"When having an event so close to Halloween, or All Saints' Eve, there is no escaping from the boisterous carnival of individual imagination given free rein to affirm the possibilities. Whether it’s playing dress-up, applying makeup or turning the body into a conceptual happening, people are encouraged to be part of a rhapsodic mass untethered from the day’s Christian or pagan origin, partaking in a New World bacchanalia that embraces the consumerist clichés and spirited subversions in equal measure. Of all the holidays and celebrations, Halloween is perhaps the most performative and inclusive when the grotesque becomes the sublime and the familiar coexists with the Other.

Whether as a raconteur, jester, provocateur or catalyst, each performance artist at the event is encouraged to reflect, reinterpret, reject or reanimate the sacred and profane, and pass on the recognition of all that is holy to the community that can, to rephrase Robert Lowell, give each passing in the performance its living name." - Ming Liu

Ian Deleón

Ian Deleón (b. 1987, Miami, 2nd generation Cuban/Brazilian) is an artist, writer, and independent curator currently based in Brooklyn, NY. Deleón has exhibited videos, installations, performances, and 2-D work in the United States and around the world. Currently, Deleón and Tif Robinette are the curators of a monthly live art event in Brooklyn known as PULSAR.

Ian Deleón holds an AA in English Literature from the Miami Dade College Honors Program and a BFA from the Studio for Interrelated Media (SIM) at the Massachusetts College of Art & Design, Boston, where he was awarded the Donis A. Dondis Travel Fellowship. Other awards include an Expressing Boston Cultural Flash Mob grant from the Boston Foundation in 2013, an Emergency Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in 2014, and a shared portion of the André von Ah Research and Development Grant.

Deleón has been invited to speak/present at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing; Volta in NYC; Month of Performance Art, Berlin; and Mad Theory 2: A Performance Philosophy Symposium in Madison, WI. He has facilitated artist workshops at the Guerilla Girls symposium at Montserrat College in Beverly, MA; Villa Victoria Center for the Arts; and Meridian Academy in Boston. His first solo exhibition, Cuba + Puerto Rico | Invitación a Volar, opened in 2013 at La Galería in Boston. His work is featured in the collections of Annie Gawlak (G Fine Art, D.C.), Boston Plan for Excellence, El Galpón Espacio (Lima, Peru), Ricardo Ozier-lafontaine (Martinique), and has also appeared on/in AICA (Caraïbe du Sud), ARC Magazine, Big Red & Shiny, Incident, Collect, .Crudo, Contemporary Other, The Phoenix (Providence), The L Magazine, Culture Designers, The Present Tense, The Living Gallery, Inferno Magazine (France), Lintroller, Beached Miami, Uprooted, and Artron (China).

iandeleon.com

AGROFEMME

How does feminist, queer, and magical theory disrupt our ideal of the evolving human? How does the Other, a creature of multiplicity, hybridity, and post-humanism, connect back to the land and to other species? As we evolve in conjunction with plants, animals, and the machine, in what ways will we intersect, hybridize, and reconvene?

My praxis investigates these queries through drawings, photography, video, objects, and interventions through text and ritual, embodied in live performance. The texts, which inform my current work, are culled from obscure and esoteric writings and history of the 19th century French and English avant garde, 18th through 20th century occult texts, contemporary post-humanist theorists, and radical queer/feminist theory. Through examinations of everyday rituals, mythological and religious symbology, interpersonal relationships, and alternate states of consciousness, I attempt to unionize empathetic spirituality, healing, and radical action.

www.agrofemme.com

Rudi Salpietra

Rudi Salpietra is an Italian born performance artist with a background in theatre acting and studies. Upon completing his BA in Drama & Theatre Studies at Royal Holloway University of London and archiving a decade-long career in acting and dance, he successfully progressed into performance art debuting work at the Whitechapel and Hoxton Arches galleries in London with installations regarding the ontology of live art and gallery practice.

When moving to NYC in 2014, Rudi began collaborating with local and international companies such as WILD TORUS and NON GRATA whilst presenting his own body of work at venues like Grace Exhibition Space, Panoply Lab, ABC No Rio, Songs for Presidents, and so on.

