CHE CHEN
CONVENES AN EVENING FOR AND WITH
MORGAN VÕ
Limited capacity
CONVENES AN EVENING FOR AND WITH
MORGAN VÕ
Limited capacity
Thursday,
May 23, 2024
6:30pm
Doors open
Soup is served
7:30pm
Event begins
May 23, 2024
6:30pm
Doors open
Soup is served
7:30pm
Event begins
The musician Che Chen is a guitarist, a composer, a co-founder of the celebrated group 75 Dollar Bill, but also a great curator, programming events at the Sunview Luncheonette, Outpost Artists Resources, or the Sundown Bar. He also oversees the program at the excellent FourOneOne, in Brooklyn.
When we ask Che to host an event, he tells us about Morgan Võ. "He's a fantastic younger poet who also has wide ranging interests in music, visual art, dance, and more. And his first full length book of poems just came out."
When we ask Che to host an event, he tells us about Morgan Võ. "He's a fantastic younger poet who also has wide ranging interests in music, visual art, dance, and more. And his first full length book of poems just came out."
For those who arrive a bit early, Morgan and the poet Teline Trần cook and serve a bowl of soup. Home-made food is a good start to any event.
The event begins with Morgan providing some prompts to a larger group of collaborators, who perform a response: there is Che Chen himself, the dancer Justin Cabrillos, and the musician Talice Lee (Che's wife, who plays both in Morgan's song projects as well as in the 75 Dollar Bill Little Big Band).
Then, Morgan reads from his new book, The Selkie (The Song Cave, 2024), along with musician Anna Cataldo. Much of the book is set in a fish market, and the poems hinge on gaps in the understandings and capacities of their flat, paper-doll characters, tangling these characters up in a string of vignettes where they buy fish and sell them, work together, get contentious, glide by witless or collide.
The event begins with Morgan providing some prompts to a larger group of collaborators, who perform a response: there is Che Chen himself, the dancer Justin Cabrillos, and the musician Talice Lee (Che's wife, who plays both in Morgan's song projects as well as in the 75 Dollar Bill Little Big Band).
Then, Morgan reads from his new book, The Selkie (The Song Cave, 2024), along with musician Anna Cataldo. Much of the book is set in a fish market, and the poems hinge on gaps in the understandings and capacities of their flat, paper-doll characters, tangling these characters up in a string of vignettes where they buy fish and sell them, work together, get contentious, glide by witless or collide.
Morgan Võ (b. 1989) is a poet and librarian concerned with resonance, contingency, difficulty understanding, and the presence of the dead among the living. His chapbooks include Lights of Earth and Eat Pamphlet. His poems were included in the Pathetic Literature anthology, edited by Eileen Myles, and have most recently appeared in Changes Review, Footnotes, and Wyrm. He organized G-L-O-S-S, a mutual aid-based poetry press, from 2020-21, and is a current member of the Poetry Project Newsletter editorial collective. Originally from coastal Virginia, he lives now in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.
Che Chen (b. 1978) is a creative musician and multi-instrumentalist interested in the overlapping fields of intuitive music, improvisation and tuning theory. In addition to solo and collaborative projects, he plays guitar in the band 75 Dollar Bill, which he founded with percussionist Rick Brown in 2012. He is also a member of True Primes, and runs a small label called Black Pollen Press.
Che Chen (b. 1978) is a creative musician and multi-instrumentalist interested in the overlapping fields of intuitive music, improvisation and tuning theory. In addition to solo and collaborative projects, he plays guitar in the band 75 Dollar Bill, which he founded with percussionist Rick Brown in 2012. He is also a member of True Primes, and runs a small label called Black Pollen Press.
Justin Cabrillos (b. 1981) is a choreographer, artist, and writer based in Brooklyn. He is a 2017 Movement Research artist-in-residence. He was a 2016 danceWEB scholar at ImPulsTanz, a recipient of a 2011 Greenhouse grant from the Chicago Dancemaker's Forum, a 2011 LinkUP Artist in Residence (Chicago), and a 2008 fellow at Ox-Bow School of Art. His latest project, Holdings was commissioned by Danspace Project and is supported by a residency at Chez Bushwick.
Anna Cataldo is an experimental musician and writer whose work is never not about water. She lives in New York and performs under the names Night Toy, Exo, and Pearl Twins.
Talice Lee grew up playing orchestral violin, singing in choirs and playing in bands in Baton Rouge, Louisiana before moving to New York more than a decade ago. Equally at home in song-based, composed and improvised music contexts, she has lent her violin playing and singing abilities to projects by Sue Garner, Morgan Võ, 75 Dollar Bill, Cody Boyce, Che Chen, Daniel Carter, and Todd Capp.
Anna Cataldo is an experimental musician and writer whose work is never not about water. She lives in New York and performs under the names Night Toy, Exo, and Pearl Twins.
Talice Lee grew up playing orchestral violin, singing in choirs and playing in bands in Baton Rouge, Louisiana before moving to New York more than a decade ago. Equally at home in song-based, composed and improvised music contexts, she has lent her violin playing and singing abilities to projects by Sue Garner, Morgan Võ, 75 Dollar Bill, Cody Boyce, Che Chen, Daniel Carter, and Todd Capp.
