Musical
HD color video with sound, 48 min., 2008
Midtown Manhattan is the stage for Musical, a series of spontaneous actions orchestrated by artist and filmmaker Dara Friedman. From dawn to dusk, and occasionally even in the middle of the night, office workers, mothers, schoolchildren, taxi drivers, doormen, tourists, divas, and grandparents break into song, creating unexpected musical events and serendipitous urban moments for all who encounter them. Throughout the course of the project, nearly one hundred individual actions will take place throughout the day and night, weekdays only, in the blocks between Grand Central Station and Central Park South, and between Broadway and Park Avenue.
In Musical—her first live, performance-based work—Friedman continues her exploration of universal human experience, focusing on the emotional power of sound and, in particular, its capacity to instantly transform one’s mood or sense of reality. The project plays upon the vitality of city life, especially on the crowded streets of midtown Manhattan, where unexpected and memorable encounters can be a daily occurrence. Friedman, who notes that she wants to “turn the volume up on the song that’s going on in your head as you’re walking down the street,” is interested in blurring the traditional separation between art and life, and between artist and audience. She envisions the project like a series of pebbles thrown into a glassy lake—each performance will cause a ripple effect that lasts for a while, and then the city will return to business as usual.
Over the course of several weeks, the nearly one hundred performances that constitute Musical tap into and add to the spirit of the streetscape, entering into the city’s collective consciousness. The locations and times of the performances are unannounced, and each one appears to be unplanned; most passersby do not know that what they are seeing is part of something larger.
Public Art Fund and Gavin Brown’s enterprise co-presented the first outdoor screening of Musical in Riverside Park South, as part of Summer on the Hudson, a program of the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. Musical was premiered in April 2008 by Public Art Fund and presented later that month in the Grand Concourse at Grand Central Terminal, one of the film’s locations. The film was also shown during the month of June at Gavin Brown’s enterprise.
Together with: Linnette Harrigan, Jenn Jade Ledesna, Alia Maria Smith, Charlene Lite, Yo Smith Kwon, Ula Einstein, Ashley Fisher, Steven Shear, Anna Baryshnikov, Lara Allen, Natasha Bunzl, Francie Scanlon, Saskia Blaha, Jessica Barr, Yuliya Lanina, Robert Rios, Meleni Smith, Malave Brothaz, Cassandra Kassell, Ben Jurney, Hannah Lindroth, Charlene Chan, Zoey Zucker, Golly Gee, Lauren White, Cassie Newman, Brian Thomas Wilson, Andrew Osarchuk, Grace McLean, Karen Siegel, Sean Paul Gallegos, Andrea Monteiro, Ashley Jones, Jessica Tate, Nick Cordero, Mark Stringham, Jordan Stovall, Emily DeMarinis, Boguslava Dimitrova, Ricardo Suarez, Russell Brown, Sonya Cooke, Francis Anaman, Mellissa Offoha, Zachary Gilman, Velvet Piini, Leslie McDonel, and Julie Troost.
press
“Turning All of Manhattan Into a Broadway Stage,” The New York Times, September 2007
“Dara Friedman,” Artforum, December 2007
“Reality Show,” The Art Review, January 2008
“Dara Friedman: Musical,” The New York Times, June 2008
“Dara Friedman: Musical,” artcritical, June 2008