Since then, he has been active throughout the Americas and Europe participating in international festivals in NYC, Berlin, Cuba, Lima, and many more, where he has released a variety of performances that actively respond to current social and political issues whilst closely examining and pushing the boundaries of this live practice.

www.rudisalpietra.com

Myk Henry

Myk Henry is originally from Dublin, Ireland and moved to New York in 1984. From 1989-1992 Henry was part of the immersionism movement which instigated the birth of several warehouse art events involving hundreds of artists and thousands of spectators. In 1994 he moved to Geneva, Switzerland where he graduated with both a BFA and MFA at Ecole Supérieure des Arts Visuels. As a performer Henry investigates the audience’s sense of social and political awareness and engages them in a transformative process. Investigating the thin divide between private and public space, his work is provocative, edgy and slams the viewer into the center of political issues, social conditioning and human taboos.

Henry regularly receives funding from Culture Ireland, which enables him to showcase his work at various International and national festivals and venues. He has exhibited work at ARCO in Madrid, UNHCR in Geneva, the Museum of Art and History in Geneva, the Ludwig Museum in Budapest, the World Expo in Shanghai, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Vaasa (Finland), Fountain, Miami Basel and the Armory Show in New York. He won “La Bourse Federal”, (Young Art Basel, Switzerland), Le prix Contonal Geneva (Switzerland) and was the first foreigner to win Le Prix Providencia, (Swizerland).

mykhenry.com

Karolina Kubik

Karolina Kubik (1984), daughter of Bogumiła, sister of Katarzyna, granddaughter of Irena and Czesława, born in Poland, is a visual performance artist, poet, activist. She performs in between definitions, creating installations, video-art, drawings and workshops. In her art she concentrates on the changing subjectivity of the spectator and the artist, when the latter noticeably becomes a spectator of the spectator. The ever present use of history, both in individual and collective experience, tries to connect dialog forms with the inexpressible; democratising the practice of art. Examining the axis between the human body and geopolitical nature of things. A crucial element of her performance lies in time and embarrassing situations, which verify the attractiveness of norms and experiences.

A graduate and PhD candidate in the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Fine Arts in Poznan; she has participated in projects, collective exhibitions and performance art festivals in Poland and abroad (among others, in Bratislava, Belfast, Berlin, Edinburgh, Kaunas, London, Lviv, Madison, New York, Istanbul, Jerusalem/Tel-Aviv, Skopje, Tartu, Zagreb). Between 2010-2013 she worked as a Graduate Assistant at the Studio of Spatial Activities with prof. Miroslaw Balka at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan 2010/11 and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw 2011/13. She is based in Zelow and Poznan, where she works as a Graduate Assistant in the University of Arts Multimedia Department.

As the recipient of the Fulbright U.S. Student Grant, she is currently attending Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, NY) in their MFA in Performance and Performance Studies program.

cargocollective.com/karolinakubik

Polina Riabova

Polina Riabova is a Russian-born bilingual poet and writer and co-founder of an independent cooperative record label based in Brooklyn, Borrowed Birds Records. In her performance work she explores the intersection between public and private life and the influence it exerts on our understanding of ourselves and others as well as the complexity of interpersonal relationships and themes of vulnerability using a mix of found objects, visuals and sound.

Ronit Levin Delgado

Ronit Levin Delgado (born Tel Aviv, Israel ) is a multi media artist and a Fulbright scholar who lives and works in New York. Levin Delgado graduated from the MFA Studio Art program at Montclair State University, NJ (2013) and holds a BFA from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem (2008). In 2007, Levin Delgado was selected to study at Carnegie Mellon College of Art, Pittsburgh, PA. Levin Delgado has won multiple honors and awards, including 2011-2013 Fulbright Scholarship, 2016 COJECO Blueprint Fellowship, Asylum Arts, the Israeli Ministry of Culture Scholarship, Bezalel Academy Award for Excellence, and in 2014 she was chosen to be the recipient of the First Annual Prize for Bezalel Alumni.

