(HUDSON, N.Y.) — The Hudson Eye – Edition #2, an artist-driven, 10-day annual public program with a focus on dance, music, performance, film, visual art, and “Hot Topic” panel discussions covering topics of concern to the creative community of Hudson and beyond, runs from Friday, August 28, through Monday, September 7, online and at physical locations throughout the city of Hudson.

 

The 20-odd artists and performers taking part in this year’s festival, presented by the Jonah Bokaer Arts Foundation and arranged by curator Aaron Levi Garvey, include photographer and filmmaker Bibbe Hansen, interdisciplinary artist Laetitia Hussain, visual artist Tschabalala Self, choreographer and performer Nathalie Jonas, visual artist and filmmaker Shikeith, musicians Vitaly Vatulya and Maria Nemtsova, and interdisciplinary artist Filiz Soyak, visual artist Myron Polenberg, among many others.

 

Given the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s festival includes an innovative blend of virtual events and live exhibitions and performances designed to include social distancing measures. These new safety measures were developed by architect Anna Savino. These enhanced safety measures include a “touchless” festival, with opportunities to virtually purchase and present tickets, world-class ingress and egress procedures, and access to exhibitions without direct physical interaction with staff, artists, or other attendees. Many events will be shown in alternative spaces to maintain social distancing guidelines.

Daily “Hot Topics” virtual panel discussions will take place via Zoom. Subjects include Hudson Valley art history, COVID-19 and the new geopolitics, indigenous history and art, Hudson Design: Present, Past + Future, and Peak Local: Who Is an Artist in Hudson?

 

Festivalgoers are invited to partake in a generous assortment of outdoor public art installations walkable throughout the city of Hudson. For indoor exhibitions, guests will be ticketed with timed-entry passes to meet maximum occupancy guidelines. Additionally, the city of Hudson has implemented Hudson Shared Streets, allowing businesses on Warren Street to expand activities to sidewalks and parking spaces.

 

This year’s festival will also include a “Map It Yourself” self-guided tour that allows festivalgoers to explore Hudson on foot, via a series of walkable public art exhibits arranged by the festival’s curator in dialogue with local artists and venues. Among the artists featured in public spaces this year is Tommy Coleman, whose work engages the Hudson community with humor, intimacy, resiliency, and a longing for understanding. Coleman’s sculptures are hidden in plain sight, underscoring the value of a shared experience. Coleman’s work poetically recognizes vulnerability and radical tenderness as innate building blocks for navigating boundaries and the development of a unified world.

 

Featured events include an interdisciplinary exhibition and performance by Bibbe Hansen, at Second Ward Foundation (N. 3rd Street) on Saturday, August 29, at 7:30pm. Daughter of Fluxus artist Al Hansen and actress Audrey Hansen, Bibbe Hansen began performing professionally at age eleven, playing leading child and ingenue roles in prestigious East Coast summer stock companies. In New York City, concurrently, she regularly performed in her father’s avant-garde theater pieces called “Happenings.” Following the death of Al Hansen in 1995, Bibbe and husband Sean Carrillo created the Al Hansen Archive, and continued exhibitions of her father’s work, while performing and lecturing at museums, galleries, and universities around the world. Hansen’s son is the rock visionary Beck.

 

Reverse Perspective, a full-length theatrical dance production that unites live performance of VitaDuo—saxophonist Vitaly Vatulya and pianist Maria Nemtsova, both from Moscow—in an original work of devised theatre, directed and choreographed by Jonah Bokaer with an original score by composer Polina Nazaykinskaya, featuring dancers Hala Shah and Nadia Khayrallah. The piece explores the journey of an artist and highlights the tensions between freedom and safety, adventure and security, art and state. The production, which takes place on Sunday, August 30, at 7:30pm, at First Presbyterian Church (369 Warren St.), is a collaboration between Jonah Bokaer Choreography and Momentum Artists.

 

Thea Little, a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist whose work draws upon performance art, dance, and experimental opera, will perform at Hudson Milliner (405 Warren Street) on Saturday, September 5, at 7:30pm. Little has composed more than 50 scores presented in the U.S. and abroad.

 

An exhibition of work by Filiz Soyak at Hudson Hall (327 Warren Street) will open on Friday, August 28, at 7:30pm. Soyak is an interdisciplinary artist exploring themes of consciousness, memory, and time through intuitive mark-making in painting, fiber and installation. Motherhood transformed her to be present and simplify. Mindfulness practices including meditation and breathwork have become integral to her work, as has communing with nature. Her work is created in synchronicity with her breath.

Visit The Hudson Eye for more information and a complete schedule of artists and performers, exhibitions, talks, and events.