Friday, February 26
7:00 p.m.
The Watermill Center
39 Watermill Towd Road
Water Mill, New York 11976
Reservations [required]: constantreality.eventbrite.com
The Constant Reality Theater—an Icelandic company founded by the visual artists Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir and Ragnar Kjartansson and the musician Davíð Þór Jónsson—are using their month-long Watermill Center Spring Artist Residency to create The February Radio Drama. To help the artists realize the broadcast of the project, which entails writing and performing a radio play each day, Watermill has partnered with the Clocktower Gallery and AIR (Art International Radio), an Internet radio station created by PS1 founding director and Watermill Center Selection Committee member Alanna Heiss. Recordings from the Watermill residency began broadcasting on February 16 through the AIR website (www.artonair.org). The direct link for their broadcasts is http://urls.artonair.org/watermill. On February 26, The Constant Reality Theatre invites the public to participate in the final recording.
Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir, Ragnar Kjartansson and Davíð Þór Jónsson are three especially celebrated members of the Reykjavík art scene. For The February Radio Drama, Ásdís is the writer, Davíð is the composer and sound producer, Ragnar is the choreographer, and all three are the actors.
Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir's mediums include live performance, video and installation; she is the founder of the Reykjavík based Theater of Artists. Davíð Þór Jónsson has created dozens of records, musicals and film scores and has been nicknamed "the beast of the jazz piano" by Icelandic critics. Ragnar Kjartansson has been in various bands, worked as a visual artist and was Iceland's representative at the 2009 Venice Biennale. Occasionally, they get together as the group Eine Kleine Theater, mostly to perform poetic and humorous yet formalistic plays written by Ásdís. They have performed together in various Soirees in Reykjavík, The Volksbühne in Berlin and on Icelandic National Radio. The February Radio Drama exemplifies not only Watermill's embrace of multi-disciplinary work, but also the organization's commitment to supporting its resident artists with a network of affiliated institutions and individuals. Through Alana Heiss, AIR's founder and a member of Watermill's singular residency selection committee, and her longtime affiliate, the Clocktower Gallery, the Constant Reality Theater has received an innovative, international broadcast platform for their new work.
The February Radio Drama initiates a broader relationship between the Watermill Center and AIR (Art International Radio), which will broadcast select Watermill open rehearsals and other events. Alana Heiss founded AIR after the dissolution of WPS1; through a recent deal, AIR will host the bulk of the WPS1 archive, in addition to new programming.
