Moviehouse Presents What is NYC, December 13

What is NYC
December 13, Doors 7 p, Films 8 p

It’s all about the maddening town we all can’t live without out at this month’s Moviehouse. The show is equal parts video, performance, and question session as we introduce Rob Carter’s latest stop-motion animation on the cityscape and then invite the multi-media performers at Zebra Crossing to share all they’ve learned during their quest to answer ‘What is Brooklyn?’.

As always there will be a post screening Q&A with the artists and then VJ Clay Franklin’s back with his ever-expanding cache of clips, beats, and live footage!

Film Details

Stone on Stone
By Rob Carter

This stop-motion video animation uses the architectural language of High Gothic and Modernism to invent a contradictory history of their evolvement. The theme starts and finishes with the unfinished and partially ruined Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan; an unintentional symbol of indecision, tragedy and change.

It is contrasted with Le Corbusier’s La Tourette monastery in France, completed in 1960. The video uses this anomalous but single-minded architectural vision, as the foundation for a new emergence of Gothic religious expression, resulting in a complete and unified fantasy cathedral – akin to what the Church of Saint John the Divine might have aspired to be.

Brooklyn Play by Zebra Crossing
Created by Chloë Bass, Drayton Hiers, Natalya Krimgold, Jonah Levy, & Gabriel Willow
Video Concept, Design, & Editing by Ken Yapelii
, Technical Direction by Lee Mandell

In February 2009, Zebra Crossing met to explore the question, “what is Brooklyn, and how can we put that on stage?” Then followed a nine-month investigation of historical and contemporary Brooklyn.  They uncovered found history and personal stories, conducted on-the-street interviews, led neighborhood field trips and inspired vigorous debates.

Now we invite you to join the conversation!  Their part theatre piece, part travel guide and part oral history filled with a mélange of video, puppetry, field recordings and faux historical re-enactments, is as an attempt to express (some of) the many identities and experiences of Brooklyn.