MARCH 4th – 29th, 2010.

Brent Widen was born and raised in Chicago, where he froze his ass off waiting for the “L” train for over a quarter century. He emerged Magna Cum Laude in Fine Arts from The University of Chicago with barely some remnant of common sense and the ability to enjoy the study of American Civics & History still intact. In 1988, having ventured on an impromptu sleepless road trip to San Antonio with an Alamo Heights expatriate waitressing in a Lincoln Avenue Hofbrau House, Brent caught a glimpse of the Southtown Riverwalk at the end of Beauregard Street and summarily decided to stay.

In 1995, he persuaded Ben Wong to sell the Historic Wong Grocery Company Building (ca. 1901) with 56 years of Chinese – American fixtures, product, junk, text, ceramic shards, paper-clips, used & stored dental-floss, dried food and terrifying meat-cutting saws and knives packed like refugee baggage inside. The painted doors and windows in this exhibition are salvage from that holy place. These objects were appropriated into Brent’s continuous endeavor of art-overwork with the implicit permission of Grandma Wong, whose ever-mumbling ghost inhabits the premises to this day.

This is Brent’s 3rd exhibition at Jump-Start Art Gallery, a fact that attests to their commitment to tolerance and cultural diversity and for which he is sincerely grateful. The first: Moses, Mezuzahs and Other Judaica from the Infinito Botanica (Festival de Libre Enganche, 1995) and the second: Six Days – A Temporary Mural (2003) were monster hits among his friends and then quickly forgotten.

This is an archive of the Request Concert 2 webcast. You can download each video individually using the links below (right-click and choose save as).

Friday, Feb. 19, 2010
Saturday, Feb. 20, 2010

San Antonio Symphony & Jump-Start Performance Co. present:

An intimate evening with musicians from the San Antonio Symphony Featuring Stephanie Shapiro, Mark Ackerman and Hideaki Okada of the Oboe section.

In celebration of Contemporary Art Month members of the San Antonio Symphony and Jump-Start Performance Co. will come together in The Sterling Houston Theater for a unique pairing of classical music and movement. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see two giants collide.

March 5, 2010
6:30 p.m. & 7:00 p.m.

Wednesday, February 24th at 7p.m.
The Sterling Houston Theater
$5 regular and $3 for students and senior citizens.

The program runs about an hour and a half. No reservations are necessary.

Featuring new danceworks by PACDance ( Palo Alto College), Jayne King & NRGMix.

W-I-P (Works-In-Progress/Wednesdays-In-Performance) is a long-running collaboration between Jump-Start Performance Co. and San Antonio Dance Umbrella. It is a monthly lab space for new, in-progress dance and other movement-based performance works accompanied by a facilitated post-performance discussion. W-I-P is known for its eclecticism: modern dancers, belly dancers and performance artists have performed in the same evening and been inspired by each other, as well as expanding the audience’s perception of performance.

Jump-Start Performance Co. is funded in part by grants from The Department of Arts and Cultural Affairs, City of San Antonio, The Texas Commission on the Arts, and The National Endowment of the Arts.

A Day of Infamy
A collection of dark surrealism
by Jason Rudd

Opening reception: February 4, 2010
6 – 8 p.m.

Jason Rudd started to enjoy art by the time he was in middle school. His 7th grade teacher Mrs. Kathy Garner taught him how to draw cats. He is indeed an animal lover and enjoys drawing them. He draws Elephants, frogs, dogs, numerous cats, mostly Siamese, and humanistic forms as well. He bases his Siamese cat drawings on his favorite cat growing up named Whiskey. His unique style is linear, with an organic feel to it. He had his first showing in 2002 at a gallery, owned by premier artist from San Antonio, Betty Ward, in which his drawing, “Cats on the Fence” was to be auctioned a week later. That drawing never went to auction, but was sold 3 times the amount it was worth.

