Secret Notebooks
Photo by Michael DeAngelis
With a few months off last summer and amazing collaborators who wanted to help, Half Straddle set out to make their first-ever rap song and accompanying video. Playing off the idioms of the genre, Half Straddle’s rad girl rappers drop push-ups with no knees, late nights with Soledad O’Brien, and references to their bangs as a knowingly ridiculous vocabulary for throwing shade, all set in a lusciously drenched visual realm and accompanied by deep beats that need to be played really loud for full effect.
Artists Involved: Video by Michael De Angelis; music and production by Bobby McElver; vocals by Erin Markey and Emily Emily Davis; lyrics and direction by Tina Satter; featuring Jess Barbagallo, Eliza Bent, Becca Blackwell, Nikki Calonge, Emily Emily Davis, Chris Giarmo, Erin Markey, Kourtney Rutherford, Pete Simpson, Julia Sirna-Frest.
Lead Artist: HALF STRADDLE has been creating plays, performances, videos, and music written and directed by Tina Satter since 2008 with the collaboration of artists that includes composer Chris Giarmo and performers Jess Barbagallo, Eliza Bent, Emily Emily Davis, Erin Markey, and Julia Sirna-Frest. The group’s critically acclaimed shows feature original text and music, and specific, stylized frameworks that set up performative laboratories to slyly deconstruct the preconceived – with a singular écriture feminine – in order to create an explosion, or delicate reveal, of new meaning.
Upcoming: Seagull (Thinking of You) will be developed in residency at the New Museum in Fall/Winter 2012 and at MASSMoCA in December 2012, and will premiere during PS122’s COIL festival in January 2013.