Great Small Works performs at Queens Museum of Art

On June 6^th Great Small Works will perform a brand new episode of their signature photomontage news serial, The Toy Theater of Terror as Usual (their first since 2002).  The performances will take place at the Queens Museum of Art as part of their “First Sunday” event.  The live shows are part of a “Terror As Usual” retrospective included in the Curse of Bigness Show currently running at the QMA.

    An extra special attraction of the premier will be a co-performance with a team from The High School For Arts and Business in South Corona Queens.  The students have been working with Great Small Works teaching artists all spring to devise their own news based, montage, toy theater shows. 

     The Terror As Usual series began in the fall of 1990, during the countdown to the first Gulf War, as a way to respond to the everyday terror of reading about current events in the newspaper. Come out on June 6^th 2010 to see how 3 generations of politically engaged artists turn the news of the day into prismatic useful and entertaining spectacle.  Get inspired to re-mix the images and tell your own story! 

Great Small Works will perform at 1:00 and 3:30.

 

Great Small Works Toy Theater Festival in the Schools and at the Queens Museum of Art

 

During the Spring of 2010 fifty five students from The High School for Arts and Business in South Corona Queens began working with Great Small Works teaching artists to create photo montage news based toy theater shows.  The project was inspired by a retrospective Great Small Works was asked to create by Larissa Harris as part of the Curse of Bigness Show at the Queens Museum of Art.  While preparing the 13 stages that would be installed around the Panorama of New York City at the museum, and by looking at old video footage and piecing together an historic timeline we remembered how useful these mysterious little news shows actually were for collective thought.  In the twilight of the newspaper era we thought it would be very cool to share the tools we had learned for responding to the news with a younger generation of artists. 

   

We are grateful to Robert Tomlin, the students, and the principal of the High School for Arts and Business for dedicating classroom time to critical thinking and writing about the news.  Also, for allowing messy processes like puppet building, rehearsing and the collaborative work that goes along with this art form to take over for a while.

  

Schedule:

Great Small Works, and students from the High School for Arts and Business will present three premier  Toy Theater of Terror As Usual shows during the Festival.  We hope you will attend!  

 

June 6^th Queens Museum of Art

1:00pm--Great Small Works and students

3:30 PM-- Great Small Works 

 

June 6^th 8PM St Ann’s Warehouse 

Toy Theater Festival Cabaret--Great Small Works 

 

June 8^th 5:30 PM at St Ann’s Warehouse

with students 

 

GSW Teaching artists: Jenny Romaine, Laura Ayers, Stephen Kaplin, John Bell and Sam Wilson

Faculty partner at High School for Arts and Business: Robert Tomlin

Special Thanks: to the staff of the Queens Museum of Art--Laura Groskinsky and the education department, Larissa Harris, and many others. Also to the Emily David and Joseph S. Kornfeld Foundation for their generous support of this project.