An Extinction Cabaret by Ryder Cooley

Directed by Paula Josa Jones http://www.paulajosajones.org/

With Lady Moon

XMALIA is a multi-disciplinary performance featuring live music on ukulele and singing saw, with projections, aerial movement and taxidermy animals. This dark tale about extinction features songs about extinct animals such as the Tasmanian Tiger and the Giant Deer, sung by a lost musician who summons the animals back to life for her Graveyard Cabaret.

XMALIA LINKS : Blog http://xmalia.tumblr.com/ Video http://vimeo.com/31882660 Press http://www.positive-magazine.com/art/xmalia-a-graveyard-cabaret/, http://www.timesunion.com/entertainment/article/Xmalia-A-beautiful-and-indescribable-1469435.php#photo-5 Management: http://www.2440designstudio.com

ANIMALIA, the prequel to XMALIA, is a performance series, an animation and an illustrated book. The stage performance combines live music on ukulele, accordion & singing saw with movement, aerials and projections.

Exploring metaphors of flight in response to violence & war, the first Animalia performance (Stories of Collapse, Calamity & Departure) invokes visions of human-animal relations, secret bee societies and haunted circus scenes. When a girl falls under the spell of a mystical deer, she renounces her humanity to become an antlered deer creature. Animalia blurs the divisions between human/animal forms.

Animalia was developed with support from NYFA, Robert Wilson Watermill Center, Experimental TV Center, MacDowell Colony and Yaddo.

Albany Times Union video

Metroland Press, Feb 15 2011: http://metroland.typepad.com/blog/2011/02/c-ryder-cooleys-animalia-animation.html

Installation-performance informed by the extinction and resurrection of a rare mountain goat. The Pyrenean Ibex is said to be the first extinct animal brought back to life (momentarily) via DNA cloning. By collaborating with dead animals, I use my body as vehicle for invocation. Here the Ibex is resurrected as a chimera and an oracle.

INSTALLATION-crime scene: drawings, props, objects, video, sound, lighting, fabric. PERFORMANCE: 2.5 hour improvised musical performance on singing saw, with vocalist Lady Moon. VIDEO: (modified archival film circa 1950)... Stage: 2 women watch as offshore oil rig is built... Ceiling: Museum taxidermist prepares carcass for display...SOUND: piano, saw & voice recorded on-site. Guitar & additional sounds by Earth Blue.

TWENTY MILES Radio Research Walking Performance by C. Ryder Cooley with reembodied deer, June 13, 2010. Created for Deep Cycle Mobile 49 Radio Project by Maximillian Goldfarb

On June 13th 2010 I walked for twenty miles with my collaborator, a taxidermy deer. Travelling from Hudson to Cairo, NY, we carried an illuminated oil lantern from the Fire Fighters Museum to a Lukoil gas station where we intersected with the Deep Cycle-Mobile 49 radio lab. Along the way, we investigated the roadside landscape, gathering data for radio transmissions and transporting the roadside dead to a Lukoil burial.

PERFORMANCE: Over the course of 7 days I stitched 32 found goose feathers into my skin. Performances lasted 2.5 hours, occurring twice a day. The final performance was staged in a tree, located in front of the house.

INSTALLATION: Responding to the military history of the island, images of flight and post-violence residue filled two stories of a family home on Colonels Row. Recorded names of women and children extracted from cemetary records echoed throughout the rooms, along with other fictionalized military texts.

Commissioned by the Robert Wilson Watermill Center for the New Island Festival, Governors Island, NYC. 2009. For more images see: http://carolynrydercooley.org/installation.html, or http://todseelie.com/rydergovernorsisland/index.html

Trapeze performance beneath an industrial bridge, created during an Artist Residency at Contemporary Artist Center, North Adams, MA. 2006.

outdoor site-specific aerial performances, created during a residency at Yaddo, 2009

Interactive musical improvisation series, 2006-2009

Three hour musical performances occured within video-sound installation environments. Hudson Opera House. Hudson, NY. December 2006 & 2007.

musical collaboration with Todd Chandler. CD's and iTunes downloads available via http://www.myspace.com/fallharbor

Collaborative performance with Sara E. Worden exploring shadows, stilts, recorded audio, video and live music. presented at the Sanctuary for Independent Media, Troy NY March 2007

Musical collaboration with dancer & writer Anah-K, 1996-2003, San Francisco CA. For more information and recordings please visit Out of Round Records