High Line Performances

Presented by Friends of the High Line, High Line Art commissions and produces High Line Performances, a series of live, often participatory events that transform the park into an open-air theater. Performances take place on and around the High Line and have previously included works by Pablo Bronstein, Jamal Cyrus, Simone Forti, Alison Knowles, David Lamelas, Ryan McNamara, Cally Spooner, and the Trisha Brown Dance Company, among others.

Francesca Benitez will engage park visitors in a series of three interrelated vignettes that weave through the park along paths choreographed in signs. The three chapters of her performance will unfold at three distinct locations in the park, reacting to each site individually. An extension of her previous work with both formal and informal sign languages, Benitez's performance will bring together a new group of collaborators in a melding of sign languages and contact improvisation, including performers with a background in ASL jamming and deaf poetry circles.

Aki Sasamoto will present a new performance specifically for the High Line for which she will bring a custom-built food cart to the High Line at the Rail Yards. From her perch inside the cart, the artist will offer visitors an à la carte selection of micro performances and playful narrative demonstrations. Like an off-kilter life hacking workshop, Food Rental will continue Sasamoto's tradition of performances that engage visitors with sneakily shifting stage sets and unruly props.

Kevin Beasley will install and play a new sound sculpture on the High Line at the Rail Yards, a site whose immersive acoustic landscape enthralled the artist on his first visit to the park. Collecting audio recordings on and around the High Line, Beasley will develop a composition merging the natural, human, and machine sounds that immerse visitors to the park.

Programme:

Francisca Benitez
As you lean on me and I lean on you, we move forward
July 14, 15, and 17, 2015, 7pm
Various locations on the High Line

Aki Sasamoto
Food Rental
July 21–23, 2015, 7pm
On the High Line at West 30th Street and 11th Avenue

Kevin Beasley
September 8–10, 2015
High Line at the Rail Yards