Levin Delgado has had solo exhibitions at the Frame Gallery in Pittsburgh, Guttman Museum in Israel and has been included in numerous international group exhibitions in Israel, Europe and the US, including, The Queens Museum in NY, The Russian Museum in NJ, Magnan Metz Gallery and Pratt Gallery in NYC, Solo Gallery and Index Gallery in Newark, Cardiff, Wales and Leeds in UK and Ramle Station for Contemporary Art and Hertzelilinblum Museum in Israel.

www.ronitlevindelgado.com

Francheska Alcantara

Francheska Alcantara is a multidisciplinary artist whose work aims to (re)create narratives of fragmentation and longing. She’s informed by childhood memories, sexuality and daily life. Alcantara has exhibited and performed work in the US and abroad at venues such as The Bronx Museum of the Arts, The Queens Museum, La Mama Theater, Art in General, Framer Framed, Panoply Performance Laboratory, Andrew Freedman Home and De-Construkt. She is a graduate of Hunter College and Old Dominion University. Francheska lives in The Bronx, NY.

www.francheskaalcantara.com

David LaGaccia

David LaGaccia is a New York-based arts journalist, artist, and editor-in-chief of INCIDENT Magazine, an online and print magazine focused on performance art documentation and criticism. He has written for artnet News, and freelanced for many publications including Whitewall Magazine and Hyperallergic.com.

Olivia Cream

Olivia Cream is a performer whose creative process is laid out for you to see in the imminent present. she is currently deciding what she likes by creating amalgams of song, movement, sculpture, ceremony, and lecture. she performs celebrations and deprecations of the self and constructive criticism of the community. but she is drawn to themes of serendipity, nurturing, empathy, and softness in a culture that praises emotional detachment and demands control of the personal and global environment. she attempts to subvert the omnipresent male gaze and often fails. she is confident she can snag your attention, but the question is, can she hold it? please deliver harsh or kind words to her face.

Huisi He

Huisi He is a New York-based and Chinese-born artist. She is very active in New York performance art scenes and He is inspired by the rawness, freshness, and authenticity of performance art in Brooklyn. In the years of art practice, making art has been a healing process for her to let go of the negative thoughts and emotions. In 2015, she moved to New York City after she received her M.F.A. in studio art from the Florida State University. Her recent performance art responds to the new scenario and illustrates her struggles in balancing dreams and reality. From her experience in China to the experience of survival as a New York artist, He's artworks represent her life moments.

www.huisihe.com

Flow Flo

Flow Flo's expansive repertoire includes site-specific performance – both as a dancer and a choreographer and voice over as well as acting work. She sees dance as a language and aims to use movement within various media to express individual and social relationships, limitations, conflicts and connections.
Starting her training in classical dance in 1984 in France at the Café de la Gare Centre De Danse du Marais in her hometown of Paris and continuing in the United States at the Perry Dance Center, DNA and Cunningham Studio where she explored modern and contemporary dance, butoh, improvisation and theater. She has worked with a variety of underground New York artists and dance companies which include Modern Dance Awareness Society, Human Kinetics Movement Art, the Sanctuary of Hope before creating her own projects which were featured at Gallery138 in Chelsea, New York, France.

She is presently collaborating with Z Collective on performances which have been featured at the Chelsea Art Museum and at the Loft in the Red Zone in New York City.

Groosha

Groosha is a stage name of Nastassia Vertsel, a Brooklyn-based singer songwriter and pianist. She released her first album 'Out of Place' in 2013 and has been a part of New York indie music scene ever since. She has collaborated with such acts as Meaner Pencil and Geburah, and played shows in New York venues with Phoebe Novak, Andrew Hammond, Jonatan Wood Vincent and others.

Groosha's music is light, inventive piano-pop with a classical twist, her themes varying from break-up romance to fairy tales. She writes both in Russian and English.

groosha.bandcamp.com

Jacob Cohen

www.soundcloud.com/jacobgcohen