Groundbreaking Seattle Performance Company Degenerate Art Ensemble Celebrated at Frye Art Museum

SEATTLE, WA.- An array of warrior princesses, ninjas waging epic battles, hungry ghosts, birds and beasts—shape shifters all—will greet visitors at the Frye Art Museum from March 19 to June 19, 2011 when the groundbreaking Seattle performance company Degenerate Art Ensemble (DAE) will be celebrated for the first time in a museum exhibition.

DAE’s dynamic, event-based sensorial extravaganzas will be showcased through music, sculpture, props, costumes, musical instruments, animated films, photo and video documentation, and video projections. Included are signature DAE works such as Sonic Tales (2009) and Cuckoo Crow (2006); a premiere performance, Degenerate Art Ensemble’s Red Shoes; as well as workshops with the artists and public programs. Artworks and sets created by DAE especially for a museum context include The Hidden One, a giant, glowing girl-theater deftly combining the characters of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf.

DAE’s first art exhibition was conceived and executed in a process of dialogue and close collaboration between Frye Art Museum curator Robin Held and the artists, especially co-artistic directors Haruko Nishimura and Joshua Kohl. The multifaceted, interdisciplinary project supports the Frye’s commitment to present under-recognized work of significance and to engage diverse audiences through interdisciplinary, boundary-breaking artworks-in-progress.

DAE’s past performances—including 500 concerts and performances in ten countries—have ranged from full theatrical stage productions to intimate concerts. DAE can transform from a dance company to a punk/jazz band to a 45-piece orchestra. At its heart, DAE is in a state of constant examination and reinvention guided by a strong and unified creative vision.

DAE’s roots date back to 1993, when a group of Seattle-based artists formed the Young Composers Collective, a 17-member experimental orchestra including students and professional musicians, visual artists, dancers and other innovators. Six years later, the group changed its name to Degenerate Art Ensemble, referring to one of the twentieth century’s most important and galvanizing art exhibitions: the 1937 Degenerate Art exhibition, which presented 650 works purged from German museums because they did not support the ideals of National Socialism. For DAE, reviving the name “Degenerate Art” indicated a commitment to internationalism, interdisciplinary practice, intellectual rigor and open expression that expands political and artistic boundaries.

DAE has explored sound, dance, stagecraft, film scoring, recording, sculpture and painting in more than 100 original performative works and nine commercial music recordings. DAE was commissioned for new work by On the Boards, Commissioning Music/USA and the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and was awarded an artist residency at the New Museum, New York City. In March 2011, immediately following the opening of the Frye exhibition, DAE begins an artist residency at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center, where they will create and present a new performance. DAE is currently represented by Circuit Network, San Francisco.

Artists creating original work for this exhibition include Colin Ernst, Mandy Greer, Stefan Gruber, Joshua Kohl, Robb Kunz, Ian Lucero, Leo Mayberry, Steven Miller, Ruthie Niklaus, Haruko Nishimura, Jason Puccinelli, Bruce Tom and Nik Weisend. DAE’s technical manager is Terry Podgorski; the group’s production manager is Olivia Taguinod.

Degenerate Art Ensemble’s Red Shoes: Premiere Performance
DAE’s latest site-specific performance, Red Shoes, will be presented this spring at the Frye Art Museum and several other First Hill locations. The extraordinary performance is a reimagining of Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of a girl whose red shoes will not allow her to stop dancing.

“The performance,” notes Robin Held, “is DAE’s interpretation of this beloved fairy tale and horror story – a rich drama of dreams, appetites, discipline, desire, transformation, and reinvention, danced through mountains and forests, across rivers, and through time”. Beginning in the Frye galleries, moving to the courtyard of St. James Cathedral, and spilling into the streets, Red Shoes features key DAE members, special guest vocalist Dohee Lee, scenic design by Jason Puccinelli, choreography by Haruko Nishimura, Amy O’Neal and Trinidad Martinez, music by Jherek Bischoff and Joshua Kohl, a string quartet, a marching band, and the public. The performance will be presented for limited audiences on four consecutive Thursday evenings: May 12, May 19, May 26 and June 2.

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