EMILY MAST AND YEHUDA DUENYAS

SOMETHING MUST SPILL

with ELISABETH CARPENTER

Downtown Los Angeles was dark and silent. We could walk down the middle of the street at night and confront no one. We explored these streets together and kept finding illuminated stages therein. On these vast platforms we imagined a person falling, again and again. A person running, tripping, spinning, kicking, blinking, rising, racing, stumbling, flailing, failing and starting all over again. No matter how alluring the hollowed-out city looked from afar, up close we sensed contamination lurking in the cracks of the glittering sidewalks, and behind the corrugated metal. The sound of sirens, a hovering helicopter, a cat’s hungry mew. While we felt vulnerable and thirsty, she appeared to be in control, determined to pull off one more stunt.

Emily Mast's work pulls from a combination of practices—visual art, theater and dance—and is anchored in the production of multi-compositional projects that employ live performance, sculptural installation and video. With every project Mast gathers a micro-community of collaborators with whom she engages in the collective exploration of a given work’s subject matter. Mast believes she has something to learn from everyone. She has staged “choreographed exhibitions” and presented live performances at: Picasso Museum, Barcelona, Spain (2019); Theatre des Champs Elysees, Paris (2019); Los Angeles Dance Project (2019); The LUMA Foundation, Arles, France (2018 & 2019); Human Resources, Los Angeles (2018); FRAC Occitanie Montpellier, France (2017); Grazer Kunstverein, Graz, Austria (2017); The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2017); the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto (2016); La Ferme du Buisson, Noisiel (2015); China Art Objects Galleries, Los Angeles (2015); Mona Bismarck American Center, Paris (2015); Silencio, Paris (2015); the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2014); The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2014); Night Gallery, Los Angeles (2014); Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Project Space, New York (2013); Simone Subal Gallery, New York (2013); the Galeria Luisa Strina, Sao Paolo, Brazil (2013); Public Fiction, Los Angeles (2012); REDCAT, Los Angeles (2012 & 2016) and Performa, New York (2009). In 2018 Emily opened a non-profit space in Los Angeles called Mast on Fig that is dedicated to the development and communal sharing of experiential, live events. It is currently closed to the public due to COVID-19. https://www.emilymast.com

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Yehuda Duenyas is an experiential artist and director working in a spectrum of mediums from performance to commercial directing. Yehuda creates immersive encounters and interactive environments that sensuously evoke the mythic, the intimate, the ridiculous, and the sublime. His techniques emerge from his passion and experience working in the arenas of immersive theater, intimacy direction, interactive technologies, ride design, reality television, large-scale events, gaming, and physical computing. His work and collaborations have received a Primetime Emmy award, 2 Webby awards, 8 Cannes Lions, 11 Clios, 2 Facebook awards, and an OBIE award, among others. Yehuda received an MFA in Integrated Electronic Arts from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and was a founding member of the award winning New York theater collaborative the National Theater of the United States of America (NTUSA). In addition, his work has been supported by the New York State Council on the Arts, the Greenwall Foundation, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the 9/11 Fund, the Downtown Theater Alliance, the Jerome Foundation, Arts International, Chashama, the Durst Organization, Two-Trees Realty, as well as private funders. Yehuda is also an Intimacy Coordinator for TV, Film, and Theater. He is currently collaborating on a new venture to specifically train Los Angeles-based BIPOC to become Intimacy Coordinators. www.xxxyehuda.com , https://laintimacycoordination.com/

Elisabeth Carpenter is a professional Stunt Woman based in Los Angeles, CA, with credits including Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, Insurgent, Fear the Walking Dead, NCIS New Orleans, and many more. As a child she spent most of her time playing outside, climbing trees and barn rafters, swinging, twirling and flipping onto and off of anything. She started competitive gymnastics at age 7, started performing with Circus Smirkus at age 13, and moved out to LA at age 19 for Circus work as an aerialist and acrobat. After 15 years performing and touring as a Cirque artist with various companies, she began pursuing stunts. The transition from Cirque to stunts was immensely gratifying, and her physical and aerial awareness was key to her becoming a wire and high-work specialist. As a Stunt Woman, she enjoys performing everything from fighting to driving, riding motorcycles to water work, and continues to expand her knowledge and skill sets. When she’s not working, she’s training new skills, and studying action flicks. Her most recent endeavors during COVID-19 include training in 3 different weapons, re-visiting dance (exceptionally helpful with fight choreography), and dirt bike riding.

@ohemilymast / @mast-on-fig / @xxxy_1 / @elisabethpc