American Realness

Jeremy Wade

Death Asshole Rave Video

North American Premiere

Co-presented by the Goethe-Institut New York

MON JAN 12, 10:00 PM
TUES JAN 13, 5:00 PM
WED JAN 14, 8:30 PM
SAT JAN 17, 3:00 PM
SUN JAN 18, 1:30 PM

Run time: 75 minutes

ABRONS ARTS CENTER EXPERIMENTAL THEATER
466 Grand Street / tickets $20

Single Tickets Festival Pass

Jeremy Wade presents, Death Asshole Rave Video, a one-man show. An asshole that interrogates death and the agreements we make as a society. In a gothic and queer-scape, Wade offers vehicles for experiencing different deaths – death of theatre, death of value, death of sense, and death of attachment. He demands for us to die before we die. He asks us if all of the social agreements that have been made are either breaking or already broken. What’s next? It’s time to die!

Death Asshole Rave Video is co-presented with the Goethe-Institut New York with additional support from the NATIONALE PERFORMANCE NETZ as part of the Gastspielförderung Tanz International from funds of the commission of the Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien and the culture and arts ministries of the federal states and by the Berlin Senate Chancellery – Cultural Affairs Department.
Co-production: Zodiak – Center for New Dance, Jeremy Wade.

Image by Fritz Welch

GI_Logo_horizontal_black_sRGB_WebsiteCrop      NPN_schwarz    Berlin Senate Chancellery - Cultural Affairs Department_Website Crop


Directed and performed by Jeremy Wade
Written by Ezra Green in collaboration with Jeremy Wade
Video: Liz Rosenfeld
Sound: Mika Risiko
Costume: Minttu Vesala
Lights: Andreas Harder
Artistic Advisor: Thomas Schaupp + Jared Gradinger
Production: björn & björn

Special thanks to Zodiak Helsinki, Tomi Paasonen, Fritz Welch, Gerard Reyes, Alessio Castellacci, Tanz Haus Zurich as well as the West Germany aka Stephan and Grinni.


Jeremy Wade premiered his first evening length work titled “Glory” in February of 2006, for which he received a New York Bessie Award. Since then he has been living in Berlin, working closely with the Hebbel Theater. In 2013 Wade served as Guest Professor at the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste, Munich and embarked on a new collaboration titled “Dark Material” with sculptor Monika Grzymala and Musician Jamie Stewart aka Xiu Xiu. In February of 2014 Wade created “Together Forever” a three hour group experience / participatory project. He will premiere the new solo “Death Asshole Rave Video” at the American Realness, NYC in 2015 and shortly there after he will work on a new project centered on utopian critique titled “Drawn Onward” in collaboration with young Sci-Fi writer John Eric Jordan.

Ezra Green is a poet from New York who is currently based in Berlin. He has made several collections of poetry, including most recently “Book of Vanishing” (The Quiet American Publishing Co.) and “Berlin Threshold Poems” (Kopierladen Presse). He has worked with a number of choreographers as dramaturge and writer, including Marysia Zimpel, Martin Hansen, Meg Stuart and Jeremy Wade. He is currently working on his first short film, “Helpless”, with George Lewis Jr.

Thomas Schaupp, Berlin, laboratory scientist by profession, is now about to finish his master-studies in dance-theory at Freie Universität Berlin. He works as dramaturge, artistic collaborator and artist’s assistant for choreographers such as Kat Válastur, An Kaler, Margrét Sara Guðjónsdottir & Angela Schubot. He is resident critic for the season 2014/2015 at ada Studio Berlin. Based on his research he was invited with lecture-presentations and workshops to several conferences and festivals around Europe and Canada.

Jared Gradinger is living in Berlin since 2002. Since 2009, he has been developing work and teaching with Angela Schubot. Together they have created a cycle of 5 full length works which are touring internationally. Their topic is the debordering of the body. He is a founding member of Constanza Macras/ Dorky Park. In 2006, he began his ongoing collaboration with Pictoplasma, creating stage works and interventions for their festivals and exhibitions. In 2008, he began his curatorial relationship with Les Grandes Traversées in Bordeuax; creating his 3 part festival “How Do You Are” for the region. In 2008, he also started his long time work relation with Jeremy Wade. Jared is a core member of “Social Muscle Club”.

Liz Rosenfeld (born1979, New York, NY) is a Berlin-based artist working in performance, film and video. Rosenfeld is part of the Berlin based film production collective NowMomentNow, and is also one of the founding members of the food- performance group Foodgasm. She has collaborated with Swedish Feminist Film Director Marit Östberg and the Swedish electro-pop band, ‘The Knife’. Her work has been screened and performed internationally at venues including the Tate Modern, Hayward Gallery, C/O Gallery, Kunsthaus Dresden, HAU Hebbel am Ufer Theater, British Film Institute, Victoria & Albert Museum, Hammer Museum, The Kitchen and Rivington Place. Rosenfeld has most recently collaborated on a performance piece with director and performer Jeremy Wade, and presented one of the opening performances at the Donau Festival in Austria. She has been profiled in publications such as: Camera Obscura, Art Review, Little Joe, and Missy Magazine. She gained a BA in New Media and received her MFA from the school of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2005 followed by a Masters in Performance Studies from Tisch School of The Arts at New York University in 2007.

Mika Risiko is a Berlin based musician, producer and performer. Her work spans film scores, theatre projects and art as well as creating the soundtrack for short clips, like for the well-known Berlin party Gegen. Her current music projects are Ziúr and Crime, with which she’s played throughout the city and beyond, including support for Peaches and Austra. Apart from that, she’s been cast in a Swedish theatre performance, Wild Minds by Marcus Lindeen, which premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm.

Minttu Vesala is a stylist based in Helsinki working in the fields of performance, fashion and advertising throughout Scandinavia. She worked for several years as a fashion buyer for the Finnish multi-label store Helsinki10 creating a dark avant-garde mix of Rick Owens, Ann Demeulemeester, Haider Ackermann, Maison Martin Margiela and the Scandinavian new wave. Minttu has styled high profile advertisement campaigns for brands such as Finlandia Vodka, Nokia and Marimekko. She has collaborated with photographers on different exhibitions, designed costumes for contemporary dance performances and worked as production designer on several short films. Minttu is fascinated and empowered by nightlife, witchcraft and the endless darkness of North.


“Composed of movement, sound and words, this combination of lecture-performance and concert knocks you out but does not fit into categories.”
By Maria Säkö, Helsingin Sanomat, Published September 23, 2014