Lace Action Cards: Zeena Parkins, with Ishmael Houston-Jones, Craig Taborn

This event was rescheduled from the original December 2024 date.

Join us at e-flux for Lace Action Cards, a performance by Zeena Parkins. Joining her are two extraordinary improvisers: musician Craig Taborn and choreographer Ishmael Houston-Jones. This event marks their first collaboration together.

Lace Action Cards is part of Parkins’s ongoing Lace Project, initially commissioned by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 2008 for their Music in the Studio series. This multi-movement research project explores the concept of lace as an embodiment of a score—a translation of image into sound and movement. It examines patterning, morphing, overlays, and the relationships between materials. Lace Action Cards will generate new possibilities for this concept by reconfiguring and reshaping lace patterns to become stamps that leave marks on performers and audiences alike.

Zeena Parkins is an artist based in New York, celebrated for her unparalleled rigor and boundless creativity. Renowned for redefining the harp’s sonic potential, she combines innovative technique with groundbreaking design, crafting both extended acoustic methods and custom electric instruments. Over a career spanning more than 30 years, she has been honored with accolades such as the Guggenheim Fellowship, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award, and the Doris Duke Award, alongside residencies at Civitella Ranieri, DAAD, and Ucross. Parkins’s work traverses disciplines, encompassing collaborations with luminaries including Björk, Ikue Mori, Pauline Oliveros, Butch Morris, and Fred Frith, as well as ensembles like TILT Brass and the Eclipse Quartet. Her artistic scope extends to film, dance, and visual art, and recent projects include collaborations with Brian Chase, Cecilia Lopez, Robert A.A. Lowe, and Vivienne Griffin.

Ishmael Houston-Jones is an award-winning choreographer, author, performer, teacher, and curator based in New York. A staunch advocate for collaboration, Houston-Jones uses cooperation as a means to transcend boundaries and explore the political dimensions of art. He has received four New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Awards, including honors for Cowboys, Dreams and Ladders (1984, with Fred Holland), which reclaimed the erased narratives of Black cowboys, and the revival of THEM (2010), a 1980s collaboration with writer Dennis Cooper and composer Chris Cochrane. He earned additional recognition for Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and other Works by John Bernd (2017) and his ongoing contributions to the field of dance (2020). As the curator of DraftWork at Danspace Project, Houston-Jones fosters new voices in dance, and he has led pivotal platforms like Parallels (2012), exploring choreographers of the African diaspora, and Lost & Found (2016, co-curated with Will Rawls), examining the intersections of dance, HIV/AIDS, and New York’s history. His collaborators include composers such as Chris Cochrane, Nick Hallett, Leslie Ross, and DJs like jose e. abad (ori.diwa) and Madre Guía.

Craig Taborn, born in Minneapolis and based in Brooklyn, has been a dynamic presence in jazz, improvisation, and electronic music for over 25 years. Renowned for his versatility, he has collaborated with artists such as Roscoe Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Steve Coleman, and Vijay Iyer, spanning genres from avant-garde to electronic. Taborn’s projects include solo piano works (Avenging Angel), his piano trio, the electronic project Junk Magic, and duos with Vijay Iyer (The Transitory Poems) and Kris Davis (Octopus).

The program of sound performances at e-flux is curated by Sanna Almajedi.

For more information, please contact program [​at​] e-flux.com.

Accessibility
–Two flights of stairs lead up to the building’s front entrance at 172 Classon Avenue.
–For elevator access, please RSVP to program [​at​] e-flux.com. The building has a freight elevator which leads into the e-flux office space. Entrance to the elevator is nearest to 180 Classon Ave (a garage door). We have a ramp for the steps within the space.
–e-flux has an ADA-compliant bathroom. There are no steps between the event space and this bathroom.

Doors open at 7pm, with the performance starting at 7:30pm.

Host or Publisher e-flux Screening Room