Address:
155 First Avenue
East Village, NY 10003
Phone: 212-254-1109
Website: www.theaterforthenewcity.net
Description: "Love Masters" (world premiere) created by Erick Paiva-Nouchi. Cabaret Theater - Sunday, August 14 at 7:00PM; Wednesday, August 17 at 9:00PM; Thursday, August 18 at 9:00PM; Tuesday, August 23 at 9:00PM; Wednesday, August 24 at 9:00PM; Thursday, August 25 at 9:00PM; Monday, August 29 at 9:00PM; Tuesday, August 30 at 9:00; Wednesday, August 31 at 9:00PM. Running Time: 70 minutes | Tickets: $12.
"Love Masters" is a multimedia performance art play centered around a seventy minute tantric massage session with the Love Masters, the tantric massage master and his tantric massage slave. During the 70-minute session, the audience will have the unique opportunity to presence a spiritual, yet highly sensual and at times erotic connection between master and slave, in a piece that aims to urge the audience to focus on the present moment. Music, visual images and narrative mixed with free-style poetry will serve as the "brain" of the piece. These elements will bring forth the worries, anxieties, thoughts, fears and memories (good and bad) that invade the minds of the master and slave as they surrender to each other during the session, revealing the "soul" of each character. These revelations, conceptualized around each one of the seven chakras in our body, are all true events, the real stories behind the master and slave. This way, the master and slave share their own humanity with the audience in a naked, honest and humble way, while they journey together in search of divine light. The movement of the master as he "dances" through the massage, and of the videographer who will be capturing the massage session sending live video feed onto the screen(s) onstage; plus the natural physical interaction between slave and master, will add to the dynamics of movement and intimacy of the play. Born in Cusco and raised in Lima, Peru, Erick Paiva-Nouchi has spent half his life between two continents, the Americas and Asia. As a third-generation Japanese-Peruvian, Paiva-Nouchi at the age of seventeen, joined the thousands of Japanese-Peruvians (including his parents and sister) who left Peru in the early 1990s to work in factories across Japan. In 2006, he decided to move to New York City to pursue a career in the performing arts. At Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, Paiva-Nouchi discovered his creative path as an experimental dancer and performance artist and adopted a new name, Rico Noguchi, as his professional name as a choreographer (retaining Erick Paiva-Nouchi as his performing name while working in other companies). At the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) he found his third eye: video; medium which he extended to his performances but which also sparked an interest in documentary filmmaking, interest that would grow after being accepted to the School of General Studies at Columbia University. Armed with these new talents, he returned to Japan briefly to stay with his parents and document what life is as an immigrant blue-collar worker in Japan. From this footage, "Mirror of Stone," his first short film, was born. "Mirror of Stone" has been shown at the Globians Film Festival in Germany and obtained an honorary award by the Asian American Research Institute in New York. Paiva-Nouchi then went on to create "Latinos" in Japan, a short film featured on the BBC as part of the BBC's My World competition. As Rico Noguchi, in 2008 he was invited Nicky Paraiso, curator of The Club at La MaMa E.T.C., to perform there. In 2009, he returned to La MaMa as part of La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival, which in turn led him to John McCormack of INTAR Theater, where he developed a full length piece titled "Butoh Rocks!" Paiva-Nouchi joined the dance group The Daisy Spurs after being approached by Bill Coleman, owner of record label and management agency Peace Bisquit. He stayed in The Daisy Spurs until April, 2011. His current piece, "Love Masters," is the first production of his own company ASOBI NY.
