It was actually a really weird synchronicity, because I was already trying to investigate the idea of dance as a pyramid scheme. The opening of the show is verbatim a recreation of her presentation. You know, “things are hard right now but your day is coming and all you have to do is stay positive and believe it’s going to happen and keep working towards this goal.” So I was interested in that and in watching this woman give me this presentation in complete sincerity. g1br33l was very clearly about a cult leader and a cult, and these multilevel marketing companies are similar, they’re economic cults. They’re very popular right now because people are having a hard time getting by, so they see this presentation where all you have to do is sell things… It’s this idea that you put your nose to the grindstone at the beginning and then you’ll retire by the time you’re thirty or whatever.
It’s in this legal gray area where because these companies make so much money, and because our government is so corrupt, they don’t have any regulations. It is not a pyramid scheme, but it is very similar to one.
PG: I feel like I should know this, but what’s Amway?ĪR: Amway is a multi-level marketing company, these are companies like Herbalife, Avon, Mary Kay… Basically you sell a product and then you sign up other people to also sell products. I wanted to get an idea of her performance when she was giving me this Amway pitch. So I met up with her at a Penn Station Starbucks and she gave me her presentation and I recorded it, which is legal-ethical I’m not sure. But I kept on going along with it and eventually she asked if I wanted to meet up. And I thought, well this is nuts, clearly this is not a real profile, they can’t possibly think I’m a real person. Philip Gates: Tell me about the genesis of AmeriSHOWZ.Īlex Rodabaugh: I had this fake Facebook profile for the show that I did before this, g1br33l, and somebody contacted that profile out of the blue and was like, hey, I’m looking for people who are really savvy with Facebook, we’re looking for entrepreneurs, all this stuff. Rodabaugh and I sat down at Gibney immediately after the final performance to talk about the AmeriSHOWZ project, translating economics into choreographic constraints, and his desire to create a space for open discussion of financial struggle. (For a more detailed discussion of the performance, see my Contemporary Performance writeup here. The cheerful irony of this opening section lays the foundation for a deeper investigation into the relationship between the arts and an economic system that fails almost everyone in it. AmeriSHOWZ, we learn from several earnest representatives, allows you to buy tickets to a variety of performances at wholesale prices and then resell them to others at retail price, leaving you to pocket the difference.
Contemporary ChoreographyĪmeriSHOWZ, the brainchild of choreographer Alex Rodabaugh, advertises itself as “one of the world’s largest direct performance selling businesses.” Sure enough, AmeriSHOWZ: Circle of Champions 2017 (presented at Gibney Dance as part of American Realness in January 2017) begins as a “training session” introducing the company’s business model.
TANK WHEN WE CHOREOGRAPHY SERIES
“What is Mixed Reality Performance?” is part of a series of posts. Each section of this paper includes an introduction to the specific practice, a conversation with an artist, and a list of artists working in and around the specific practice. For this paper the Think Tank chose five areas on the forefront of this research to explore Contemporary Choreography, Mixed Reality Performance, Performance Cabaret, Immersive Theatre, and Social Engaged Art. This year’s topic is contemporary performing artists and companies redefining relationships with audience and pushing the formal relationships of architecture, artist, and audience. Each year the Think Tank focuses on a set of topics concerning the fields of Theater and Contemporary Performance and conducts research and interviews to produce a paper as a resource for practitioners. The Contemporary Performance Think Tank is organized by Contemporary Performance Network.