On Sunday LPR is hosting an album release party for THEM, presented jointly by Performance Space 122, Chris Cochrane and tbspMGMT. THEM, a multidisciplinary work originally curated by PS122 in 1985 and renewed in 2010, has been translated into an album comprised of music and narration from the performance.

Performers Cochrane, Dennis Cooper and Ishmael Houston-Jones will be performing excerpts of the work on the LPR stage, supported by dancers from the 2010 performance and accompanied by musicians including Richard Dworkin, Kato Hideki, and Doug Wieselman. Among themes explored, through a combination of physical movement, song and text, are the intricate ways gay men, and people in general, interact. Apply the lens of the AIDS virus (and moreover, society’s changing understanding of it’s implications from the eighties to the present) and the performance becomes a harrowing study in anthropology, in which the past doubtlessly informs the present.

Bits so racy to nearly shut down PS122 (which is newly itinerant, actually, but for unrelated and awesome reasons) bear the same weighty significance in 2011 that they did in 1985. Take it at face value- the various ventures of the ‘gay agenda’ (which I bet comes in three designer shades) have only become more pressing over the course of that time. Take it at something besides face value- human interaction and it’s various performative complexities will never go out of style. Also, it’s tough to find good goat carcass grappling in Greenwich Village (big ups for Houston Jones for quite literally tackling that.) Come check out what won THEM the 2011 Bessie Award for Outstanding Performance.

Also, we’ll be streaming this show on Sunday night at 7:30pm EST at concertwindow.com.

by Forrest Wu