As promised, another Speaker is coming your way. Kristin Konopka is a performance artist and a political activist based in New York. A co-founder and Artistic Director of the interdisciplinary arts company Theatre Reverb, Kristin has been working on multidisciplinary productions since 2006.
Her video works have been shown at venues throughout NYC and at Festivals including FRIGID NY, Montreal Fringe, Ottawa Fringe and the Boulder Fringe as well as in Berlin. Combining the influences of silent cinema, popular culture, circus arts and classical Indian theatre, her works explore issues such as sexual politics, celebrity worship and American militarism and fear culture.
Theatre Reverb has won various awards including the “Audience Choice” and “Most Innovative” awards for their FRIGID festival productions (2008 & 2012). The theatre company is currently collaborating on a large-scale cross-cultural project Reliquum, with composer and musician Ellery Royston and kutiyattam artists Ammannur Rajaneesh Chakyar and Bhadra Rajaneesh.
Kristin has also performed with the Mabou Mines company and is a resident artist at Galapagos Art Space and a sponsored artist of the Brooklyn Arts Council. She also studies traditional Indian dances.
What is most striking about Kristin performance art though, is her panache for the political. This has led her to collaborate with the Ukrainian-based international women’s movement FEMEN, staging political performance actions and media stunts at Zuccotti Park NYC and with the Occupy Wall Street Movement.
Confronted by the dramatic economic turmoil of her city, Kristin has been able to create and maintain compartmentalised performances of identity. Her talk will take you into her world of secret alter egos, showing how she manages to function in a world of contrasting realities retaining her anonymity. From her burlesque nightclub performances, to her theatre and media work, to her political activist zeal and right up to the penthouses of her wealthy yoga clients.
For more info about Kristin’s work visit her Theatre Reverb site.