PODCAST INTERVIEWS
On the last day of February I had a conversation at the Altas Cafe with dancer, choreographer, teacher, and provocateur Keith Hennessy about his upcoming workshops at SF MOMA, de(composition). The workshops will take place on March 5th, 12th, 19th, and 26th. They’re presently filled, but there’s a waiting list and some spots should open up. We talked about what it means for Hennessy to run these workshops at SF MOMA and many other issues, including Hennessy’s recent pieces (future friend/ships and Sink), his 2012 epic at YBCA, Turbulence, and the arts culture in the Bay Area. This is part one of a two-part interview. CLICK TO LISTEN.
Playwright Phillip Kan Gotanda, Artistic Director of the Ubuntu Theater Project Michael Socrates Moran and I got together to talk before the opening of Gotanda's new play for Ubuntu, Pool of Wonder: Undertow of the Soul. We talked about theater audiences, producing, Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 film Stalker, the presence of violence in Gotanda's work, and a few hopes and dreams for the American Theater. In the end, Gotanda can't resist recreating a sound effect from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. CLICK TO LISTEN
Ubuntu Theater Project's Artistic Director Michael Socrates Moran on the Ghost Light Protest, the Church/Theater Connection, Trump's election, and the difficult of so-called Political Art. CLICK TO LISTEN
This is the second half of my conversation with dancer, choreographer, provocateur Keith Hennessy at the Atlas Cafe on the last day of February, 2019. As we continued to talk, we touched on the notion of happiness, what it means for an artist to be a brand, and again the workshops coming up at SF MOMA, de(composition). Perhaps, most importantly, we started to wrestle with some ideas of what it means to be a political artist and create political work. Hennessy’s answers are clear, complex, tricky, and maybe, as a practical matter impossible to do unless you’re Keith Hennessy—maybe. CLICK TO LISTEN.