Friday at Hudson Hall

This Friday, at 7 p.m., Hudson Hall partners with The Flow Chart Foundation, an organization dedicated to exploring the interrelationships of various art forms as guided by the legacy of poet John Ashbery, to present the foundation's first public offering: Flow Chart Cabaret Cinema: A Night of Neo-Benshi. 

Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer in Out of the Past (1947)

Inspired by "Benshi," the Japanese performers who provided live narration and cultural translation for audiences in the silent film era, Neo-Benshi artists take scenes from popular film or television and replace the sound with their own live spoken words. The result is a new kind of multi-media happening that has taken the experimental performance art world by storm. Curated by Flow Chart executive director Jeffrey Lependorf, poet-performers Anselm Berrigan, Shanekia McIntosh, Joan Retallack, and Jasmine Dreame Wagner will perform in front of Hudson Hall's full-stage projection screen. The participating artists will be taking a variety of approaches, and the film clips run the gamut from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey to the Bogart and Bacall classic To Have and Have Not.

Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not (1944)

"We're excited to present this night of Ashberian creativity and mischief with Hudson Hall," said Lependorf. "There's no doubt John would have loved it, and I like to think this might be the perfect 'gateway drug' for future fans to explore his work." 

A Night of Neo-Benshi is offered as a love letter to John Ashbery. He himself was a great fan of Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection, a TV show in which the comedy troupe spoofed classic films by overdubbing new dialogue. In his early years, he loved such 1930s and '40s radio shows as Vic and Sade, which featured fast-paced linguistic fireworks. He quickly became fascinated with the magic of language. Experiencing Neo-Benshi provides a window into the kinds of inter-artistic dialogue and sense of play that pervades Ashbery's work.

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit hudsonhall.org.  
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