Performance | Performance Art: John Malpede's Bright Futures

Malpede was in residence at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies during the early months of the economic crisis, and during this time he found and developed a pair of texts that provide the centerpiece of the performance.

"Bright Futures is extrapolated from contradictory responses to the economic crisis,” Malpede writes. “The performance developed from a business school pep-talk for anxious future quants (financial engineers) and was paired with MIT economist Simon Johnson’s article “The Quiet Coup,’” which appeared in the May 2009 edition of The Atlantic Monthly.

Malpede starkly contrasts these narratives, pinpointing the arrogance of Wall Street, its business as usual policies, and Johnson’s dark condemnation of the US financial oligarchy. Current assessments of how effectively the crisis has been dealt with, or not, will be integrated into the performance events. Performed by Malpede, Nell Breyer and Tanya Selvaratnam.

Malpede promises a “100% non-threatening participatory event” where the audience reads text and the performers perform others. Readings and performers will bounce off of one another arbitrarily; unpredictable trajectories will afford glimpses of our possible financial futures. Witness and contribute to a project where Malpede remixes texts about the financial crisis.

John Malpede directs, performs and engineers multi-event arts projects that have theatrical, installation, public art and education components. In 1985, Malpede founded and continues to direct the Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD), the first performance group in the nation comprised primarily of homeless and formerly homeless people. Malpede has produced projects working with communities throughout the US and in the UK, France, The Netherlands, Belgium and Bolivia. Malpede has received New York’s Dance Theater Workshop Bessie Creation Award, San Francisco Art Institute’s Adeline Kent Award, Durfee Sabbatical Grant, LA Theater Alliance Ovation Award, Individual artist fellowships from New York State Council on the Arts, NEA, California Arts Council, City of Los Angeles’ COLA fellowship, California Community Foundation’s Visual Artist Fellowship, 2007-9 fellow at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies and numerous project grants.