Barnett Cohen: anyyywayyy whatever

anyyywayyy whatever is an hour-long performance composed and choreographed by artist Barnett Cohen. The score draws from Cohen’s long-standing practice of writing epic poems, which they later reconfigure into text-based arrangements for performance. Merging original writing with accumulated language from research, personal conversations, and digital encounters, the score incorporates sources ranging from text messages and dating app exchanges to speculative fiction and queer theory. These references are footnoted in chapbooks created by artist and poet Leslie Rosario-Olivo and distributed to the audience. Cohen’s kaleidoscopic writing fractures linear time, gender identity, and sexuality into precise yet elusive forms—figureless existences that gesture toward subversive political action.

Performed under monochromatic lighting inspired by queer nightlife spaces, designed by Bessie-nominated Sarai Frazier, the work features six performers engaged in choreographic clashes of movement vocabularies. Fragments of postmodern dance melt into cheerleading formations; beauty pageant gestures evolve into rave patterns; TikTok viral sequences morph into modern dance routines. This accumulative approach physically mirrors Cohen’s score, with choreography that dissolves and reforms like a digital stream.

Dressed in outfits by New York-based fashion designer Melitta Baumeister, the performers embody a movement gradient that reflects the turbulence of our current political moment. Carefully staged collisions, stylized combat, and queer touch unfold across the space: bodies crash safely into one another before settling into prolonged holds that become tender embraces. Performers initiate brief, consensual haptic connections with audience members. With a gentle palm on a shoulder, a finger tracing a forearm, they dissolve the traditional boundary between performer and spectator. Punctuating these intimate gestures are bursts of stylized violence: punches, kicks, chokes, and slaps rendered in choreographed sequences. This spectrum of movement reflects contemporary body politics, from burbling rage and fantasies of violence to strategic invisibility, defiant presence, and the desire for intimacy.

The New York premiere of anyyywayyy whatever at Amant is a new commission featuring six performers that originated from a two-person commission by Caterina Zevola for the inaugural edition of Performissima at the Centre Wallonie Bruxelles (CWB) in Paris on October 18, 2024 with a second presentation at Kunsthall Trondheim on October 24 and 25, 2024.

Amant programs are always free. anyyywayyy whatever will be presented across three performances in Géza, located at 306 Maujer. RSVPs are strongly encouraged, please select your preferred date and time, as each performance has limited capacity. Seating is first come, first served with some standing room available.

Performers: Laurel Atwell, Sally Butin, Maddie Hopfield, Deja Rion, Fiona, Ray Tsung-Jui Tsou

Producer: Erin Leland

Stylist: Jenni Lee

Intimacy Coordinator: Willow Funkhouser

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