Star & Stan, Laurel Atwell, Alex Tatarsky, and BABAS are here to make you stronger. An evening of legends and icons offer the nourishing sip of spectacle to fuel your lust for life.
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Star & Stan is a performance duo from artists Kate Williams and Reed Rushes. Focused on issues of gender and sexuality Williams and Rushes perform as a fantasy couple; the heterosexual, his and her, power couple, Star & Stan.
Star, played by Williams, wears faux-geisha makeup combined with the fashion of white upper class American women inspired by William’s suburban home town. As Stan, Rushes, is a high powered business man, painted silver with assless trousers. Described as "something people have never seen before”( Elephant Magazine) the pair unpack structures of power, labor, gender and capital through the mechanism of gay shame.
They mix the perverse and the absurd with pop culture and Americana tropes creating surreal wild shows that merge “lovemaking and conflict” (Paper Magazine), “passion and aggression” (Brooklyn Rail). The high glamour, grotesque, fame hungry fantasy world of Star & Stan leaves audiences with the sensation that they’ve done “poppers in a bathtub full of money” (audience member).
Star & Stan have shown at Performance Space New York, The Park Avenue Armory, Basilica Hudson, Art Omi, Centre for Performance Research, Entrance, Pageant and Les Urbaines Switzerland as well as at raves, in the streets and on beaches. They are currently working on their first Star & Stan film. Williams holds a BA in Dance and Human Rights from Bard College and the Ana Itelman Prize for Choreography. Rushes holds a Master in Fine Art from Bard College NY and the Bard College teaching Fellowship in Critical Cartography and Performance.
Star, played by Williams, wears faux-geisha makeup combined with the fashion of white upper class American women inspired by William’s suburban home town. As Stan, Rushes, is a high powered business man, painted silver with assless trousers. Described as "something people have never seen before”( Elephant Magazine) the pair unpack structures of power, labor, gender and capital through the mechanism of gay shame.
They mix the perverse and the absurd with pop culture and Americana tropes creating surreal wild shows that merge “lovemaking and conflict” (Paper Magazine), “passion and aggression” (Brooklyn Rail). The high glamour, grotesque, fame hungry fantasy world of Star & Stan leaves audiences with the sensation that they’ve done “poppers in a bathtub full of money” (audience member).
Star & Stan have shown at Performance Space New York, The Park Avenue Armory, Basilica Hudson, Art Omi, Centre for Performance Research, Entrance, Pageant and Les Urbaines Switzerland as well as at raves, in the streets and on beaches. They are currently working on their first Star & Stan film. Williams holds a BA in Dance and Human Rights from Bard College and the Ana Itelman Prize for Choreography. Rushes holds a Master in Fine Art from Bard College NY and the Bard College teaching Fellowship in Critical Cartography and Performance.
Laurel Atwell has been performing and building performance-driven work since graduating from Sarah Lawrence College in 2008. Her work and collaborations have been presented at MoMA PS1, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Danspace Project, Movement Research at Judson Memorial Church, Center for Performance Research, Gibney Dance, Abrons Arts Center, Dixon Place; as part of Sundays on Broadway, Performa ’11, CATCH, Offerings; have shown in Los Angeles, CA, Marfa, TX, Minneapolis, MN, and New Haven, CT. She has worked with luciana achugar, Phoebe Berglund, Kim Brandt, Camilla Carper, Barnett Cohen, Milka Djordjevich (for which Atwell received a 2018 Bessie nomination for her performance in ANTHEM), Beth Gill, Ursula Eagly, Nikima Jagudajev, Melanie Maar, and Melinda Ring, among others. Atwell participated in the 2022 Maumaus Independent Study Program in Lisbon, Portugal, beginning corresponding live and video projects that attempt to decipher the new perceptions of reality, desire, and mortality thanks to the internet as well as merge the necessities and benefits of the organized group (towards policy, agenda, legible accomplishment) with the disorganized group (towards intuition, pleasure, the self maintained). She is a qi gong facilitator and Reiki practitioner.
Work title: Believer
Performed by Molly Ross & Laurel Atwell
Alex Tatarsky makes performances in between comedy, theater, dance, and deluded rant — sometimes with songs. Their decomposing performance lecture on clowns and compost Dirt Trip premiered at MoMA PS1 and has toured to art spaces and community composting centers around the country. Sad Boys in Harpy Land, an anxious clown show about wanting to die, premiered at Abrons Arts Center, went onto a sold-out off-broadway run at Playwrights Horizons and will be touring throughout 2026. Other projects include Untitled Freakout at the Kitchen, Americana Psychobabble at La Mama, and MATERIAL at the Whitney. They teach mask performance frequently perform improvised freak-outs at bars, basements, comedy clubs, and street corners around town. Research interests include bootlegs, hellscapes, and the politics of rot. Tour dates can be found at: tatarsky.biz (website) / @tartar.biz (insta)
BABAS is a sound and performance duo of Nigerian artists Funto and Tosin Omojola. Their work draws from west-african folk melodies, wéré/juju music and outmoded Yoruba worship music videos. Together, they’ve presented at and done projects with Dia Art Foundation; Center for Art, Research and Alliances; Deli Radio at Recess Art; Radio Alhara; and Boston Symphony Hall, among others.
Thank you to Nola Sporn Smith for all the production support.
@reedrushes @temp.girl.1.2.3 (Star & Stan), @affirmation.machine (Laurel Atwell), @tartar.biz (Alex Tatarsky), @funtofuntofunto @tosinomojola (BABAS), @spornographer (Nola Sporn Smith)
