Pittsburgh, PA–Spurred by impending budget cuts and inspired by the recent wave of protestfrom the Middle East to the Mid-West, the TypewriterGirls have decided to utilize theirprestigious position as performers at The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s Gallery Crawl in theCultural District (Trust Arts Education Center, Peirce Studio, 805/807 Liberty Ave.) this April 29th from 6-9pm in order to ignite the artist-led revolution of their fantasies. They dream,once no longer chained by accessible funding to the arts, of packing city squares with banners of Expressionist paintings, stilt walkers with brightly colored megaphones, revolutionary chants endowed with the poetic flame, and modern dancers costumed like mythical beasts.

In order to bring this new revolutionary wave of protest into existence, they’ve gathered representatives from all of the artistic underclasses: avant-garde dancers, such as The PillowProject; circus performers, like Erin Carey of Zany Umbrella Circus, Some Kinda Circus Project, and some guy named Gary; musicians, both classically trained and not-quite, including Gordon Kirkwood, Emay and the TypewriterGirls-subsidized Dadaist Symphony; and, the very lowest of the low, poets, suchas Renee Alberts and Deena November, in order to express their grievances with everything from the devastation of our environment with fancy-schmancy new poison-ridden gas drilling techniques, to the catastrophic defense budget, to the gross under-representation of poets in Congress.

Three performances of this show will take place throughout the evening. During intermissionsthe TypewriterGirls will be composing personalized poems for audience members with musical accompaniment. As always, an exquisite corpse will be composed on typewriters throughout the event and will be performed periodically during the performance.

This just in: local artist Matty Freebles will be doing a live painting of the performance throughout the night!

CIRCUS

Laura Lantz
Laura is fascinated by the relationships between play and discovery.  From ballet to martial arts, pole dance, and slack rope walking, she is constantly learning new things and looking to share the fun with others!  In January 2010, inspired by the variety of Pittsburgh-based circus arts groups, Laura joined with David Doyle and Stephanie Bercht to create a grassroots collaboration of local performers: Some Kinda Circus.

Stephanie Bercht
A crafty quirky individual at heart, Steph is a Brazilian who moved to the States to pursue her studies in arts and design. She got hooked by hooping during her studies in 2008. What seemed to be a small obsession with a child’s toy became a passion for play through movement and sharing of experiences. Together with David Doyle and Laura Lantz, they co-founded the Some Kinda Circus, designed to inspire and invigorate its audience through circus fun.

O’Ryan
Starting with three tennis balls and a backpack, O’Ryan travelled for eight years gaining circus skills and a love for performance. Clowning at public markets, schools, orphanages and on street corners across the globe, his experiences have only added to his toolbox. Whether it is miming, juggling, acrobalance, sideshow, or just clowning around, O’Ryan is always happy to have it be part of Some Kinda Circus.

Gary Jackson
Becoming an artist has been a journey that has taken me through many times, places and worlds as I seek the truths inherent in life as I see it – a work in progress.
My career began in my younger years when I practiced a variety of visual and performing arts such as sculpture, painting, photography, dance and music. As I grew as a performance artist, my work gravitated toward a focus on the fire, circus and sideshow arts. My goal is to make people smile and help people of all ages remember what it is like to be young in a fast-paced world. Currently I can be
found working with artists from all over the world and as a performer with David Doyle Entertainment and teacher to those interested in maintaining and elevating the arts.

POETRY

Renée Alberts listens to rivers and shortwave radio to create poetry, collage, sound and photography. Her poetry collection, No Water, came out in 2009, and her work has appeared inThe New Yinzer, Encyclopedia Destructica, Pittsburgh City Paper and Subtletea. She has given dozens of readings, including on WYEP’s Prosody, WRCT’s A Live Show, and as a 2001 and 2004 member of the Steel City Slam Team. She organizes numerous poetry and music events, including the CLP Sunday Poetry & Reading Series, for which she edited Natural Language: Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Sunday Poetry and Reading Series Anthology. She posts writing and art at www.animalprayer.com.

Deena November graduated SUNY Binghamton in 2005 with a BA in Creative Writing, Poetry and received her MFA in Creative Writing, Poetry from Carlow University in April 2009. In 2005 she co-edited the anthology I JUST HOPE IT’S LETHAL: Poems of Sadness, Madness, and Joy for Houghton Mifflin. Her poems have also appeared in Pittsburgh City Paper, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Shaking Like a Mountain, Nerve Cowboy, Chiron Review, Keyhole Magazine and Warbler. She teaches the Writing of Poetry at Seton Hill University. Currently Deena teaches at Carlow University and lives in Pittsburgh’s North Side with her husband and dog.

