Public Programs

Pamelia Kurstin

On the occasion of P.S.1's exhibition "Video Acts: Single Channel Works from the Collections of Pamela and Richard Kramlich and New Art Trust," Pamelia Kurstin presents a solo performance on theremin. Pursuing the exhibition's emphasis on performance and the body, Kurstin's work finds ways the body can be "recorded," allowing listeners to appreciate how musicians (as well as video and performance artists) incorporate their own bodies into their art. The theremin is an old electronic instrument that is played without any actual physical contact. Slight hands movements closer and farther from the instrument's magnetic field enables the musician to translate movement into sound. The theremin requires a particularly intense bodily awareness, as the performer delicately crafts the empty space between hand and object to create a sound that emerges out of the body's movements.

Pamelia Kurstin is considered one of the world's leading virtuosos of the theremin. In her P.S.1 performance, Kurstin performs a solo set on the theremin, followed by a hands-on interactive workshop for audience members. She has performed on Saturday Night Live, and at New York venues such as Tonic, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and at many universities around the country. She is currently working on a new solo album to follow her 2000 collaboration release with Greg Kurstin and will be touring with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra in 2003.