Greetings friends of EpiscoDisco!
We enjoyed a triumphant year of arts and performance events at Grace Cathedral and thank you for making EpiscoDisco such a rare and memorable experience. The Reverend Bertie Pearson and members of Paradise Now will be hosting Soundandvision, a more cozy series of cultural happenings at the Episcopal Church of St John The Evangelist in the Mission. To keep up with the series, friend the Reverend at http://www.facebook.com/bertiep.
Friday, August 20 || 7pm to 10pm || Grace Cathedral
This month’s ‘Disco is a synchronized hybrid of art and musical performance to celebrate the latest Land and Sound record release of SF’s own beloved Coconut, featuring a site-specific installation by Jesse Schlesinger and images by Sean McFarland – all under one Gothically vaulted roof
Maggie Otero and Chris Duncan are the DIY architects of Land and Sea records and publishing house, which is releasing Coconut’s seven inch. These two are the masterminds behind the evening and will contribute imagery to accompany Coconut’s music during their performance. Aptly, imagery selected by Otero and Duncan will be of land- and seascapes. Land and Sea began in 2009 by renowned SF artists Otero and Duncan to contribute limited, hand-assembled editions to sonic and visual culture.
Jesse Schlesinger is a San Francisco-based visual and social practice artist whose installation, created specifically for this event, will mimic the delicate graphite drawing of a nest that Schlesinger created for the cover of the Coconut seven inch. The three-dimensional interpretation of Schlesinger’s original drawing will perch atop the cathedral’s indoor labyrinth, just beyond the entrance to the nave. In addition to his work with Coconut, Schlesinger’s work has been shown at San Francisco’s Eleanor Harwood Gallery, Triple Base Gallery and General Store, respectively.
Photographer Sean McFarland is known for his subtle manipulation of black and white Polaroid images, particularly landscapes, both natural and urban. As part of his current body of work, titled “The Dark Series”, McFarland investigates “natural” landscapes that exist through human intention, such as contrived man-made scenes to depict the wilderness areas that have been tamed through conservation. Projected versions of McFarland’s landscapes will accompany the evening’s first musical act, Aero Mic’d.
The evening will begin with a candlelit procession to the first musical performance of the night: Aero-Mic’d. Wayne Smith, Cliff Hengst and Scott Hewicker explore the melding of found sounds and electronic experimentalism. The procession will continue with the lovely cozy ballads of Ben Grass.
Coconut, the evening’s esteemed guests of honor, will perform the songs on the new 7″ as well as as-yet unreleased material. Coconut began in 2002 with founding members Tomo Yasuda and Colter Jacobsen and has since been graced by various
members such as Leyna Noel and Michael Oliveras, among others. This last year has seen Coconut grow into a ripe and hairy four-piece with the addition of Justin Loney and Keiko Kayamoto. Coconut’s sounds range from melodic pop anthems and mash-ups to improvisational jazz and noise outbursts. Follow the light at night.
Theology, music and art all share the aspiration to transcend the borders that language cannot. Paradise Now is a nondenominational curatorial duo that is exploring this commonality by showcasing artists who engage the awe-inspiring space within Grace Cathedral through multi-media installations and performing arts. Paradise Now is Eve Ekman and Elizabeth Parks Kibbey.
Recently recipients of an SF Guardian Best of the Bay award for Best Dance Floor Transcendence, voted one of 7×7 Magazine’s 250 Things To Do In San Francisco Before You Die and anointed “unusual fun” by the SF Chronicle, EpiscoDisco is a monthly event where community congregates to enjoy contemporary art installations, live performance, drinks and DJ’ed music at Grace Cathedral. EpiscoDisco is hosted on one Friday of each month by the young and incredibly cool Reverend Bertie Pearson and curatorial duo Paradise Now.
