David Commander Brooklyn, NY United States: Like

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Performance Discipline: Performer, director, writer, drawer

Bio: I have been a member of the New York City theater company Big Art Group for the last 12 years and toured their work through fourteen countries and dozens of venues. My own plays The Machine World Gospel and PIGGY 1.5 premiered at the 2007 Philly Fringe festival and the 2006 NYC Fringe Festival. In 2011, I have performed a short piece of mine called In Flight at the Toy Theater After Dark Festival, presented by Open Eye Figure Theater and The Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis. In Flight has also been performed in New York and Philadelphia.

My work is an attempt to give form to an unutterable force that spills past the boundaries of thought into a dark, confusing place without expression. The drive behind this compulsion usually deals with concepts like ‘us and them’ and the idea of living a life that is ultimately meaningless. I like to use technology, language and structure that can expand and contract to accommodate ideas that straddle the logical and the abstract. Since it is more adaptive to this environment, I often use elements of puppetry in my shows. I typically use pre-fabricated toys, such as action figures or dolls, to bring a quality to the characters that feels uncontrived and beyond my control. I tend to think that choosing the appropriate toy is a process of ‘casting’ and shouldn’t be tailor-made to my exact specifications. Relinquishing this control allows a world of surprising characteristics that is more organic and unintentional. I would like to think that I’m not fully in control of what I make. I hope to channel into images and situations the energy that is held in that most internal space; where the entirety of being is fused together.

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At 1:20pm on November 16, 2012, Immediate Medium said…: Maybe there is a library IN the post office...

At 4:04am on May 8, 2012, Petr Kruselnicky aka ANTENA said…: hi man/ working hardly on the new solo show after long hospitalization with my leg.... to much text for my taste.. hope to see ya sometimes.. are you planing come over EU? greetings

At 5:04pm on January 12, 2011, Caden Manson (Network Curator) said…: Awesome photos! Can't wait!

At 9:52am on January 12, 2011, Caden Manson (Network Curator) said…: Congrats David. Post an event as soon as you have a pic! and I'll feature it here and on facebook!