The Haircut is a new constellation of standby events and multimedia sessions at Beyond Baroque, coaxing poetry and textual practice—with or without words—into dialogue and conflict with other arts and disciplines: sound and visual media, rogue scholarship, performance. Developed and hosted by Daniel Tiffany, with a rolling troupe of resident and guest programmers, The Haircut brings a spirit of irregular exchange to Beyond Baroque’s commitment to poetry and poetics; its transactions favor the ill-fated, the hyphenated, the composted, the modified, the distilled, the far-fetched.
The first installment of The Haircut includes readings by Aaron Kunin & giovanni singleton; music by Squash & Biscuit; and the short films Let Me Tell You a Secret (Yanbin Zhao), Becoming American (Christina C Nguyen & Edgar Jorge Baralt), and Life: Objects (Ali Vanderkruyk & Tatum Howey). Also featured: actual haircuts by Benjamin Veloz of the World Famous Venice Barbershop.
Doors Open: 6:30 p.m.
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Poets:
Aaron Kunin published three books of poetry with Fence: Folding Ruler Star (2005), The Sore Throat and Other Poems (2010), and Cold Genius (2014). Three other books: The Mandarin, a novel (Fence, 2008); Grace Period: Notebooks (Letter Machine, 2013); and Character as Form (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019).
giovanni singleton is a California-based professor, editor, and creative working at the intersections of language, sound, and visual art. Published works include Ascension, winner of the California Book Award Gold Medal, and AMERICAN LETTERS: works on paper.
Musical artists:
Squash & Biscuit explores the intersection of music, diegetic sound, and language using samples with synthesized instruments. The duo, Shuwen Zhao and Brian Griffith, blur boundaries between melody and texture creating new structures from familiar combinations, often working with animators, choreographers, and filmmakers.
Filmmakers:
Zhao Yanbin is a filmmaker based in Shanghai and Los Angeles, who is an MFA candidate at California Institute of the Arts
Christina C Nguyen is a filmmaker and expanded cinema artist from San Francisco, who earned her MFA in Film/Video from the California Institute of the Arts.
Edgar Jorge Baralt is a Venezuelan-born filmmaker based in Los Angeles, whose work incorporates multiple formats. He earned an MFA in Film/Video from California Institute of the Arts.
Ali Vanderkruyk (she/her) is an experimental filmmaker and researcher pursuing her MFA in Film/Video at California Institute of the Arts.
Tatum Howey (they/them) is a second year PhD student at the University of California, San Diego, researching infrastructures of visual production.
Visuals programmers:
Nehal Vyas is a film and video artist from India, currently based in Los Angeles. Her work explores the idea of national identity through memory, personal history and inheritance. She is a recent MFA graduate in Film/Video from California Institute of the Arts.
Gavati Wad is an artist from Pune, India, currently based in LA. She primarily works with performance and self-portraiture on 16mm film on questions of identity. She is a recent MFA graduate in Film/Video from California Institute of the Arts.
Together, Nehal and Gavati run the Artists In Revolution Collective, focused on developing a nuanced understanding of socio-political conditions across the globe through screenings and discussions in collaboration with fellow artists and filmmakers.
Music programmer:
Andrew Choate/ The Unwrinkled Ear has been producing recordings and events showcasing the intimacy of improvised music (and its relatives) since 1999.
Onsite barber: Benjamin Veloz of the World Famous Venice Barbershop
Host: Daniel Tiffany
This event is Free & In-Person at Beyond Baroque. Masks are required while inside our center.
Beyond Baroque reserves the right to remove individuals from our events, virtual or otherwise, if they are not respecting the space, fellow attendees, or performers.
If you can’t join us in person the event will be streamed live on Beyond Baroque’s YouTube channel at the scheduled time of the event.
Please RSVP if you are planning to attend this event. We accept walk-ins, but priority will be given to people that have registered. Limited seating is available; we recommend arriving early.