DANCE

The Pillow Project is an ever-evolving idea for creating new methods in multimedia choreography, jazz movement and conceptual performances. The resident artists of The Pillow Project are compelled to create relevant, contemporary work as our artistic expression of The Now. Through a fluid, collaborative process, our philosophy has become organically jazz:  synchronizing, contrasting and playing with the moment as we translate the music and physicality in acutely personal ways.
We are an experimental performing artist collective dedicated to igniting a unique cultural movement in Pittsburgh. Through our original performance-art happenings and multi-media installations, we articulate impassioned commentaries on the zeitgeist, ask fundamental questions.

MUSIC

Erika May is a formally trained multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter with an eclectic mix of edgy and deep music flecked with jazz, folk and various world influences. Soaring, lyrical melodies and emotionally driven performance create a dynamic experience of original music, traditional Sephardic songs, jazz standards, folk, and more.

Gordon Kirkwood is a classical and electroacoustic cellist with experimental tendencies. He also builds robots and plays with fire.

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On April 29th The TypewriterGirls will be taking the Gallery Crawl in the Cultural District of Pittsburgh by storm…okay, not quite by storm. We’ve been asked by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust to make some magic happen in their Peirce Studio space from 6-9pm, and we’ve got some fantastic things in mind for that three hour chunk. You can expect all of your favorite zany typewritergirl antics–including sketch comedy, exquisite corpsing, a fantastic dance act, poetry games, and an amazing line-up of poets–as well as some slightly atypical acts for our usual cabaret routine. It’s free! So, don’t miss it!

Art All Night Lawrenceville - April 30th 2-3am

Straight on the heels of our Gallery Crawl performance we’ll be headed out for a late night in Lawrenceville, where we’ll be recreating last year’s 2-3am debacle of poetry and drunken improv comedy games. However, this year it is our goal to give no one person alcohol poisoning and to incorporate some more organized theatrics into the event. Hopefully we’ll see you there!

There will be more info on both of these events soon!

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NYC, NY–The TypewriterGirls have long considered themselves to be unique and enthusiastic purveyors of knowledge to the public in general and budding Dadaists in particular; however, on Friday, February 25th at the Cornelia St. Cafe, they begin to take their roles as alternative educators perhaps a little too seriously.

Can the TypewriterGirls turn one of their shenanigan-filled, Dada-bred poetry cabarets into an state sanctioned institution of education? Come and find out if is it’s possible to successfully integrate poetry, comedy, dance, magic, literary games, art, and chaos into a coherent lesson plan at TypewriterGirls Portrait of the Dadaist as a Public School Official: Doors will open at 5:45PM with the show starting promptly at 6PM; $9.00 cover/$7.00 cover with a personalized letter to an elected official expressing concern over the budget cuts to education and arts programs in particular.

Will the DEA shut down their classes on consciousness-expanding? Will Homeland Security prevent lessons on “Starting Small Riots in Urban Environments”? Exactly how many governmental and social institutions will attempt to close their doors before evenings end?

Fortunately, the TypewriterGirls have assembled a crack team of artists with similar interests in spreading enlightenment to the masses: A newly formed Dada dance troupe will be serving as gym instructors for those of us who found dodge ball and push-ups to be cruel sadistic rituals; Mark Swindler will be teaching the all-too necessary course Consensual Illusion and the Mysteries of Reality Manipulation; and, of course, there to embody transcendent language as wisdom will be renowned Chinese poet and performer Huang Xiang, and Dada Queen and King, poets Kat Georges and Peter Carlaftes.

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FREE for members/ $5 non-members
21 and over only
Cash bar, food donated by local eateries, live performances, art installations…

Don your mask, dress in holiday gold and glitter and sweep into the “Glow” of the St George Ball. Day de Dada will entice you past curious animals lurking in the Museum courtyard and the steampunk brewer, to costumed nautical visitors chatting up Diver Dan, shining projections, virtual worlds and anthr…opomorphic living sculptures. Reveal secrets and have them turned into poetry, savor special tastings, surround yourself with art, nature, friends and dance while simultaneously celebrating the one year anniversary of Second Saturdays!

Featured performers include:
Brendan Coyle and Steven Lapcevic
Amanda Curtis
Inbred Hybrid Collective
The Typewriter Girls
Jim Jeffers
Tamara Wyndham
Reuben Sandwich
DB Lampman
Phil Sanders
Viv de Dada
Mary Campbell
Michele Guttenberg
Milenka Berengolc

Installations by:
Richard Plunkett
Mark Zappasodi

We’ll be performing a piece called “The Poetry Cure”. Here is a short description:

Guests will first visit an alternatively trained “psychoanalyst” and reveal to her their darkest secrets, most perverse dreams, and debauched fantasies. They will then move on to a renowned bohemian occultist who will utilize ancient Roma magic and alchemical secrets from the book of Paracelsus to create for the visitor a trinket encoded with magic words (also known to some as a poem) to relieve them of their neurosis.