Friday, July 16th || 7pm to 10pm || Grace Cathedral
This month’s ‘Disco, co-sponsored by the Mission Creek Music Festival and Aquarius Records, brings you artist Jeffrey Manson’s enchanting Misto Reef light projections, darkwave and synth from Nachtmusik and the minimalist electronica of Portland-based band Cloaks – all under one gothically vaulted roof
Coastal Californian artist and musician Jeffrey Manson’s analog light projection project, Misto Reef Lights, reflect and refract light with glass lenses, mirrors and handmade collages to create kinetic, abstract dreamscapes from above. Misto Reef Lights envelopes the space in its improvised and enchanting scrawl of lines and shapes. Manson has collaborated with bands such as MGMT, the Silver Jews and Mariee Sioux and has shown work at Parklife Gallery, Smokey’s Tangle and SFMOMA Artist’s Gallery.
Starting off the night are DJs Omar, Josh, & Justin, creators of San Francisco’s monthly club Nachtmusik. As their name implies, Nachtmusik mixes darkwave and synth to create an unearthly sound. Later, Cloaks descend from Portland with ambient sounds produced with samples, electronic drums, synths and tape loops. This dynamic group will float you through the rest of the evening with their soft and bubbling sounds.
Theology, music and art all share the aspiration to transcend the borders that language cannot. Paradise Now is a nondenominational curatorial duo that is exploring this commonality by showcasing artists who engage the awe-inspiring space within Grace Cathedral through multi-media installations and performing arts. Paradise Now is Eve Ekman and Elizabeth Parks Kibbey.
Recently voted one of 7×7 Magazine’s 250 Things To Do In San Francisco Before You Die and anointed “unusual fun” by the SF Chronicle, EpiscoDisco is a monthly event where community congregates to enjoy contemporary art installations, live performance, drinks and DJ’ed music at Grace Cathedral. EpiscoDisco is hosted on one Friday of each month by the young and incredibly cool Reverend Bertie Pearson and curatorial duo Paradise Now.
Friday, June 25th || 7pm to 10pm || Grace Cathedral
This month’s ‘Disco brings you artist Oliver DiCicco‘s mythological machines, the technicolor future-scapes of Ellen Black, strange basslines and feverish beats from Broker/Dealer and Disco Shawn and the lovely Chelsea Wolfe wailing dark and dreamy folk sonnets – all under one gothically vaulted roof
THE ART
San Francisco artist, experimental musician and craftsman Oliver DiCicco imbues life into his primal machines with a strange and masterful harmony of form, sound and motion. DiCicco’s “Loose Cannons” will take up temporary residence over the labyrinth in the nave of Grace Cathedral.
We are also pleased to announce the addition of digital work by San Francisco artist Ellen Marie Black. Black’s cybervision seams together real footage with computer generated imagery, assembling new and beautiful worlds with mystical portals to unreachable futures and artificial pasts.
THE MUSIC
Kicking off the night right is Disco Shawn, one of the globe-trotting beat aficionados responsible for San Francisco’s favorite club nights Tormenta Tropical and Icee Hot, and who in his own words is not as lame as his DJ name would lead you to believe. Having very little to do with financial services and much more to do with subterranean basslines, ambient synth pads, dubby beats and interlocking pop melodies, San Francisco musical duo Broker/Dealer‘s will also be DJ’ing porous and punchy tracks into the fold.
Deep yearning with dark undercurrents wrapped in warm analog makes the harrowing goth-folk of Chelsea Wolfe, whose church bells, moaning guitar and haunted lyrics will be floating past the buttresses around 9pm.
PARADISE NOW
Theology, music and art all share the aspiration to transcend the borders that language cannot. Paradise Now is a nondenominational curatorial duo that is exploring this commonality by showcasing artists who engage the awe-inspiring space within Grace Cathedral through multi-media installations and performing arts. Paradise Now is Eve Ekman and Jean Cooney.
