-2018.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 12:41:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47523"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70713,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47523\/revisions\/70713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}