Costumes provided by ETG Clothing Store

15 Minute random Ipod Dance Party- dance to the music you like!

Bring a 15 minute playlist on your ipod and sign up to DJ.

(for more ipod info contact mary@daydedada.com)

“Glow” at the St George Ball – a Day de Dada Production – part of Second Saturday Staten Island

For more party info contact:

viv@daydedada.com or mary@daydedada.com

or call the Staten Island Museum at 718-727-1135

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“TypewriterGirls: Portrait of the Dadaist as a Public School Official”

Saturday, doors open at 7 p.m, show begins at 8 p.m.

Modern Formations, 4919 Penn Ave.

$7 cover/$5 with written letter to an elected official expressing concern about budget cuts in the public school system

These days, the world might rely on smart phones and social networking, but that doesn’t mean typewriters are out of style. Just ask poetry group the TypewriterGirls.

Crystal Hoffman and Margaret Bashaar, the two women who compose the TypewriterGirls, call themselves “purveyors of knowledge” to the world outside of their close-knit poetry cabarets. Now they’ve decided to center their knowledge on a fraught institution: the public school system.

The TypewriterGirls was originally a group of five young women who met during their sophomore year at Carlow University in 2004 in the creative writing department. There, they had a quirky professor who gave them each a typewriter as a present. From then on, they were known by their present name.

Soon, however, Hoffman and Bashaar were the only two who wanted to continue the group.

Together, they created a new sort of poetry reading: one filled with philosophy — sometimes their own — and inspired by surrealism and Dadaism, an anti-war and anti-bourgeois cultural movement founded in Zurich during World War I. This new kind of creative atmosphere became the poetry cabaret.

What exactly is a poetry cabaret? The term comes from the arts cabarets in Europe. “It’s essentially whatever we want to do there,” Hoffman said. In addition to co-conducting the poetry readings, Hoffman also writes a new and original comedy sketch that overarches the entire show.

“[It’s] almost like a large play,” Bashaar said.

Calling their new show “TypewriterGirls: Portrait of the Dadaist as a Public School Official,” the women aim to illuminate the recent budget cuts to education and arts programs in public schools.

Bashaar said she began to pay attention to the public school system when her 5-year-old son entered kindergarten this year. He is a lively and creative child, she said, and it was an interesting integration to watch.

But now the women are aware of the problems that face public school systems — problems that extend beyond budget cuts. Hoffman feels that many teachers are becoming “glorified babysitters.” Bashaar added that she doesn’t think teachers are doing enough, that they aren’t coming up with creative ways to help students and parents alike.

In addition to their Dadaism-themed drinking games, comedy, poetry and magic — all in support of public education — the TypewriterGirls will, according to Hoffman, “start [their] own alternative school” as part of the show.

Bashaar added that in their school, they refuse to have a “myopic, single-minded view about how things should be done.”

Along with the TypewriterGirls’ performances, the show plans to include additional performances by other artists, including poetry readings by Lynn Emanuel, a professor of English at Pitt, and private readings from the renowned poetry advocacy group Poetry Brothel from New York City.

Hoffman adds that she’s looking forward to how all of the acts interact as a combination of very nontraditional and somewhat risque pieces of performance art.

Both women stressed that this isn’t just any poetry reading, and that, as Bashaar teased, “sometimes, the audience becomes unwillingly a part of the show.” Although they wouldn’t say exactly what this show’s audience involvement would entail, past performances have included games and impromptu dance parties.

The TypewriterGirls have a passion for these types of performances. “Every act, every thing we bring in is like our baby,” Bashaar said. For their upcoming show, it looks like that baby is heading to school.

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http://ironcitypunk.com/

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SATURDAY

“TypewriterGirls Portrait of the Dadaist as a Public School Official,” a poetry cabaret exploring the marriage of art and education, will be held at Modern Formations, 4919 Penn Ave., Garfield, at 8 p.m. Performers will include The TypewriterGirls Poetry Cabaret (Crystal Hoffman and Margaret Bashaar), the Staycee Pearl Dance Company, music by Amoeba Knievel, magic from Mark Swindler, poetry from Lynn Emanuel, Andrew Mulvania and Skot Jones, and performances and private readings from The Poetry Brothel NYC. Doors open at 7 p.m. Cover is $7 or $5 with a personalized letter to an elected official expressing concern about budget cuts to education and arts programs.

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A Poetry Cabaret that Explores the Marriage of Art and Education

What: A Poetry Cabaret featuring a letter writing station where audience members can express their concern about the dwindling quality of public education and lack of arts integration to elected officials, educationally-themed Dadaist drinking and writing games, readings from poets who also serve the role of educators, magic, dance, live music, performances and private “lessons” from the famed Poetry Brothel from New York City, and the TypewriterGirls’ sketch comedy to tie it all together.

