Dynasty Handbag
Presented by New York Live Arts | Live Artery
Images courtesy of the artist and Pioneer Works. Photos by Walter Wlodarczyk
“Dynasty Handbag’s refusal to soothe or seduce is the last, unassimilable quality of the true fringe.”
– NEW YORK MAGAZINE
Come aboard the Titanic Depression, a one-woman (and one octopus) multimedia dark comedy extravaganza that’s as murky and muck-encrusted as the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean itself and only just a bit more salty. Returning to NYC after a sold out 2023 run, Titanic Depression is an absurdist manifesto from the peerlessly subversive and unpredictably bonkers icon Dynasty Handbag, the alter ego of performer, visual artist, playwright and Guggenheim fellow Jibz Cameron. Take the plot of the 1997 Kate and Leo movie megahit, then put it through the cracked kaleidoscope of Dynasty’s eye-popping signature style. Add some expertly choreographed burlesque, top the results with two heaping scoops of consumerist hubris and environmental apocalypse, and you’ve got a breathlessly hallucinogenic hour that The New York Times calls “a hilarious romp and a sexcapade with consent forms.” Bring your own lifejacket and be prepared for anything!
“A literal meditation, it underscores how consumerist greed led to the tragedy then, and to the vast trouble we’re in now.”
– THE NEW YORK TIMES
SCHEDULE
Sunday, January 14 @ 7:30 pm
Monday, January 15 @ 7:30 pm
Thursday, January 18 @ 7:30 pm
Friday, January 19 @ 7:30 pm
Saturday, January 20 @ 7:30 pm
Run time: 70 minutes, no intermission
VENUE
New York Live Arts
219 W 19th Street
New York, NY 10011
(Between 7th & 8th Avenues)
Subway: 1 to 18th Street, 2/3, F, M, L and A/C/E to 14th Street
Live Arts’ entrances are located on the street level, as is the main entrance to the theater. Box Office staff is available for assistance at either the single revolving door or pair of push bar doors. The elevator provides access to theater seating at the front of the audience, administrative offices, and the studios. Studios and bathroom entrances have ADA push button swing doors.
CREDITS
Written, Performed, and Directed by Jibz Cameron
Visual Director / Editor: Mariah Garnett
Production Manager: Reilly Horan
Video/Sound Supervisor Editor: James Bennet
Lighting Designer: Serena Wong
Lighting Associate: LD DeArmon
Pioneer Works Production Credits (World Premiere, May 2023):
Original Technical Director / Sound Designer: Chloe Alexandra Thompson
Dramaturg: Sacha Yanow
Co-Writer / Producer: Amanda Verwey
Animation: Amy Von Harrington
Original Lighting Designer: Dylan Phillips
Co-conceived with Sue Slagle (SUE-C)
Producer: Tyler Rai
Drawings: Jibz Cameron
Additional Sound Design: Jibz Cameron
Additional Video Editing: James Bennet, Scotty Slade Wager
Visual Production Assistant: Val Toranto
Puppet Design: Miguel Alaya
Costumes: 69 US, Amanda Verwey
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
The peerlessly subversive, wacky, dark, and dystopian Dynasty Handbag—alter ego of performer, visual artist, actor, and writer Jibz Cameron—quite literally bites the hand that feeds her; she often parodies queer liberals and the institutions they support, as well as herself. Playing multiple characters who usually end up breaking down, slipping into alcoholism, or otherwise doing the wrong things, she “combats the terror of being alive,” as she’s previously written, by failing spectacularly. Cameron’s work as Dynasty Handbag has spanned over 20 years and has been presented at arts venues such as The New Museum of Contemporary Art, The Broad Museum, The Hammer Museum, REDCAT, BAM, and the Centre Pompidou, among others. She has been heralded by the New York Times as “the funniest and most pitch perfect performance seen in years” and “outrageously smart, grotesque and innovative” by The New Yorker. Cameron is a 2022 Guggenheim fellow, a 2021 United States Artist Award recipient and a 2020 Creative Capital Grant awardee. She produces and hosts Weirdo Night, a monthly comedy and performance event in Los Angeles and New York. Her film Weirdo Night is an official 2020 Sundance Film Festival selection.
FUNDING
Titanic Depression was commissioned by Pioneer Works and curated by David Everett Howe. It was co-presented by New York Live Arts as part of Live Ideas 2023 Planet Justice. The performance is made possible with support from Creative Capital, The Guggenheim Foundation, Ballroom Maria, Center for Performance Research, Chorus Foundation, and MacDowell.