FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Dara Katrina Del Rosario
Communications & Partnerships Manager
415-863-1414 x103, press@somarts.org
 

 
August 21, 2019, San Francisco, CA–SOMArts and Justin Hoover/Collective Action Studio (CAS) are proud to co-present a new iteration of 100 Performance for the Hole: marathon of artistic moments. In honor of the 40th anniversary of SOMArts Cultural Center, CAS is producing an abbreviated version titled 4WAVES: 40 Performances for the Hole on Wednesday, September 11th, 5:58–10:00pm with Rhodessa Jones as a special program presenter. 

4Waves is a fast and furious space for experimentation, highlighting the cultural significance of the Bay Area’s performance art  scene. Each performance lasts just two minutes and takes place in, around, against, or in conversation with “The Hole,” a 100-year-old former sand casting pit in the floor of the SOMArts Main Gallery. 

“100 Performances and this new iteration is speed dating, a punk show, and a happening all rolled into one. It has brought the time-based arts community together in unexpected ways and  helped to forge bonds of resilience among and between the featured artists and the community,” says Hoover.

4Waves contemplates the Bay Area as a pivotal site for radical performance, aligning practices and aesthetics with the Bay’s legacy of poetry, performance, body-politics and social activism. Conceptualized in four periods or “waves” the first wave is identified from 1960-1979, birthed during the expansion of modern art to into post-modernity, as well as through the pioneering work of groups such as the Third World Liberation Front, shifting neighborhood demographics due to Urban Renewal, and the formation of nonprofit arts organizations committed to serving historically underrepresented artists. 

Reagan-era politics and the subsequent protests, tighter controls on arts censorship, and the devastating impact of gentrification set the stage for the Second Wave of Bay Area performance, from 1980-1999. The Third Wave, from 2000-2019, saw exponential technical innovation and the largest economic crash since the Great Depression; the development of social media as a tool for both human connection and voter manipulation; the rise of White Nationalism since the 2016 presidential election; and in response, the growing resistance movements that protect the most vulnerable communities. 

As the Fourth Wave looks to 2020 and beyond, artists and performers imagine new aesthetic forms that bring personal and social concerns to the forefront. 

“At the core of 4Waves is a fire to refuse homogeneity in cultural expression. The bonfire of performance is stoked with sparks of creative and very personal revolutions. Performance art has always been a medium of necessity. It is driven by a need to express and to use the body as a fundamental, egalitarian and available resource,” asserts Hoover. “In San Francisco today, with an expanding wealth gap and a shriveling middle class, performance art necessarily takes on the fight for the body as a site of autonomy, #metoo power, and issues of diversity as an endangered species.”

Featured artists include: pioneering performer Keith Hennessey, Jennifer Locke who explores the constructions of power, hierarchy, and epistemology, and artist, curator, and producer Marcus Kuiland-Nazario, a 30 year vetern of Los Angeles arts and performance scene. 

The Hole, once a sunken casting pit becomes reactivated as a liminal art stage with fast and furious 2 minute spectacles. Each artist has only one-minute to set up, two-minutes to perform and one-minute to clean up. There are no rehearsals. 

Tickets for 4Waves: 40 Performances for the Hole are available online.

FEATURED ARTISTS
Alexandrea Echo Archuleta
Adrian Arias
Tierra Allen
Esther Baker-Tarpaga
Monet Clark
Maxe Crandall and Diana Cage
Shaghayegh Cyrous
Jordan Essoe
deCoy Gallerina
Guta Galli
Terrance Graven
Reshawn Goods / Bushmama Africa
Keith Hennessey
Jesse Hewit / Juice Box
Dale Hoyt
Pete Ippel
Behnaz Khaleghi
Marcus Kuliand-Nazario
Landa Lakes
Peter Max Lawrence
Krisztina Lazar
Jennifer Locke
Margaret McCarthy
Liz Miller-Kovacs
Midori
Logan Moody & Chris Sauceda
Caro Novella
Johanna Poethig
Randy Reyes
Kevin Seaman
Chris Sollars
Lauren Jade Szabo
Janet Silk
T_Shell
The Factronauts (Peter Foucault, Bryan and Vita Hewitt, Chris Treggiari)
Shirin Towfiq
Chaz Walker
Rachel Znerold
Raheleh Minoosh Zomorodinia
Special Guest

CURATOR & EMCEE
Justin Hoover

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ABOUT SOMARTS CULTURAL CENTER
SOMArts Cultural Center, founded in 1979, cultivates access to the arts within the Bay Area by collaborating with community-focused artists and organizations. Together, we engage the power of the arts to provoke just and fair inclusion, cultural respect and civic participation.

SOMArts plays a vital role in the arts ecosystem by helping activate the arts citywide. We do this by providing space and production support for non-profit events, as well as fairs and festivals throughout the Bay Area, and offering a robust program of art exhibitions, classes, events and performances that are affordable and accessible to all. SOMArts’ exhibition programs receive critical support from the San Francisco Arts Commission and San Francisco Foundation and are sponsored in part by a grant from Grants for the Arts.

SOMArts is located at 934 Brannan Street—between 8th and 9th—within 2 blocks of 101, I-80, Muni lines, and bike paths.

For public information call 415-863-1414 or visit somarts.org. Stay connected by following us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.