April 16, 2013
In an ancient seafaring adventure, an eel priestess and a sailing man come together in an otherworldly, mesmerizing encounter with eroticism, exploitation, freedom, and ferocity.
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THE ANGUILLADAE EATERS / JONAS
DVD Release – April 20, 2013
Catalysis Projects / LA
Directed, Written and Filmed by
Quintan Ana Wikswo
Music by Veronika Krausas
Harmonica by Bill Barrett
Voice by Amber Benson
Recording Engineer Brian Shephard
After its premiere in Los Angeles at Beyond Baroque and performances at the UnSung Series at Unnameable Books in Brooklyn and the Composer-Performer in the 21st Century Festival at California State University at Fullerton, THE ANGUILLADAE EATER / JONAS was recorded and will be released on DVD on April 20 by Catalysis Projects/LA.
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THE ANGUILLADAE EATER / JONAS ruptures the primordial mythos of women, sailors, sex and the sea…instead offering a highly-charged, deeply connected inquiry into the legacy of exploiting ecology to indulge human gratification.
Quintan Ana Wikswo’s unsettlingly luminous original films were created at sites of mass animal slaughter along the desolate New York and California coastlines.
Her original animated 35mm films reveal Point Dume’s Paradise Cove where thousands of California grey whales were harpooned, lanced to death and flensed into oil, and Barren Island’s Dead Horse Bay boneheaps where the bodies of New York City’s carriage horses were rendered into glues and fertilizers.
Veronika Krausas’ haunting, post-apocalypic music for harmonic invokes the ancient cadences, overtones, and disharmonies of the Baltic Coast: sailor songs, pagan chants, and the sounds of cormorants and seagulls.
Bill Barrett’s solo harmonica creates a compelling sonic voice, simultaneously primordial and deeply modern.
THE ANGUILLADAE EATER is based upon the original poems of Quintan Ana Wikswo, performed by actor Amber Benson.
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VERONIKA KRAUSAS (music)
The works of Canadian composer Veronika Krausas have been performed internationally, where she is recognized for her innovative use of theatre, acrobatics, and video. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) writes that “her works, whose organic, lyrical sense of storytelling are supported by a rigid formal elegance, give her audiences a sense that nature’s frozen objects are springing to life.”
She lives in Los Angeles and is an Assistant Professor in the Composition Department and the Assistant Director of Undergraduate Theory at the Thornton School of Music, a lecturer and interviewer with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, on the advisory board of Jacaranda Music, and an associate artist with The Industry and Catalysis Projects.
QUINTAN ANA WIKSWO (text + film projection)
Quintan Ana Wikswo’s artistic and intellectual practice is located at the intersections of literature, film, photography, queer/feminist theory, human rights, and live performance collaboration with composers and choreographers. Recognized for her exploration of new forms, hybrids, and cross-pollinated collaborative discovery, her projects integrate her original texts in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and libretto, as well as her original alternative process photography, 35mm films, and live performance works.
She is the recipient of a 2013 Creative Capital Grant in Emerging Fields, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Yaddo, the Pollock Krasner Foundation, the Center for Cultural Innovation, ARC/Durfee, Djerassi, the Puffin Foundation, Ucross, the Millay Colony, Villa Montalvo, the Anderson Ranch Arts Center, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Oberpfalzer Kunstlerhaus, and more. Her projects are published, exhibited, and performed widely, including two major solo museum exhibitions in New York City and Germany.
She lives in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, and is the co-Artistic Director of Fieldshift Further, and a core artist with Catalysis Projects and Flashpoint NYC.
BILL BARRETT (harmonica) has a career that spans three decades. He has performed and recorded with the L.A. Philharmonic, Natalie Merchant, The Kronos Quartet, Gangbe Brass Band, members of Black Flag and Nels Cline. He is currently in the acclaimed New York roots ensemble Hazmat Modine and guitarist Marc Ford’s Neptune Blues Club. Bill fronts the manouche quartet The Bastards of Belleville, and the roots collective The Claremont Voodoo Society. His most recent CD release, Music for American Gypsy Souls, is a collaborator with long time friend Eric Holden.
AMBER BENSON (voice):
Amber Benson is a writer, director and actor. She currently writes the CALLIOPE REAPER-JONES series for Ace/Roc and her middle grade book, AMONG THE GHOSTS, came out in paperback this past fall from Simon and Schuster. She co-directed the Slamdance feature, DRONES and (co-wrote) and directed the BBC animated series, THE GHOSTS OF ALBION. Her acting work includes the Steven Soderbergh film, KING OF THE HILL, and the indie feature, RACE YOU TO THE BOTTOM, for which she won the Best Actress Award at Outfest. She spent three years as Tara Maclay on the television series BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER.