Phone Dances (colon) Dances for the Telephone

What: Art(ists) on the Verge IV

Where: The Soap Factory (514 2nd Street Southeast,Minneapolis, MN 55414)

Who: Mad King Thomas (that’s us!), Asia Ward, Sarah Julson, Chris Houltberg, and Anthony Warnick

What: ART.  Like, visual art? We think.  Anyway, we made some phone dances and we would like for you to come to the Soap Factory and experience them.

When: May 4th – 26th, 2013

Opening night reception May 4th, 7 – 11 pm.  We will be there looking as artistic as possible.

So, now that we got all those details out of the way, here is the real nitty gritty:  For nine months, we’ve basically been hermits who don’t blog or otherwise interact with others, because we’ve been working on these “phone dances”. 

We decided for some godforsaken reason to combine our love/hate of dance with our love/hate of telephones.  And the product is, at least in our humbly royal opinion, pretty rad.  We are thrilled to have spent all this time hanging out with people who know about laser cutters and plywood, typefaces and electronics.  (We contributed our usual wiggly dance moves and vulgar jokes.)

Now for a made-up FAQ:

Do I have to come on May 4th to get the good stuff?
You can come to the gallery any time during the installation and experience the dances we made. You won’t necessarily see our pretty faces but there is a live component…just come to the show already and it will all make sense.

Should I bring my cell phone?
Yes.  Although if you actually leave home without your phone regularly, we would like to hear from you because you are not normal.

RELATED BLOG POSTS BECAUSE YOU KNOW YOU WANT MORE:

Way Too Much Information (by Tara)

Dancing on the phone, or near the phone, or…over the phone? (by Tara)

Mad King Thomas meets San Francisco, June 2012: Workshops and Shows

Mad King Thomas is delighted to be performing and teaching workshops in San Francisco June 23-30!

First, as part of the National Queer Arts Festival and Verge3:

A mermaid, ballerina and jazz dancer on stage.

All-Stars 3 along with Sara Yassky and Rodrigo Caldera   at The Garage 715 Bryant Street Saturdays June 23 and June 308pm   $10 with code “mad king thomas” on brownpapertickets or $15 at the door.    The World is Your Oyster, Eat Up, Little Pearl is a dance in which a god-like mermaid, a gender-confused ballerina, and a giant slutty trash bag share their beautiful broken queer family and delve into self-determination, sexuality, and rule-breaking. Armed with penis jokes and sparkles, Mad King Thomas deliver “a brilliant and beautiful fugue of dark humor, despair, and resigned absurdity” (Twin Cities Daily Planet).
  More info at http://queerculturalcenter.org/NQAF/performance/allstars3/   Most importantly, buy your tickets now! Then, tell us you’re coming on the facebook! RSVP here. Invite your facefriends!  

Next: a couple of workshops!

“A is for Authority, A is for Anarchy, A is for Alive”
Monday, June 25 from 6-9pm
at The Garage, 715 Bryant Street, San Francisco
Sliding scale $1-25

This is a process-based workshop by Mad King Thomas for dancers, performance-makers and thinkers of all stripes. As a group, we’ll investigate questions of authority, authorship and subversion: What does it mean to make? How do we give and take authority over our work? How do we borrow, and what do we claim? What is the value of chaos? How can we subvert authority? How can performance be revolutionary (on a societal or personal scale)? Come with questions you’re interested in and we’ll find ways to answer them together.   The workshop will involve movement, writing, improvisation, discussion, and experimentation.  Participants of all backgrounds and levels welcome. Please wear movement-friendly clothing and bring something to write with and on.   You can promise to come on facebook here

“Making Things More Awesome”
Saturday, June 30 from noon-3pm
at The Garage, 715 Bryant Street, San Francisco
Sliding scale $1-25

This workshop investigates embodiment and intellectualism (aka embraininess, aka thinking about stuff) in this workshop for dancers, choreographers, performers, and art-makers. Predicated on Mad King Thomas’ flippant (but earnest) mission statement, “Making things more awesome,” this workshop asks: What is the stuff of life? How do we transform it into the stuff of performance? How can we make art that works, not in a bringing-home-the-bacon, capitalist way, but in a way that subverts the status quo and makes the world more as we want it? How can we use our bodies, the vehicles of everyday existence, to make that same everyday existence even better? We will focus on the body as an intelligent being and the mind as an articulate and engaged part of dance-making. Participants should expect to move, speak, write and improvise. Movers and makers of all experience levels and styles welcome.  

Nothing says “Yes, I want to be there!” like RSVPing on facebook!      

Mad King Thomas in Wheel Sexy Cabaret

What: Wheel Sexy Cabaret, a night of sexy, burlesquey, bicycley dances
When: March 1, 8 & 9, 2012, 10 pm
Where: Bryant Lake Bowl, 801 W. Lake St, Minneapolis
Tickets: $10 in advance or with a bike light, $13 at the door

We’ll be doing Fish on Bikes: A Picture of Free, Untrammelled Womanhood.   You know, that awesome dance we have? The one with bicycles & bikinis & Queen’s Bicycle Race? That one.  Come see us! And a bunch of other sexy bicycle lovin’ freaks.

AND…. GUEST STAR JOANNA FURNANS will be appearing in the role of Tara King.  Come see Joanna totally kick ass at being Tara.  She’s so good.

(It’s even better live. Really!)

Us. In New York City. Dancing. For you.

We’re making our NYC debut, folks.  IT’S EXCITING.

starts at 8pm
at SECRET WORKS LOFT
59 Jefferson St. #301 Bushwick
Admission is a contribution to the free bar where everyone drinks for free all night long!

We don’t have a lot of friends in New York City, you know? Probably has something to do with living in Minneapolis.  So even if you can’t see the show, spread the word!  Tell everyone you know that Mad King Thomas is the most ridiculous monarch of ever and that they’d love our work.  Assuming, of course, that you think those things are true. We’d never ask you to lie (well, almost never.) (Unless you like lying.)

Monica & Theresa will be showing excerpts from The World Is Your Oyster Eat Up, Little Pearl, which debuted in June 2010 at Bedlam Theater.

Laura Holway said this about the show:

I was simultaneously confused, turned on, and filled with awe.  Monica Thomas has an amazing tongue! It makes noises! She can control it almost effortlessly!

Ben McGinley said this:

But holy hell if this isn’t what performance is supposed to be like. Passionate, active, engaging, fucked up, imperfect.

Monica and Theresa superimposed in front of NYC.
Awesome photo of Monica & Theresa by Megan Mayer.
Awesome photo of NYC by joiseyshowaa.