Reading starts promptly at 7pm
Free

"What is it to construct the time-based artistic creation that is a book-length work, while dealing with the minute-by-minute concerns and distractions of a day job? Suzanne Stein’s book-length poem New Sutras was written during the eight years that mark her tenure as founding editor-in-chief of SFMOMA’s Open Space; the same day job I have had while writing And What’s More. You could say the two books have nothing in common, and on one level that’s true. But that isn’t the level that interests me at all." – Claudia La Rocco

Suzanne Stein’s poetry publications and performance documents include The Kim Game, TOUT VA BIEN, and Passenger Ship; her book-length poem New Sutras is forthcoming this spring. With the poet Steve Benson, she is the author of DO YOUR OWN DAMN LAUNDRY, just released from Gauss PDF, which collects the 36 improvisational dialogues they performed together between 2011 and 2012. Writing has appeared recently in The Best American Experimental Writing, Elderly, and Open Space; performance recordings are archived at PennSound. Suzanne was the founding editor, and for eight years editor-in-chief, of Open Space, SFMOMA'S hybrid art and language platform and publication. In the mid-90s she was the co-director and film curator of a little San Francisco gallery called {four walls. After thirty years in the Bay Area, she now lives in San Diego, CA.

Commissioned Project
Claudia La Rocco: And What’s More
June 1–June 30, 2019 

Claudia La Rocco's And What’s More is a literary, performance, art, and sound project that refuses traditional audience/maker/doer relationships. The third in her experimental Olivia Trilogy, And What’s More developed from years of La Rocco's collaborations with artists in different fields, exploring how form and content mutate but also cohere across disciplines, and how an artist can remain true to herself while working in service of others. For this project, rather than asking artists to explicitly interpret her creation, she brings talented individuals into her fictitious imaginings (through the book form of And What’s More) in order to create a loose conversation between and among forms, both on and off the page: "A lot of what sparks my enthusiasm here is curiosity. What would happen if...? Specific to all of the individuals is a bristly intelligence — for some this is structural, for some physical, for some linguistic, philosophical, and so on… And there isn't anything I like more than intelligence. Even when intelligence fails, it's interesting." With characteristic humor and poetry, La Rocco invites her collaborating artists to use The Lab’s space as a "page or a performance, or something else entirely."

Claudia La Rocco is a writer whose work frequently revolves around interdisciplinary performances and projects. She is the author of The Best Most Useless Dress (Badlands Unlimited, 2014) and the chapbook I am trying to do the assignment ([2nd Floor Projects], 2018). The first two installments of The Olivia Trilogy, petit cadeau and Interstitial, were published in print, performance, and digital editions by The Chocolate Factory in 2015 and Michelle Ellsworth’s Man Pant Publishing imprint in 2016; the final book is forthcoming from The Lab. La Rocco’s duo with musician/composer Phillip Greenlief, animals & giraffes, has released the albums July (with various musicians; Edgetone Records, 2017) and Landlocked Beach (with Wobbly; Creative Sources, 2018). Her poetry and prose have been published in numerous anthologies and she has bylines in such publications as Artforum, BOMB, and The New York Times, where she was an arts critic and reporter from 2005-2015. She has received grants and residencies from such organizations as the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation, and Headlands Center for the Arts, and her work has been presented by The Walker Art Center, The Kitchen, The Whitney Museum of American Art, et al.

A night of revolutionary poetry with:

Josiah Luis Alderete
Nia Mcallister
Isabelle Khoo-Miller
And Tongo Eisen-Martin

Thursday, January 10, 2019
7:30-9:00pm, readings start promptly at 8pm
$8 entry (no one turned away for lack of funds), free for members
Note: Please dress warmly – The Lab does not have heat

Josiah Luis Alderete is a full blooded POCHO Indio and Spanglish speaking poet from La Area Bahia.

Living at the intersection of blackness, womanhood, art, and activism, Nia McAllister uses writing as her sharpest tool for understanding and interrogating the complexities of her identity and the world around her.

Isabelle Khoo-Miller is a poet and student dedicated to social justice.

Originally from San Francisco, Tongo Eisen-Martin is a poet, movement worker, and educator.

