Event

CHASM

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