NOTHING#31: a bluff
Autumn Knight
WEST COAST PREMIERE
Past event
- Price
- $30*
- Genres
- Theater, Art
- Season
- Winter/Spring 2024
- DATE
- MAR 17
- TIME
- SUN, 7 PM
- RUNTIME
- Approx. 90 minutes, no intermission
- COUNTRY
- USA
- Program
- Download Program Notes (PDF)
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About
Drawing from her training in theater and the psychology of group dynamics, New York–based artist Autumn Knight makes performances that reshape perceptions of race, gender, and authority. Drawing from her NOTHING#31 series—an investigation into the Italian concept of “dolce far niente,” the sweetness of doing nothing—Knight performs two works at REDCAT.
Presented on Friday, March 15 and Saturday March 16, part one, a bar, is a social experiment transforming the theater space into a host club in which, guided by Knight, the audiences undertake the task of creating the optimal conditions for temporary but meaningful companionship, desire, and connection with their fellow audience members.
Presented on Sunday, March 17, part two, a bluff, is just that. Using her training as an improviser and the inexhaustible possibilities each audience member brings, Knight alone on stage responds improvisationally to the space, its architecture, its audience, pointedly launching from the potentiality—both the sweetness and desolation—of nothingness.
Please note: NOTHING#31: a bluff contains mature content.
Autumn leads with humor and curiosities in really incredible ways, …[a]t the end, seems like you have been cared for, even if you have gone through a few layers of complexity.
—
Ryan Dennis, ARTnews
NOTHING#31: a bar, a bluff is a National Performance Network Creation and Development Fund Project co-commissioned by Performance Space New York, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, and REDCAT; LA. The Creation and Development Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information, visit npnweb.org.
about the artist
Autumn Knight
Autumn Knight is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist working with performance, installation, video, and text. Knight’s video and performance work has been presented by various institutions, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Kitchen (New York), and Performance Space New York. Knight is the recipient of the 2021-2022 Nancy B. Negley Rome Prize in Visual Arts and a 2022-2023 Guggenheim Fellowship.
cast & creative team
Creator, Director, & Performer: Autumn Knight
Lighting & Production Design Collaborator: Tuçe Yasak
Scenic Design and Construction: Matt Shalzi
Creative Producer: Rachel Cook