7-9pm, performance starts promptly at 7:30pm
​​​​​​​$8 entry (no one turned away for lack of funds), free for members

A virtuosic combination of two liberation artists pushing the bounds of expression and resistance. Tongo and Dame bring all facets of the diaspora to bare in a night of haunting and relentless percussion and poetry.

Dame Drummer has toured in over 4 continents performing in London, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Nepal, Palestine, Moscow, Colombia, Victoria BC, Germany, Panama and Portugal to name a few.  His solo music has reached people all over the world. He has worked with a long list of artists including Los Rakas, LeVICE, Jazz Mafia, Martin Luther, Marcus Machado, Uriah Duffy, Aisha Fukushima,Shapeshifter, DaM-FunK, Kev Choice, Conya Doss, Alvin Frazier, Myron, Mugpush, DJ Teeko, Sarah's Girl, Fantastic Negrito and the list goes on.  Dame is currently playing with PRINCE protege and vocal powerhouse Liv Warfield. With the same ear for music beyond his drumming abilities Dame is also a well versed producer across multiple genres and is currently in the studio wrapping up his full length LP entitled "Loveolution."  "Loveolution" is the the divine solution to the pain and suffering amongst the community that Dame identifies with the most; The Meek, Poor and Oppressed. 

Originally from San Francisco, Tongo Eisen-Martin is a movement worker and educator who has organized against mass incarceration and extra-judicial killing of Black people throughout the United States. His latest curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people, We Charge Genocide Again, has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. His book of poems titled, "Someone's Dead Already" was nominated for a California Book Award. His latest book "Heaven Is All Goodbyes" was published by the City Lights Pocket Poets series.

Organized by The Lab’s writer in residence, Tongo Eisen-Martin.

7-9pm, readings start promptly at 7:30pm
$8 entry (no one turned away for lack of funds), free for members

F. Douglas Brown is author of ICON, a new collection of poetry from Writ Large Press in 2018, and Zero to Three (University of Georgia 2014), winner of the 2013 Cave Canem Poetry Prize selected by US Poet Laureate, Tracy K. Smith. He also co-authored with poet Geffrey Davis, Begotten (Upper Rubber Boot Books 2016), a chapbook of poetry as part of Upper Rubber Boot Book's Floodgate Poetry Series. Brown, an educator for over 20 years, currently teaches English and African American Poetry at Loyola High School of Los Angeles, an all-boys Jesuit school. He is both a Cave Canem and Kundiman fellow. His poems have appeared in the Academy of American Poets, The PBS News Hour, The Virginia Quarterly (VQR), Bat City Review, The Chicago Quarterly Review (CQR), The Southern Humanities Review, The Sugar House Review, Cura Magazine, and Muzzle Magazine. He is co-founder and curator of un::fade::able - The Requiem for Sandra Bland, a quarterly reading series examining restorative justice through poetry as a means to address racism.

Mike Sonksen, is a 3rd-generation L.A. native whose prose and poetry have been included in programs with the Mayor’s Office, the Los Angeles Public Library’s “Made in LA,” series and Grand Park. Most recently, one of his essays was nominated for an Award with the LA Press Club. Sonksen teaches at Woodbury University.  

David Lau has published two books of poetry: Virgil and the Mountain Cat and Still Dirty. His poems and essays have appeared in New Left Review, Bookforum, Boston Review, The Margins, and Literary Hub. He is co-editor of Lana Turner: a Journal of Poetry and Opinion.

Originally from San Francisco, Tongo Eisen-Martin is a movement worker and educator who has organized against mass incarceration and extra-judicial killing of Black people throughout the United States. His latest curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people, We Charge Genocide Again, has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. His book of poems titled, "Someone's Dead Already" was nominated for a California Book Award. His latest book "Heaven Is All Goodbyes" was published by the City Lights Pocket Poets series.

Organized by The Lab’s artist in residence, Tongo Eisen-Martin.

7-9pm, readings start promptly at 7:30pm
$8 entry (no one turned away for lack of funds), free for members

Kevin Killian is a San Francisco-based writer and artist.  His books include Impossible Princess, Action Kylie, three volumes of  Selected Amazon Reviews, and Tony Greene Era.  Recent projects include a novel, Spreadeagle, and Tagged, nude portraits of poets, artists, writers, musicians, etc.  In 2017 Nightboat Books published Writers Who Love Too Much: New Narrative Writing 1977-1997, a capacious anthology Killian co-edited with Dodie Bellamy.

