Powderburn

Powderburn, titled after a racial slur, is a performance piece that follows one man from his sun-burnt, war-torn homeland to an unnamed country in which cultures clash in cracked basements, men become brothers become enemies, and a class system assigns him the forever role of exoticized, eroticized, animal-like performer. As the performance (and performer) descends towards a construct that is intentionally volatile and unraveled, a persistent video camera becomes increasingly representative of the “audience;” it is through the constant gaze of this audience that each dance and demo becomes less sport and more spectacle. An actual audience is invited to view the Powderburn residency’s final performance of the week, the last stop on a downward spiral of dance and fight and charged dynamic between this small group of men that, over eight days, will have grown into beaten yet emboldened brothers. Joshua Seidner is a graduate of Bard College, where he studied theater under JoAnne Akalaitis. His experience includes having appeared in theater, performance art, and online and independent film projects with Gorilla Repertory, Theatre Mitu, The Kitchen, PS1/WPS1 Radio, and The British Film Council, among others. His first experience at The Watermill Center was in 2007, where he participated in the workshop production of Hotel Savant’s adaptation of Antonin Artaud’s The Cenci, later appearing in the full production at New York’s Ohio Theater. Joshua has worked with video artists Annika Larsson and Kalup Linzy, served as Editor of USELESS Magazine, contributed writing to V Magazine, and exhibited a series of polaroids at Los Angeles’ WOW Gallery. Upcoming is a role in the first film produced by Finnish fashion line Ivana Helsinki and an appearance in a PERFORMA09 collaboration this Fall. Powderburn is the first project Joshua has written that will be produced.