The Disco Project Remix - 2022-2023

The Disco Project Remix

2022

5 dancers

25 min

I created this “remix” of my 1995 work, The Disco Project, for site-specific performances at the NYC AIDS Memorial in Greenwich Village, and in response to the site’s contemporaneous exhibition, Songs for a Memorial by Steven Evans. Evans’s installation consisted of 12 text-based LED sculptures spelling out classic song titles such as “Never Can Say Goodbye” and “Do You Wanna Funk?” - both of which are heard within The Disco Project. I trimmed 15-minutes off the original work for the remix, which I tailored to the particular site, fountain included. Part of my interest in doing so was in reconfiguring the work to be seen from all sides (the original was a proscenium work). After re-engaging with The Disco Project via the gallery installation I created for Greene Naftali in 2021, and showed again at White Columns in early 2022, I was happy for the opportunity to create an IRL reactivation of the work for a new site and era.

The 2022 performances at The NYC AIDS Memorial took place over a steaming-hot July weekend, with shows at dusk and in broad daylight, thus we were not able to include the original text projections.

For a 2023 presentation by the Catskill Art Space (CAS) in Livingston Manor, NY, I was able to include the original text projections, slightly revised from the original. I also wrote a new text that provided some frame of reference for the work, which was projected on a loop as the audience entered the space. With these new projections I was continuing in the vein of the first-person text I wrote for the 2021 and 2022 gallery installations of The Disco Project that reflected on the circumstances of each show, and the commentary that greeted audiences as they entered the space for Betsy.

Another facet of The Disco Project Remix: I was the only performer who was in the original 1995 work. I think this, and my age, figured into the reception of the work as well. Still kicking.

Credits

The Disco Project Remix 2021
New York City AIDS Memorial
July 21-23, 2022

Performed by: Daniela Garcia-Arce, Lily Gold, Neil Greenberg, Opal Ingle, Carlo Antonio Villaneuva

Stage Manager: Tess Dworman

Curated for the NYC AIDS Memorial by: Nick Hallett

The Disco Project Remix 2022
Catskill Art Space in Livingston Manor, NY

Performed by: Cayleen Del Rosario, Charles Gowin, Neil Greenberg, Jennifer Lafferty, Stuart Singer

Stage Manager: Opal Ingle

Curated by: Sally Wright

Choreography & Text: Neil Greenberg

Music: Sylvester & Patrick Cowley, Do Ya Wanna Funk?; RuPaul, Jimmy Harry & Larry Tee, Supermodel (You Better Work), Couture Mix, performed by RuPaul; Bernard Edwards & Nile Rogers, We Are Family, Sure is Pure Remix, performed by Sister Sledge; Clifton Davis, Never Can Say Goodbye, performed by Jimmy Somerville & the Communards

Costumes: Suzanne Gallo

Video documentation produced by The NYC AIDS Memorial

Videography by Peter Richards, recorded July 25-28, 2022

Support

Commissioned by The NYC AIDS Memorial

Additional Links

Text for The Disco Project Remix 2023, Catskill Art Space

The Disco Project Remix, 2023
Dress Rehearsal, Catskill Art Space