Claudia La Rocco is the author of the selected writings The Best Most Useless Dress(Badlands Unlimited, 2014) and the novel petit cadeau (The Chocolate Factory Theater, 2015). animals & giraffes, her duo with musician/composer Phillip Greenlief and an ongoing roster of collaborators, has released two albums: July (with various musicians; Edgetone Records, 2017) and Landlocked Beach (with Wobbly; Creative Sources, 2018)  Her poetry and prose have been published in 6X6 #34: I Like Softness (Ugly Duckling Presse), Imagined Theatres: Writing for a theoretical stage (Daniel Sack, ed; Routledge), On Value (Ralph Lemon, ed; Triple Canopy), et al. She has received grants and residencies from such organizations as the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation, and Headlands Center for the Arts.

Originally from San Francisco, Tongo Eisen-Martin is a movement worker and educator who has organized against mass incarceration and extra-judicial killing of Black people throughout the United States. His latest curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people, We Charge Genocide Again, has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. His book of poems titled, "Someone's Dead Already" was nominated for a California Book Award. His latest book "Heaven Is All Goodbyes" was published by the City Lights Pocket Poets series.

Special preview on Friday, March 31, 2017
Final cut on Wednesday, May 31, 2017
8pm Doors / 8:30pm Film
$7 donation, no one turned away for lack of funds

During his residency at The Lab, artist Brontez Purnell created a documentary film and archive exploring the late San Francisco postmodern choreographer Ed Mock. 
 
Ed Mock died in 1986 at the height of the AIDS epidemic; his story continues to engage contemporary conversations. Purnell states, “I believe Ed Mock is the missing choreographic link between Alvin Ailey, Anna Halprin, and Bill T. Jones.  He is my direct predecessor, creatively. We – artists, black queers, Bay Area dancers, gay men - have to extract our collective past and create the historical record.” 

Free

The Lab and Art Practical invite you to participate in a Edit-a-thon to contribute to the online presence of under-documented artists, activists, queer elders, women, and people of color. People of all gender identities and expressions are welcome to participate, and we especially encourage women, transgender, and gender non-confirming/non-binary individuals to take part.

Presented in conjunction with Brontez Purnell's film project expanding knowledge on Ed Mock, this is a DIY campaign to improve archives on marginalized populations and address information gaps in our collective knowledge. Dorothy Santos will provide tutorials for those new to Wikipedia and the editors of Art Practical and staff of The Lab will provide ongoing editorial support, reference materials, extra laptops, childcare, and refreshments. Not an editor? Come by to show your support and help with research.

A few things to note beforehand:
1. Bring a laptop and power cord, if you have one available
2. Bring notes and citation materials for your Wiki-entries
3. Set up a Wikipedia account before you arrive

$5-10 donation, sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds

No New Art/No New Dance Fest is a collective queer-centered art / performance / dance party. There has been some confusion about the name: it is not our intent to negate the significance of "new works," but rather to highlight the point that – as artists working across different mediums – it is not our task to re-invent the wheel. Rather we are charged with the Sisyphean labor of just keeping the wheel moving forward…

Performances by:
Channing Joseph
Dia Dear
Ugly
Collaboration between Brontez Purnell, Xara Thustra, Jason Graf

Art by:
Ezra Rabin
Victor Vasquez
Jade Ariana
Jason Graf
Webster Borealis
Fabian Echevarria
Wizard_Trix

Film performance by:
Irwin Swirnoff

A film by:
Yetunde Olagbaju

Screen Tests ($10):
Gary Fembot

DJs:
Trill Team 6
No No

Free

Cry for Everything Bad that Has Ever Happened is a meditation on grief and rage that is part public ritual, part sound experiment. Navigating the space alongside drummers and microphones, participants are asked to scream, run, cry, or be still – whatever fits the mood. This will feed into a live audio recording.

This is intended to be the starting point of resistance against our current political climate and an expression of rage echoed through the cosmos. Someone somewhere will hear us...