JUNE 5th -- ENVIRO-ART -- Film Screenings by Sandra Sprecher

June 5th Le PetitVersailles presents: ENVIRO-ART A day ofvideo installations and screenings featuring the work of: SandraSprecher, Kristin Alexander, Mindy Levokove, Michael Sheridan, Robert Todd,and William Hohauser. Curatedby Sandra Sprecher When: Installation Viewing from 2pm - 10pm Screening @ 8pm

Enviro-Art - Works Dedicated to Nature and Inspired by the Environment In the spring of 2009, I gathered together a series of filmmakers who created art/installations inspired by the environment or as commentary about the vulnerability of the environment. We had 3 showings in NYC including one at the lower east side garden. My video installation, Screaming Forest was partially funded with a NYFA grant and was originally created for a premiere at The Medicine Show Theater. This Fall it was also selected to be part of “The sustainability of the Planet-Art Gone Green” Film Screening Bunker College in Boston, MA. In addition I have made some sculptures that went with the original installation. There are small video screens that are attached to metal, found objects, pipes, scraps, etc. that I will display around the garden - Sandra Sprecher.

About the artists: Sandra Sprecher, composer, pianist, videographer, sculptor. She started out with a typical music conservatory education studying the classical repertoire and writing large and small ensemble works in a wide variety of instrumental combinations. Now, in addition to creating music and sound for the theatre, experimental film and dance, she has, in the last decade, embarked onto an additional path of making video and sculpture, creating highly original, complex, experimental installation pieces. The music is a mesmerizing, menagerie of digitally manipulated raw urban noise mixed with masterful instrumental and vocal performances. Drawing upon political and sociological issues as well as intensely personal experiences, the works tackle the world in a tightly woven stream of the abstract, environmental, and surreal. Elementals was the first of this series, focusing on greed, and lust. Building large still lives and filming them, the 2 elementals Gnomi and Nymphes were created. The Gnomi began as primal and sacred, but turned evil as they crossed into our contemporary world ultimately falling to ruin due to their obsessions. The Nymphes were both seductive and somewhat taunting. Now What... was created for multiple screen video and sound track with live keyboard sounds and narrator/singer. This piece was a somewhat surreal montage of images that depicted the creation of the earth, its transformation and man's potentially destructive intervention. The images are at times chronological and at others, confused, as though the soul survivor woke up only to see it afterwards in a muddled chaotic flashback. In the live performance the multiple video images diverge as the speed of the images accelerates. Screaming Forest is the latest multimedia installation work, complete with multiple videos, videosculpture and huge musical score accompanied by live vocals. She has been funded by NYSCA, Fromm Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, Meet the Composers, NYFA, and NYSCA. In addition, she has also worked on numerous projects as pianist, music director, composer, and sound designer for The Medicine Show Theater and sound designer for dance and experimental films. http://www.sandrasprecher.com Robert Todd, a lyrical filmmaker as well as a sound and visual artist, continually produces short works that resist categorization. In the past twelve years he has produced a large body of short-to-medium format films that have been exhibited internationally at a wide variety of venues and festivals including the Media City Festival, San Francisco International Film Festival, Rotterdam International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Le Rencontres Internationale, Black Maria Film Festival, Nouveau Cinema in Montreal, Cinematheque Ontario, the Harvard Film Archive, Pacific Film Archive, the Paris Biennial, Slamdance Film Festival, and others. His films have won numerous festival prizes, grants, and artist's awards. He has teaches film production at Emerson College in Boston. http://www.roberttoddfilms.com/ Mindy Levokove has composed and performed vocal, electronic, and/or acoustic music pieces for theater and dance in many varied venues including The Brooklyn Museum, Tompkins Square Park and The Duke Theater. She has been a member of the bi-coastal performance group, The Amazing Landfill Gardeners of Gondwanaland for more than 12 years. She has curated and performed in Poetry and Performance Events at ABC No Rio for a number of years and at the 6th Street and Avenue B Garden for almost 20 years. She has a CD of some of her songs from before 2001, called Keys, and another CD, called CORN, to be available soon. Contact her at mlevokove@earthlink.net. William Hohauser has been floating around the multimedia business for a while. He has owned a video production business for over 20 years where he edits and videotapes projects for many clients. His animated visual work has been seen on the Cartoon Network and shown at various festivals such as the Frame Damage festival and the ASU Film Festival. His last animation was a finalist for the Channel 13 shorts broadcast. He has directed and shot several Jazz concerts for DVD release. This summer William was cinematographer for an independent film comedy, “The Party”. Some of his work can be seen at www.videoddgrapher.com Kristin Alexander is a documentary filmmaker. She studied communications and film at the University of Notre Dame and Mass College of Art. She has been a cinematographer for multiple films and video productions. Her first documentary followed 5 women surviving cancer on cape Cod, and screened in Chatham and the Woods Hole Film Festival. She has filmed and edited portraits of people around the world. Green Eco-Machine has been an official selection in the WHFF, Louisville International Festival of Film, and EcoFocus festival in Athens, Georgia. Michael Sheridan is a filmmaker whose videosonic art and documentary work address issues of social development and the tipping point between order and chaos. Michael’s interest in these issues arise from his experiences of families falling apart and reuniting, and societies teetering on the verge of collapse or recovering from conflict and disaster. Michael’s artwork has been exhibited at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Boston Cyberarts festival and the GASP gallery in Boston. His documentary work has appeared on PBS, The Learning Channel, The Discovery Network and National Geographic TV. The National Education Media Network, The Columbia International Film and Video Festival, The United Nations Association Film Festival, and EarthVision have all awarded his work. Michael’s work is influenced by his extensive travels throughout Europe, South Asia, Africa and the Americas. In the 90’s he started traveling the world producing documentaries of hunger, poverty and community development for organizations like Oxfam, Save the Children-UK, Bread for the World and independently. He served as Senior Fulbright Scholar in Indonesia teaching and working on new films during the 2007-08 academic year. Michael has an MFA from the Mass College of Art. http://www.sheridanworks.com/

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Le Petit Versailles was created in 1996 by communityneighbors. It is a GreenThumb garden and a project of Allied Productions, Inc.,a non profit arts organization. LPV provides a green oasis for meditation andrelaxation dedicated to fostering the interest of all segments of the communityin the arts, broadening and enriching the general public through performances,screenings, workshops.

LPV events are made possible by: Allied Productions, Inc.,Citizens for NYC, Green Thumb/NYC Dept. of Parks,

Materials for the Arts, NYC Dept. of Cultural Affairs, NYCDept. of Sanitation & NYC Board of Education

Film & Exhibition support from The New York State Councilon the Arts, a state agency