About The Show
The production of CHASM, conceived and performed by Rebecca Patek and directed by Meghan Finn (DOOMOCRACY), was in the works before the #METOO Movement emerged with such force in 2017, but the piece could not be more timely given the current cultural context. It has been four years since Patek's piece ineter(a)nal f/ear played as part of American Realness in 2014. At the time, Patek's work was exploring victimization, as a survivor of rape. It was fast eclipsed when a performance was interrupted by performance artist and provocateur Ann Liv Young. The events that followed included uproar in social media and the press, calling Patek's true story into question. This response, and Young's subsequent production about her act of censorship against Patek, effectively re-victimized the artist while she was working to overcome the brutal attack, while also ending her career.
Now Patek returns to the stage, in collaboration with Tank Co-Artistic Director Meghan Finn, to create CHASM: a performance that looks at the events of 2014 that led Patek to leave the contemporary dance/performance art world. Patek finally gets the chance to tell her side of the story about what went down and why it was fundamentally unjust, and reflects on why she has chosen instead to pursue a career in medicine. In her satirical and ingenious comedic style, this piece reflects on a wider problem in the contemporary performance world still yet to face its own #METOO reckoning.
Concept and Choreography: Rebecca Patek Performers: Rebecca Patek Directed by Meghan Finn Video: David Pym
About The Artist
Rebecca Patek is a New York-based choreographer and performance artist creating work that synthesizes dance, theater and comedy. Patek is a Greater New York Artist 2015-16 and a 2014 Brooklyn Arts Exchange Space Grant recipient. She is a inaugural recipient of The Award as well as a 2014 Queer Art Mentorship Fellow. Patek has been an Artist in Residence at Movement Rearch, Atlantic Center for the Arts and at Dance Theater Workshop (New York Live Arts) as part of Fresh Tracks Performance and Residency Program.
Patek’s work has been presented at MoMa PS1, Impulstanz Vienna (winner of the Prix Jardin D’Europe Fan Award 2014), The Kitchen, The Museum of Arts and Design, The Chocolate Factory Theater, Abrons Art Center, Dance Theater Workshop, 92nd Street Y, Movement Research at Judson Church, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Josee Bienvenu Gallery, Glasshouse, Chez Bushwick, Triple Canopy, Prelude Festival, The Joyce Soho, Dixon Place, Mulberry Street Theatre, The Tank, Aunts, Triskelion Arts, Studio 303, and The Overture Center, among other venues. She has contributed video and written work to online and print journals: Bomb Magazine, Animal New York, The Performance Club, and Movement Research Journal.
About The Director
Meghan Finn joined The Tank as Co-Artistic Director in April of 2017. Recent credits include: DOOMOCRACY by artist Pedro Reyes for Creative Time at the Brooklyn Army Terminal. Sam's Tea Shack by Ben Gassman and Sam Soghor (The Tank and Barker Room Rep), The Offending Gesture by Mac Wellman (The Tank/3LD at the Connelly Theater NYTIMES' and TIMEOUTNY CRITICS' PICK); American Power performed by photographer Mitch Epstein and Composer/Cellist Erik Friedlander at the V&A London and The Wexner Center, Columbus, Ohio; Gary Winter's DAREDEVIL at The Brick; The Downtown Loop by Ben Gassman (3LD/3D+ Productions/Teeth of Tooth Atelier); Take Me Home by Alexandra Collier set in a taxi cab (Incubator Arts Project/LPR). Other recent credits include: The Service Road by Erin Courtney (Adhesive Theater Project/NYTIMES Critics' Pick), Motel Cherry by Peggy Stafford (Summerworks Clubbed Thumb/New Georges HERE Arts Center Huffington Post Top 10 of 2012) and 3 2's; or AFAR by Mac Wellman (Dixon Place), Relative Value by Jesse Longman (3LD), Saturn Nights by Jess Barbagallo (Incubator Arts Project), Waltz by Corina Copp (CSC -Weasel), Blue Dress Reduction featuring Eliza Bent (PS122), HIM by E.E. Cummings (Walkerspace), The Fake History of George the Last by Misha Shulman (the longest lunch/TNC), A Week at the NJ Shore by Valerie Work (the longest lunch/The Bushwick Starr, and others). Finn holds an MFA in Directing from Brooklyn College and a BA in Theater from the University of Southern California. She was a member of the 2009 Lincoln Center Director's Lab, 2009/10 Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, New Georges' The Jam, a 2014 & 2016 New Georges Audrey Resident and co-founder of the longest lunch (2002-present).