Saturday February 15 * 7pm * AT TONAL PARK * $25-40 * TICKETS
Tonal Park and Rhizome DC present an evening with Maria Chavez at Tonal Park: 7014-C Westmoreland Ave, Takoma Park, MD
Maria Chavez Born in Lima, Peru and based in NYC, Maria Chávez is best known as an abstract turntablist, sound artist and DJ. Coincidence, chance and failures are themes that unite her work across mediums, including improvised performance, sound and marble sculpture, visual art, and book objects. Her approach is rooted in Deep Listening, a form of embodied listening developed by her late mentor Pauline Oliveros. Maria is the only abstract turntablist in the world who performs with a rare needle known as the RAKE Double Needle. This special device contains two needles on one head, allowing it to read two different segments of a single record at the same time. Paired with her inimitable ability to create unforgettable sonic experiences from shards of broken records, each performance is truly unique. Maria’s practice is profoundly expansive, responsive and curious. Her work has been featured and supported by a myriad of institutions over the past decades including Rewire Festival, Counterflows Festival, Donau Festival, The Guggenheim Museum, The Getty, The Wire, MOCA Jacksonville, Black Mountain College Museum and many, many more. Chavez’s 2012 book, Of Technique: Chance Procedures on Turntable has garnered a reputation as both an academic resource on turntablism and a foundational text for a new generation of turntablists.
Niki Afsar 'i am a nonbinary/femme, iranian-american writer and interdisclipinary artist. i was born in los angeles to tehran-born parents and learned to speak farsi in my mid 20s. since 2015 i have lived and worked in new york city, tehran, the washington dc area, and western massachusetts.
my work explores ideas of fluidity and longing within language, hybrid/myriad identities, and mental health.
my art and politics are shaped by questions of identity and liberation. i am in the process of developing my artistic practice as a site for reimagination and world-building, with the goal of creating performance and artistic spaces that are collaborative and collective while also specific and personal.
my work explores not only longing but also the lack that persists in my relationships to language and mythologies of identity. these liminal spaces of void are where desire lives. they are essential for change and reinvention.
i employ a number of mediums including devised movement and performance; poetry and text; live singing and recording using a vocal loop machine; sound collaging; and more recently, mirror work.'
