In a performance space in the furthest corner of Housatonic Community College, Arien Wilkerson steadily paces towards the middle of a darkened set. Red, white, black, and silver chains hang from beams out of sight. Black and white buckets litter the floor, while above them, two strangely familiar red gas cans seem suspended in mid-air.

Wilkerson lies on his back and tugs at one of the chains, struggling to pull himself up while an ominous symphony of brass and string instruments meld with a cacophony of insect noises, the kind of bugs that chirp and whine during the hottest days of summer. By the end of EQUATORS, Wilkerson has changed outfits five times, rearranged the buckets according to a mysterious map projected above the set, and nearly seduced each audience member with several sexually charged spotlighted dance solos.

Through movement, sound, film, and conversation, Wilkerson and his team want to explore how the most marginalized populations on the planet will experience the adversity associated with climate change. Additionally, they want to lend dignity to the spaces where young black men are murdered by police, the same places rogue politicians characterize as “hell.” “[We are] taking weather and environment and transposing that upon a dark feeling of exhaustion and death,” says Wilkerson, “not just losing people. but the way that environment feels during that loss.”

Despite the artistic examination of the clash of climate, human-made boundaries, police violence, bodies and our environment, EQUATORS is a legitimately entertaining piece. Wilkerson is an expertly expressive dancer. He’s been dancing since age 12 and has been traveling the world, honing his talent, since he was 16. His decade-plus experience studying movement is on full display here, as he steps, pops, and strides through the buckets, chains and hanging gas cans with the purposeful movement of a mountain cat or a busy New York City commuter.

When away from the props on the set, Wilkerson is moving in almost complete darkness, save the special lighting for solos done in key parts of the set, “I can roam in the darkness throughout the entire piece or I can step into the light,” says Wilkerson “We wanted to light the show like a work of art and not a dance piece.”

Though the performance as a whole is a thoroughly collaborative production, (set design by David Borawski and lighting design by Jon-Paul Lorroco), it’s Wilkerson’s queer aesthetic that makes the performance unique. “It’s queer as fuck,” says Wilkerson. “This is the queerest thing I’ve ever done. I wear a lot of dresses, I wear a lot of platform heels, I want to just take it there. I was feelin’ some type of way after Moonlight, and just wanted more of that proper representation of queer people.”

Unorthodox lighting techniques, transgressive gender expression through costuming, and the practiced movement of a queer body stand out in EQUATORS, asking audience members to interrogate their expectations of someone like Wilkerson, a young, black, queer person presenting himself not as a disenfranchised minority identity category but as an individual within a fertile creative climate asserting his expertise and wielding his kinetic power.

Wilkerson plans to expand the performance and stage EQUATORS in different locations throughout Connecticut via an upcoming sponsorship from Real Art Ways.

Arien Wilkerson – dancer, artistic director TNMOT AZTRO
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Top photo Arien Wilkerson performing EQUATORS at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport, Connecticut | All photos by Brittany Solem

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Western-Massachusetts-native-turned-fake-judge John Hodgman always says, “Specificity is the soul of narrative.” In other words, the more precise a story is, or the more unique the subject matter, the better. Through specificity of content and approach, artists can present audiences with unique characters, stories, and experiences.

The same logic applies to film festivals and the cinema they celebrate. In addition to the dozens of big film fests across the region, film junkies and industry folks alike have privileged access to niche New England film festivals in every state. Movie lovers can see everything from queer romance to cinema written, produced, starring, and directed by folks with hearing impairment. Some of these festivals are right around the corner, while others are still accepting submissions. All reveal subjects that are unique and satisfyingly specific.

AIP Film Festival
April 2 – April 8
Cinestudio
Hartford, CT

Hartford’s beautifully designed 1930s-era movie theater continues its yearly film fest for Francophiles, April in Paris, which goes beyond the French New Wave and into the realm of contemporary cinema. Prospective moviegoers have nine opportunities to see French films produced from 1982 to 2016, all of which examine the exceedingly relevant, “effects of crossing borders, from the political to the personal.”

Wicked Queer Film Festival
March 30 – April 9
Various venues
Boston, MA

Laverne Cox in Free CeCe! | Director Jac Gares, 2016

The 33rd incarnation of Boston’s film festival revealing and unpacking the queer experience through documentary, comedy, and drama will feature internationally renowned voices of the queer community and emerging artists alike. Queer film enthusiasts of all kinds have dozens of chances to see films across the city in a new neighborhood each night.

Maine Deaf Film Festival
April 28 – 29
University of Southern Maine
Portland, ME

The 15th annual Maine Deaf Film Festival is the longest-running and perhaps the only film festival of its type in the nation. Programmed and planned in collaboration with students and boasting content exclusively created by deaf folks across the region, MDFF skillfully solves some of the problems of underrepresentation of people with hearing impairments both in front of and behind the camera.

SENE Film Festival
April 25 – 29
Various venues
Rhode Island

With dozens of films ranging from experimental shorts to feature-length animated dramas, SENE provides attendees nearly endless opportunities to pick their vast or small corner of the world to explore. The Wednesday night screenings of experimental films and documentary features is both a can’t-miss evening and an excellent example of the range and specificity of topics explored throughout the festival.

