Franconia Performance Salon (San Francisco Performance Art)

Franconia Performance Salon

San Francisco Performance Art: The Franconia Performance Salon

Performance Salon #14

A joint collaboration with the Museum of Performance + Design,
Franconia Performance Salon fourteen
featured new work by Alessio Silvestrin,
Rebecca Ormiston, Yula Paluy, Jamie Lyons, Ryan Tacata,
Renu Cappelli, Tonyanna Borkovi, Derek Phillips, and Michael Hunter

Performance Salon #13

Salon thirteen had works by Rebecca Ormiston & Rebecca Chaleff,
Omer Gal, Nathalie Brilliant, Richie Rhombus,
Vivek Narayan, Yula Paluy and Renu Cappelli

Performance Salon #12

Salon twelve had showings by by the Brilliant sisters
Richie Rhombus, Green Tooth Girl,
Angrette McCloskey, Niki Ulehla, and Jamie Lyons

Performance Salon #11

Salon eleven featured performances by Fred Schmidt-Arenales,
Sarah Mendelsohn, and Karen Penley
excerpts of a new performance text by Martin Schwartz
a sound installation by Derek Phillips
and a video game by Daniel Jackson

Salon ten had Ryan Tacata and Nathalie Brilliant sharing new performance works
Nicholas Berger presented an excerpt from “Land of Songs,”
a new film documentary about Lithuanian folk music,
and Kimberly Jannarone directed a section of
an unproduced play by Jon O’Keefe, “Saying Emily”

Performance Salon #9

Salon nine had new work by Arianne Foks, Ryan Tacata,
Yula Paluy, Jamie Lyons, Niki Ulehla,
Derek Phillips and Michael Hunter

Performance Salon #8

Salon eight showcased new work from Karen Penley
Niki Ulehla, and Nicholas Berger
as well as a live musical set from Meredith Axelrod

Performance Salon #7

Salon seven featured performances from
Ryan Tacata, Angrette McCloskey, and Tonyanna Borkovi

Performance Salon #6

Salon six includeda piece by Martin Shwartz
a live music set by Meghan Dunn
and a large-scale hair choreo-poem by Michael Hunter

Performance Salon #5

Salon five featured a mini-concert from Meklit Hadero
a performance projection from Tiffany Trenda
a haunting performance sculpture created by Ryan Tacata
and a new piece featuring Yula Paluy

Performance Salon #4

Salon four included a solo performance by Kelly Rafferty
new work by Michael Hunter and Derek Phillips, Niki Ulehla
and an installation environment by Raegan Truax

Performance Salon #3

The third salon featured new work
by Jordan Essoe, Luciano Chessa,
and Niki Ulehla with Renu Cappelli

Performance Salon #2

In our second Franconia Performance Salon,
we worked together to present a live version of
Andy Warhol’s film The Life of Juanita Castro
with Michael Hunter directing the actors live
using Ronald Tavel’s script.

This may be a little circuitous, but after working on Genet’s The Balcony, where Chopin’s “Funeral March” is the only music direction within the script I discovered this Chopin anecdote. As it turns out, Chopin loved performance salons (poetry/music). He was particularly fond of Joseph Kessler’s Friday soirées, where Warsaw’s best musicians, professionals and amateurs, gathered for “quartets” and made music impromptu—without a pre-arranged program. In Kessler’s home Chopin not only took the opportunity to become acquainted with great works of music, but also the chance to share his experiences with other musicians and to learn from them. At one particular salon Chopin heard Beethoven’s last Trio “Archduke,” (in my opinion, an unbelievable masterpiece) that left Chopin completely dumbfounded:

“… It’s a long time since I heard something equally great; there Beethoven mocks the whole world.”

Franconia Performance Salon
(San Francisco Performance Art)

But the artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition— and, therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation— and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts, to the solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all humanity— the dead to the living and the living to the unborn.
Joseph Conrad