He has entered many art festivals: The Starving Artist show, The River Art Show, Old Pecan Festival (Austin, Texas), Salado Art Show (Salado, Texas), and the most recent show called ARTFEST (Dallas, Texas). He has donated several pieces to charitable events for great causes. The Starving Artist show received a percentage of sales for the Little Church of La Villita, KLRN received a couple of auction pieces for donation, the YMCA received a couple of auction pieces, and ARTFEST received a very nice donation amount in auction pieces for a charitable event. He hopes to one day donate toward animal rights causes.
His recent selection of works, are more cathartic than his older pieces, which were by nature, more comical in visualization and title. The darker pieces represent the hardships of his life: failures and the loss of love, emotionally drawn by means of sadness and anger in which any individual who has gone through any sort of traumatic event in their life, whether it’s a break up, a divorce, or even a death, can easily relate to his cathartic drawings. He calls this unique style, “Dark Surrealism”.

This is an archive of the Request Concert 1 webcast. You can download each video individually using the links below (right-click and choose save as).

Friday, Jan. 22, 2010
Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010

Here’s a copy of the video we webcast last night. The audio is pretty rough but it’s all there. Each act is broken up into two, roughly 45 minute sections. You can download each video individually using the links below (right-click and choose save as).

Act 1, Pt. 1
Act 1, Pt. 2
Act 2, Pt. 1
Act 2, Pt. 2
Act 3, Pt. 1
Act 3, Pt. 2

A new decade calls for new, exciting work & W-I-P is the only place to see it!

The January W-I-P happens on Wednesday, January 27th at 7p.m. at The Sterling Houston Theater (formerly Jump-Start Theater) in the Blue Star Arts Complex, corner of S. Alamo & Probandt. Call 227-5867 for directions. Admission is $5 regular and $3 for students and senior citizens. The program runs about an hour and a half. No reservations are necessary.

W-I-P (Works-In-Progress/Wednesdays-In-Performance) is a long-running collaboration between Jump-Start Performance Co. and San Antonio Dance Umbrella. It is a monthly lab space for new, in-progress dance and other movement-based performance works accompanied by a facilitated post-performance discussion. W-I-P is known for its eclecticism: modern dancers, belly dancers and performance artists have performed in the same evening and been inspired by each other, as well as expanding the audience’s perception of performance.

The line-up will feature contemporary dance by Maggie Lasher & Seme Jatib & performance art/theatre by Laurie Dietrich.

Jump-Start Performance Co. is funded in part by grants from The Department of Arts and Cultural Affairs, City of San Antonio, The Texas Commission on the Arts, and The National Endowment of the Arts.

For more information, please call 227-JUMP.

Request Concert
By Franz Xaver Kroetz
Featuring Dino Foxx

March 19 – 20, 2010
Fridays & Saturdays at 8 p.m.

$25 general admission

Each show takes place in the performer’s actual place of residence. Address information will be provided once tickets have been purchased.

Request Concert is a haunting solo performance, originally staged in 1985 as Jump-Start Performance Co.’s very first production. For our 25th anniversary, we are reviving this seminal, site-specific work that follows the protagonist through their regular evening rituals at home. The piece wordlessly reveals the character through a series of everyday actions that lead to a quiet, unsettling conclusion. Originally, Jump-Start staged this play in the actor’s apartment rather than in a theatre. No more than twenty people at a time followed her from room to room throughout the performance, providing the audience with an intense and intimate perspective.

Continuing the 2010 revival of Request Concert, it is now the men’s turn to take the stage. Originally written for a female performer, Request Concert’s only character will now be re-interpreted by Dino Foxx and in April by Billy Muñoz. Because of the intimate nature of the performance spaces, only a limited number of tickets will be made available. Performances will be webcast live, however, on the internet each night.

Other performance dates:
April 9 – 10, 2010, featuring Billy Muñoz

Buy Tickets Now!

SA Parks & Recreation & Jump-Start Performance Co. present:

En la Sombra de sus Pasos
In the Shadow of her Footsteps

January 15-17, 2010
Friday-Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 3 p.m.

$15 General admission, $10 students & seniors

Celebrating a 75-year-tradition, this historic event highlights the contributions of its first teacher, Berta Almaguer, and the teachers and students who follow in her footsteps. A mosaic of dance styles from Flamenco to the Contemporary will be featured along with various local celebrities and groups including Fandango and Alamotion. This is one of a year-long SA Parks & Recreation series of events taking place through out the city.