New Hampshire Film Festival
October
Various venues
Portsmouth, NH

Still from All The President’s Heads | Director Adam Roffman, 2016

With the time for submissions still open, we can’t say for sure what niches the New Hampshire Film Festival will investigate. However, if last year’s programming is any indication, cinephiles will delve into some strange and specific topics. For example, All the President’s Heads, a film about a history devotee who saves two dozen, massive presidential busts from destruction after being displaced by the building of an Enterprise Rent-a-Car.

Independent Television Festival
October 11 – 17
Various Venues
Manchester, VT

Okay. . .this isn’t technically a “film festival.” However, was True Detective (the charcoal dark, riveting serialized HBO murder mystery disguised as a police procedural) a television show or more of a seven-and-a-half-hour movie split into manageable 54-minute chunks? As the line between prestige television and film blurs more each day, so will our categorizations for the sake of this list. Anyway, ITVFest still counts because it’s a moving image festival celebrating a niche part of a hulking industry, a section of the industry that often gets ignored in cinema as well; the independents.

Global Roots Film Festival
April 7 – 9
Contois Auditorium
Burlington, VT

Still from Ladies & Gentlemen… Mr. Leonard Cohen |
Directors Donald Brittain & Don Owen, 1965 | Presented by VT PBS and RETN

This niche film festival is brought to us by the Vermont International Film Foundation which also presents the yearly Vermont International Film Festival. The Global Roots Film Festival endeavors to bring Vermonters, “great films from the countries of many of the New American communities. . .to foster a greater understanding of our diverse cultures.” This year, Global Roots turns the lens towards contemporary films coming from Quebec.

Top image, still from Signature Move | Director Jennifer Reeder (2017)

The post 7 New England Niche Film Festivals You Can’t Miss appeared first on Take Magazine.

On June 3rd, 2016, J.R. and her band Feminist Conference got the ball rolling at the Boston Center for the Arts Gala with a stage full of raucous. The unsuspecting crowd of movers and shakers of the Boston arts scene faced a barrage of discomfort and amazement as J.R. Urestsky crooned sappy 80’s ballads at full blast, eventually stripping off the majority of her floral print outfit to reveal red briefs and bare legs.

Feminist Conference performing at the BCA Ball | Photo by Michael Blanchard Photography

The response was a mixed bag of surprise and uncomfortable wonderment. Uretsky notes, “I like to set up all of my performances to be failures…where the ego or whatever you want to call it, the Leo in me, feels really bad about the fact that I worked my ass off for that performance and no one wanted to listen to me sing, you know, karaoke in my underwear. Like, why? This tension makes embarrassment function as the root of the performances, the almost disaster, the performer falling to pieces in front of you, that’s where the work really hits – for me anyway. ”

Much of J.R.’s work centralizes around what she calls “expressive confessions”, powerful performances that weave a messy ensemble of narrative arcs such as heartbreak, loneliness, and grief. “The characters that emerge through these performances are relatable yet also alien and non-specific, forging an ambiguous space where emotion is the remaining constant,” says Uretsky. “In short, I make ‘feelings porn’. Like pornography, pleasure is the main pursuit of my work. I want to make work that is entertaining, that feels good and that provides space for people—for me—to emote.”

Photo courtesy of the artist

Despite her emotionally charged subject matter (endearingly referred to as “sad bro art”), Uretsky creates an absurdist dreamworld of feelings through bright colors and character expressions frozen in time. Hailed in by the not-so-threatening nature of these gloriously fluorescent puppets, J.R. creates a sense of intrigue, while also suspending viewers in a space of discomfort. “I am sort of always feeling sort of weird about bodies and I think that manifests in the sculptures…the gestures are sort of folding in on themselves a little bit…they are bright and still kind of noisy. To me, they feel like they are not noisy on purpose. I think they look that way just because they do, not because they have a big personality”.

Uretsky utilizes performance, sculpture, music and puppetry to expose the messiness of human emotion that decentralizes the polite nature of our expected social selves; a composite and affective production that visualizes the internal struggle to be human, to be alive. Her puppets and sculptures are often constructed to be worn, so that their life is found in collaboration with body movement and sound. Her current exhibition “What I Found Out there” resides at the Boston University College of Fine Arts at the Annex. Leaning into scholar Sarah Ahmed’s writing on queer grief, Uretsky has constructed a series of visual art that integrates video, audio, and puppetry to examine pain and melancholia. With new music by Feminist Conference and intricately constructed puppets made of new and found small objects, Uretsky explores how the process of grief and mourning alter the body.

Still from J.R. Uresky’s video “Bromance”

J.R. currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island and spends most of her time laying on the floor with Scott the Cat while watching Star Trek Next Generation and feeling feelings. After dropping out of bible school for Christian Education at BIOLA University in Los Angeles, she received her BFA in Interdisciplinary Studio Practice and an MFA in Sculpture and Video from the University of Connecticut.  As a self-proclaimed masculine-of-center dyke, Uretsky spends a lot of time contemplating larger conversations about masculinity, visibility, queerness, and feminism. “I am trying to figure out if the layering of familiar objects, sounds, and environments mixed with the abstract and monstrous nature of my work can illustrate the emotional experience of other. What if everyone experienced what it felt like to be other? To be queer? Would we then feel less alone?”

J.R. Uretsky is a multi-media artist  living in Providence, Rhode Island. Her work is currently on exhibition at Boston University College of Fine Arts through December 11th. Be sure to follow J.R. on Twitter. 

Top photo courtesy the artist

The post ART/Crush: J.R. Uretsky appeared first on Take Magazine.