Who: The TypewriterGirls Poetry Cabaret (Crystal Hoffman and Margaret Bashaar) w/ dance by Staycee Pearl Dance Company; live music by Amoeba Knievel; magic from Mark Swindler; poetry from Lynn Emanuel, Andrew Mulvania, and Skot Jones, and performances and private readings from The Poetry Brothel NYC.

When: Saturday, October 23 Doors Open at 7 PM/Show at 8 PM

Where: Modern Formations, 4919 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15224

Cost: $7.00 cover/$5.00 cover with a personalized letter to elected official expressing concern over the budget cuts to education and arts programs in particular.

Long Description:

Pittsburgh, PA–The TypewriterGirls have long considered themselves to be unique and enthusiastic purveyors of knowledge to the public in general and budding Dadaists in particular; however, on Saturday October 23rd, they begin to take their roles as alternative educators perhaps a little too seriously.

Can one of their shenanigan-filled, Dada-bred poetry cabarets become an actual institution of learning? Come find out if the girls can successfully integrate poetry, comedy, dance, magic, literary drinking games, art, music, and chaos into a coherent lesson plan at TypewriterGirls Portrait of the Dadaist as a Public School Official: Doors will open at 7 PM, with the performance starting around 8 PM; $7.00 cover/$5.00 cover with a personalized letter to an elected official expressing concern over the budget cuts to education and arts programs in particular.

Will the DEA shut down their classes on consciousness-expanding? Will Christian moral watch-dogs prevent education on the “dark arts” of magic and manipulation of one’s reality? Exactly how many governmental and social institutions will attempt to close their doors before evenings end?

Fortunately, they’ve assembled a crack team of artists with similar interests in spreading enlightenment to the masses: The Staycee Pearl Dance Company will be serving as gym instructors for those of us who found dodge ball and push-ups to be cruel sadistic rituals; comedy rockers, Amoeba Knievel, will be there to make music class impossible to snooze through; Mark Swindler will be adding an all-too necessary course to any sensible curriculum, Magic and the Mysteries of Reality Manipulation. However, as one would expect the true core of their institution is poetry and the evening will not fail with readings from Lynn Emanuel, Andrew Mulvania, and Skot Jones.

However, if all else fails, the girls have brought in The Poetry Brothel NYC and audience members will have ample opportunities to seek education in a dark corner of Modern Formations with any of their members privately.
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Poet Bios:

The Poetry Brothel is an organization of poets and artists who take
poetry outside of classrooms and lecture halls and place it inside the
lush interior of a bordello. Based on the turn-of-the-century brothels
in the United States and Europe, many of which functioned as safe
havens for the fledgling, avant-garde artists of the times, The Poetry
Brothel events present both male and female, emerging and established
poets. The creation of character, as both disguise and freeing device,
enables The Poetry Brothel to be a place of uninhibited creative
expression, where poets and audience can be themselves in private.
Each poet, under an alias, offers the intimacy of his or her original
poetry in one-on-one readings for $5 a piece. Tipping is encouraged.
Poems may not be suitable for children or adults without a taste for
whiskey, absinthe, or the Sublime.

skot michael jones; alternate form, skot–1. verb. To chant in an amplified guttural or sonorous manner, especially poems, incantations or mystical texts 2. noun. One who breathes alone, silently in a dark room 3. adj. oddly geometric, yet seemingly chaotic in form and/or fashion, especially as it refers to glyphs, sigils and unknown or archaic characters ie. “That icosahedron is very skot michael jones!”

Andrew Mulvania is an Assistant Professor of English (Creative Writing) at Washington & Jefferson College. His first book, Also In Arcadia, was published by The Backwaters Press in 2008. His poems have appeared in Poetry, North American Review, Southern Poetry Review, Green Mountains Review, Bellingham Review, Weave, and elsewhere, and new work is forthcoming in The Southwest Review. He was the recipient of a 2008 Individual Creative Artists Fellowship in Poetry from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

Lynn Emanuel holds a BA from Bennington College, an MA from the City College of New York, and an MFA from the University of Iowa. She is the author of four books of poetry,Hotel Fiesta, The Dig, Then, Suddenly–, which was awarded the Eric Matthieu King Award from The Academy of American Poets, and Noose and Hook. Her work has been featured in the Pushcart Prize Anthology and Best American Poetry numerous times and is included in The Oxford Book of American Poetry. She has been a judge for the National Book Awards and has taught at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, The Warren Wilson Program in Creative Writing, and the Bennington College Low Residency MFA program. She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and has been a winner of the National Poetry Series.

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