EPISCODISCO
Recently voted one of 7×7 Magazine’s 250 Things To Do In San Francisco Before You Die and anointed “unusual fun” by the SF Chronicle, EpiscoDisco is a monthly event where community congregates to enjoy contemporary art installations, live performance, drinks and DJ’ed music at Grace Cathedral. EpiscoDisco is hosted on one Saturday of each month by Reverend Bertie Pearson and curatorial duo Paradise Now.
GRACE CATHEDRAL
“Great buildings are outward expressions of the human spirit…which speak to the human urge to transcend the mundane and commune with the divine”. A San Francisco landmark, Grace Cathedral is also home to a spiritual community that has continuously enjoyed relationships with contemporary artists, most notably Ansel Adams and Keith Haring, and currently forges new connections with Bay Area Artists though the Reverend Bertie Pearson and Paradise Now. These alliances are enabled by the openness at Grace to “embrace innovation and open-minded conversation where inclusion is expected and people of all faiths are welcomed.”
This month’s ‘Disco brings you the aerial stylings of Adam Wier, Evan Holm’s Image Immersion Machine and an all-star line up of musical acts that includes Daniel Higgs, Barn Owl, Danny Paul Grody and Portraits – all under one gothically vaulted roof.
THE ART
Created just for Grace, Oakland artist Evan Holm presents the latest episode of his hi-tech meets low-tech Image Immersion Machine. Built for individual experience, the participant is plunged into a temporary reality through kaleidoscopically interwoven soundscapes and visuals, this time revolving around the narrator Karen McMullen’s whispered words on the last moments of her mother’s life.
San Francisco artist and innovator Adam Wier of “Say My Name” fame returns to Grace Cathedral, once again upward bound and in buoyant reflection on what makes a space sacred. With bedsheets and helium balloons Wier hoists fort-like sanctuaries over the labyrinth reminding us that a sacred space can exist in something as tiny as the breath, as large as a cathedral, expansive as an astral vision or something as simple and comforting as immersion in a private and personal place.
EpiscoDisco Fun Fact #1:
Helium makes up 25% of the elemental mass of the galaxy, but given its unbreakable will to escape, is very rare on earth.
EpiscoDisco Fun Fact #2:
Only about thirty people will get to experience the Image Immersion Machine due to time constraints so get there early for a shot at a virtual reality.
THE MUSIC
Root Strata Records bring an epic mountain of a show to EpiscoDisco this month featuring the legendary freak folker Daniel Higgs (former frontman to post-punk Baltimore band Lungfish), and the raw-picked acoustic sounds of Danny Paul Grody, hallucinatory electric hummings Barn Owl and the fresh-on-the-scene sounds of San Francisco’s Portraits. This line-up kicks off at 7:30pm.
PARADISE NOW
Theology, music and art all share the aspiration to transcend the borders that language cannot. Paradise Now is a nondenominational curatorial duo that is exploring this commonality by showcasing artists who engage the awe-inspiring space within Grace Cathedral through multi-media installations and performing arts. Paradise Now is Eve Ekman and Jean Cooney.
EPISCODISCO
Recently voted one of 7×7 Magazine’s 250 Things To Do In San Francisco Before You Die and anointed “unusual fun” by the SF Chronicle, EpiscoDisco is a monthly event where community congregates to enjoy contemporary art installations, live performance, drinks and DJ’ed music at Grace Cathedral. EpiscoDisco is hosted on one Saturday of each month by Reverend Bertie Pearson and curatorial duo Paradise Now.
GRACE CATHEDRAL
“Great buildings are outward expressions of the human spirit…which speak to the human urge to transcend the mundane and commune with the divine”. A San Francisco landmark, Grace Cathedral is also home to a spiritual community that has continuously enjoyed relationships with contemporary artists, most notably Ansel Adams and Keith Haring, and currently forges new connections with Bay Area Artists though the Reverend Bertie Pearson and Paradise Now. These alliances are enabled by the openness at Grace to “embrace innovation and open-minded conversation where inclusion is expected and people of all faiths are welcomed.”
