Live Arts Exchange [LAX] Festival: Works in Process, Jasmine Orpilla + Mark Golamco + Jobel Medina

LAX Festival Vol. 9 presents an evening of three works in process, expanding on the festival's commitment to supporting artists throughout all stages of a project's development. The evening features three artists working across movement, sound, and the voice forefronting process and experimentation.

Schedule
Jasmine Orpilla, (Oro/Plata/Mata)(beauty/brutality/breadcrumbs) 10 mins
Mark Golamco, The Ghost of Ted Dragon 25 mins
Jobel Medina, Kill the Monsters 10 mins

(Oro/Plata/Mata)(beauty/brutality/breadcrumbs) Gateway gestures and voicings to stave the cognitive dissonance of unwelcome pattern recognition, on time for Filipino-American history month. Based on true but forgotten events.

One rainy day in 1959, a dancer named Ted Dragon was caught stealing a chair from his neighbor, the last in a string of thefts that plagued the East Hampton village. He said he used "Ballet Strength" to carry all the things he had taken which included oriental rugs, marble statues and even a four-poster bed. "I just loved beautiful things so much, and sometimes I was appalled at how badly the furniture was being kept." He brought them back to The Creeks, (the estate owned by his partner, the eccentric artist, Alfonso Ossorio), and exquisitely refurbished them. Both Ted and Alfonso were oddballs to the worlds they inhabited, yet through their dedication to art and each other, they created a marvelous home together.

In The Ghost Of Ted Dragon, Mark Golamco reimagines the experience of Ted Dragon, a ballet dancer who was sent to jail for some extraordinary thievery and his lover the painter, Alfonso Ossorio through a showcase of original songs and dance. 

Kill the Monsters is a series of solo performances created and performed by Jobel Medina. Each individual performance is layered with details different from the one before. Although diverse in form, the goal of the segments are often the same: to kill a motherfuckin’ monster! In this new solo, Jobel collaborated with sound designer, Justin Scheid and composer/sound architect, Cody Perkins to create a fearless act of movement and sound. Through writings and lyrics by artists who have empowered him through their own work, he hopes to recite, chant, and dance the monsters away. The piece may imitate an exorcism, but do not worry - it isn’t real, & neither are the monsters.

Live Arts Exchange [LAX] Festival Vol. 9 

Live Arts Exchange [LAX] Festival Vol. 9 will take place October 17-23, 2022 at FRANKIE and at MOCA. Organized by Miranda Wright and Patricia Garza, Los Angeles Performance Practice, with Alex Sloane, Associate Curator, the festival is an electric week-long lineup of all Los Angeles-based artists who create new work in contemporary dance, theater, music, and cross-genre performance. 

Since its launch in 2013, LAX Festival has served as a highly visible platform that showcases some of the most innovative artists and independent companies in our city while reaching thousands of audience members. Each installment of our LAX Festival is a platform for exchange, engaging artists, curators and organizations in performance presentations, dialogues and artist-to-artist interactions designed to cultivate mutual inquiry and long-term network development. 

More information about the whole festival can be found here.

Jobel Medina is a Los Angeles-based choreographer, dancer, and performer known for his dances, David, My Goliath, premiered at Redcat and Kill The Monsters, previously shown at MOCA. He has toured nationally and internationally as a dancer for Ate9 Dance Company (2017-2022), and has worked as a performer with artists such as Tino Sehgal at The Hammer Museum; Simon Mcburney with The LA Philharmonic at The Walt Disney Concert Hall; Christopher Bordenave at The San Francisco Symphony Hall. Additionally, he has appeared in commercials including Calvin Klein, Lexus, OnStar, Adidas, as well as in multiple music videos including Anderson Pak, Noah Cyrus, Perfume Genius. Jobel received his Masters in Fine Arts at the California Institute of The Arts and has taught movement workshops at CSULB, CSULA, CSUF, CalArts. 

Jasmine Orpilla is an internationally awarded Ilokana/x-American composer of contemporary performance and experimental operatic sound installations in which she activates her lifelong study of folk dance, ritual, combat systems and indigenous music of the Philippines, against the contemporary American framing of the 1st-generation, imperialist military culture of her own childhood.  While centering the voice of the Filipinx body within her energetically intense solo practice as a research-based multi-instrumental/multilingual performer and writer, Jasmine Orpilla’s work serves to humanize the intersectionality of the Fil-Am body in full agency. She has performed at major art institutions and theatres nationally and worldwide. 

Mark Golamco is an artist that was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, worked in New York City and currently lives in Los Angeles. A classically trained Viola player, he received a BA in Art from UCLA and an MFA in Painting from RISD. His musical background and visual art education led him to create performances that combine his original music with artwork that ranges from painting, drawing, dance and video. He has performed at the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, The Judson Memorial Church, NY, Cafe Dancer, NY, Human Resources Los Angeles, PAM Residencies, LA, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, The Palm Springs Art Museum, and the REDCAT, LA.

Wonmi’s WAREHOUSE Programs is organized by Alex Sloane, Associate Curator of Performance and Programs, with Amelia Charter, Producer Performance and Programs and Brian Dang, Programming Coordinator.

Wonmi's WAREHOUSE Programs is founded by Wonmi & Kihong Kwon and Family.