A live performance with film
About the Show
Every Fold Matters is a live performance with film that looks at the charged, intimate, unseen and underpaid work of cleaning other people’s clothes in a public space. As told by employees inside a neighborhood laundromat, this hybrid performance uses heightened dialogue and gestural choreography to reveal personal stories of dirt, stains, money, exposure, identity, and immigration.
In keeping with its mission to educate, illuminate and motivate audiences with a wide-ranging view of workers, their lives and their struggle for dignity and fair wages, the Workers Unite Film Festival is proud to present the premiere of a new expanded Every Fold Matters. This hybrid documentary and fiction event is the co-creation of experimental filmmaker Lynne Sachs and playwright Lizzie Olesker who spent a year gathering stories from laundromat workers and customers. This genre-bending event is an ode to the communal exchange and cultural crossroads of the neighborhood laundry, a place that is fast disappearing from many gentrifying urban areas.
Every Fold Matters unfolds on May 5 at The Tank with acclaimed downtown actors Ching Valdes-Aran, Jasmine Holloway, Veraalba Santa, and Tony Torn, design by Chris Maltby, film editing by Amanda Katz, producing by Nick McCarthy and original music derived from the sounds of a real, working laundromat by Stephen Vitiello.
About the Artists
Lizzie Olesker (co-director) presented her solo piece Tiny Lights: Infinite Miniature at the New Ohio Theater and Invisible Dog in Brooklyn. She was an Audrey Fellow with New Georges, with her new play Embroider Past. Other plays have been presented at Dixon Place, Brave New World Repertory, Clubbed Thumb, the Cherry Lane Theater and the Public. Published in the Brooklyn Rail and Heinemann Press, she’s received support from the Brooklyn Arts Council, New York Foundation for the Arts and the Dramatists Guild. Also worked with the Talking Band (at the Ohio Theater and at Here) and teaches playwriting at Tisch/NYU and the New School.
Lynne Sachs (co-director) makes films and performances that explore the intricate relationship between personal observations and broader historical experiences by weaving together poetry, collage, painting, politics and layered sound design. Fascinated by the interplay of live performance and the moving image, Lynne produced a theatrical version of her hybrid documentary Your Day is My Night in alternative spaces around New York City. Lynne is a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow in the Creative Arts. She will be a visiting artist at Princeton University in 2016. www.lynnesachs.com
Andrew Tilson (executive producer) received his MA in Labor Studies from The Murphy Institute of CUNY in 2011. His admiration for all struggles for workplace dignity led him to form the Workers Unite Film Festival in 2012. Since then, he has partnered with CUNY, SVA, Workmen's Circle, Penn South in Chelsea and other organizations to promote and screen films from around the world that celebrate global labor solidarity. www.workersunitefilmfestival.org.
Stephen Vitiello (music) is an electronic musician and sound artist, who transforms incidental atmospheric noises into mesmerizing soundscapes that alter our perception of the surrounding environment. He has composed music for independent films, experimental video projects and installations, collaborating with such artists as Nam June Paik, Tony Oursler, Pauline Oliveros, Taylor Deupree and Ryuichi Sakamoto. This is Stephen’s fourth collaboration with EFM co-director Lynne Sachs. Stephen teaches in the department of Kinetic Imaging at Virginia Commonwealth University. www.stephenvitiello.com
Sean Hanley (cinematographer) is a non-fiction filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York. His short works have screened at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Edinburgh International Film Festival, the New Orleans Film Festival. Sean teaches cinematography at Hunter College and was a cinematographer and co-producer on Lynne Sachs’s Your Day is My Night (2013). Sean is a MFA candidate in Integrated Media Arts at Hunter College.
Amanda Katz (editor) works professionally as a film editor and is currently working with Lynne Sachs to craft her latest feature film. Her own work has screened at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Doc NYC, Encuentros del Otros Cine Festival International, and Microscope Gallery. Her most recent film received funding from the New York State Council on The Arts and The Austrian Cultural Forum in New York. Amanda is a MFA candidate in Integrated Media Arts at Hunter College.
Chris Maltby (live performance technical design) serves as Director of Technical Services for The Workers Unite Film Festival, now in its fifth year in NYC. When not writing scathing film critique for publications like Bleeding Cool or Showbusiness Weekly, he is also Executive Director for The Movie Filth! and CEO of Rest Easy Custom Installations. When not doing any of these, you can find him working behind the wood, slinging cocktails at his new restaurant Bar Truman.
Nick McCarthy (live performance producer) serves as Operations Manager and a Programmer at NewFest, NY's LGBT Film Festival, as well as a film curator at The Tank. He has written about film for such publications as Slant Magazine, Time Out New York, and The Boston Phoenix, and has covered The New York Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, SXSW, and the Tribeca Film Festival.
Jasmine Holloway (performer) is a singer and actress who has performed in productions at the Harlem Repertory Theatre as well as in the highly acclaimed Generations at Soho Rep. Jasmine was nominated for the Richard Maltby Jr. Award for Musical Theatre Excellence during the 2013 Kennedy Center College Theatre Festival.
Veraalba Santa (performer) is an actress and dancer and a member of Caborca Theater. She has degrees in Theater and Dance from the University of Puerto Rico and the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater. In New York City, Veraalba has worked with Sally Silvers, Rojo Robles, Viveca Vazquez and Rosa Luisa Marquez.
Tony Torn (performer) was last seen on stage in the title role of Ubu Sings Ubu at B.B. King’s, a rock opera adaptation of Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi which he created and co-directed. An actor and director known for his extensive work with Reza Abdoh and Richard Foreman, Tony recently made his Broadway debut in Breakfast At Tiffany’s.
Ching Valdes-Aran (performer) is an Obie award-winning actor who has appeared on and off Broadway, including The Public Theater, New York Theater Workshop, La Mama, Women's Project, CSC, Mabou Mines, Ma-Yi Theater Company, La Jolla, Center Stage, Yale Rep, and ACT. Her film work includes roles in Lav Diaz’s From What is Before (Golden Leopard Award, Locarno Int’l Festival), Julie Taymor’s Across the Universe and Ira Sachs’ Little Men.