FALL HITS: a variety show in sound & vision
FALL HITS: a variety show in sound & vision Hosted by Irwin Swirnoff Saturday, September 23 , 6–8pm, doors 5:30pm / Free Filmmaker, writer, and curator Irwin Swirnoff hosts an evening of sound & vision with Bay Area musicians & performers Idris Ackamoor, Marielle V Jakobsons, Viet Lê, Bongz Nguyen, Samantha Weinert, and Wizard Apprentice. ¡voguing to free jazz! ¡minimalist sonic explorations to intimate, electronic d.i.y. performance! ¡analog synths to southeast asian queered pop! free raffle, cold punch, fall feelings. Idris Ackamoor is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, actor, tap dancer, producer, and director. He formed the spiritual free-jazz ensemble The Pyramids in the early 1970’s. Ackamoor has composed and played music for dance and film, including Marlon Riggs’ Tongues Untied (1989). The Japanese label Em Records released a retrospective of his work from 1971-2004 and his latest album, We Be All Africans, came out last year. He’s a spiritual and cultural bearer of artistic expression sent from the sky. Marielle V. Jakobsons is a composer and intermedia artist. Her compositions evoke minimalism with melodic drone and enveloping polyrhythmic soundscapes of synthesizers, strings, and voice. She’s toured internationally on her own and with her bands Date Palms and Myrmyr. Last year she released her debut solo album on Thrill Jockey, Star Core . Viet Lê is an Assistant Professor at California College of the Arts. He is a queer Vietnamese American artist, writer, curator, and cultural activist whose work deals with sexuality, and the trauma of history, modernity, and popular visual cultures. His artwork has been featured in venues including the UCLA Hammer Museum, the Bangkok Art & Cultural Center, and the Shanghai Biennale. Recent solo exhibitions include: “lovebang! ”, a sexperimental art music video that explores Southeast Asian popular culture through a fantastic vision of queer love; Vestige , a study of Bangkok’s H Gallery’s architecture that engages with fragments of Southeast Asia’s histories; and tan nÁRT cõi lòng | heARTbreak!, a video and photography party featuring Lê’s music video/photographic trilogy. Bongz Nguyen (aka Lotus Disco) was born and raised in Saigon, Vietnam. Since moving to San Francisco a few years ago he can be found voguing behind the decks during his explosive and vibrant Disco sets. Nguyen has lately criss-crossed the globe, including a recent tour of Turkey. Earlier this year, the UK label Expansion released his disc Love Hope Desire which features many obscure 70’s/80’s disco gems. Samantha Weinert is an Oakland-based musician. Her music is primarily concerned with the possibility of summoning an aesthetic based within the vulnerable and ever-changing moment. Her performances are highly improvisational, often informed by both the audience and site itself. Wizard Apprentice is an independent electronic music producer, motion graphics and live performance artist. Her music is a combination of lyrical precision, minimalistic composition, and technically amateurish charm. Wizard Apprentice has released several recordings via the Los Angeles label, Practical Records. Irwin Swirnoff uses film, photography, creative writing, and his background in zine & d.i.y. culture to create intimate work with a queer sensibility that explores intimacy, longing, loss, desire, physicality, sexuality, and the constant struggle to remain in the here and now. He curates the monthly queer film series my gaze///yr gaze , and teaches at Cal State University Monterey Bay and the University Of San Francisco. A longtime dj, he hosts the popular weekly radio show sleeves on hearts which airs on San Francisco community radio, and he served as music director at kusf 90.3fm in San Francisco.