Saturday, April 17th || 7pm to 10pm || Grace Cathedral
For our one-year anniversary we’re bringing out the big guns. Fervent Michael Jackson fans and raging waterfalls star in Dianna Dilworth’s short film “Holy Water”, followed by the dark folk musings of Emily Jane White, all under one gothically vaulted roof.
THE ART
For the one-year anniversary celebration we will break out the 40-foot screen for the debut of “Holy Water”, a short film from the talented , Brooklyn-based documentary filmmaker and journalist, Dianna Dilworth. As a follow-up to her award-winning documentary chronicling the idolatry of Michael Jackson fans during his 2004-05 court trials, “Holy Water” juxtaposes images of altars memorializing his death with personal footage from her own wedding ceremony as well as the natural sanctity of a waterfall in the Swiss Alps. These provocative pairings invite the viewer in as a voyeur to sacred spectacles and intimate ceremony, revealing the rippling degrees to which images and objects become agents of reverence and worship.
THE MUSIC
Folk singer/songwriter Emily Jane White was raised in Fort Bragg, California, “a seaside town nestled in the misty, secluded woodland of the Mendocino Coast where old men tell stories about logging and young girls dream of San Francisco”. Now Bay Area-based after stints in Santa Cruz and Bordeaux, White is known the world over for her smokey, rich vocal timbre that makes the perfect accomplice to her cyclical guitar lines, swooning strings and pitch-dark, Poe-like lyrics that are spun with the tenderness of a lullaby. While comparisons to contemporaries Cat Power and Hope Sandoval are frequent, White’s owes musical debt to the sultry rustlings of the classic blues legends like Billie Holiday. Hear her agonize the archways at 9pm.
PARADISE NOW
Theology, music and art all share the aspiration to transcend the borders that language cannot. Paradise Now is a nondenominational curatorial duo that is exploring this commonality by showcasing artists who engage the awe-inspiring space within Grace Cathedral through multi-media installations and performing arts. Paradise Now is Eve Ekman and Jean Cooney.
EPISCODISCO
Recently voted one of 7×7 Magazine’s 250 Things To Do In San Francisco Before You Die and anointed “unusual fun” by the SF Chronicle, EpiscoDisco is a monthly event where community congregates to enjoy contemporary art installations, live performance, drinks and DJ’ed music at Grace Cathedral. EpiscoDisco is hosted on one Saturday of each month by Reverend Bertie Pearson and curatorial duo Paradise Now.
GRACE CATHEDRAL
“Great buildings are outward expressions of the human spirit…which speak to the human urge to transcend the mundane and commune with the divine”. A San Francisco landmark, Grace Cathedral is also home to a spiritual community that has continuously enjoyed relationships with contemporary artists, most notably Ansel Adams and Keith Haring, and currently forges new connections with Bay Area Artists though the Reverend Bertie Pearson and Paradise Now. These alliances are enabled by the openness at Grace to “embrace innovation and open-minded conversation where inclusion is expected and people of all faiths are welcomed.”
Saturday, March 13th || 7pm to 10pm || Grace Cathedral
This month’s EpiscoDisco brings you a stained-glass video installation by Oakland-based artist Brian Caraway and the synthscapey rhythms of San Francisco’s Jonas Reinhardt. DJ BT Magnum digs up obscure funk-boogie beats.
THE ART
Architecture from the Gothic period marks the height of stained glass as an art form. The mystical aura and ephemeral beauty of sunlit stained glass found in cathedrals such as Grace has been modeled as a metaphor for divine illumination. For this exhibition Oakland-based artist and Mills MFA grad Brian Caraway has created digital patterns of lines and color that flicker and shift inspired by the slow natural light passing across panes of Grace Cathedral’s stained glass windows. Deciphering the complex and impermanent relationships between color, light and design in his video piece Shimmer and Shift, Caraway’s abstractions become a nocturnal counterpart to the cathedral’s daytime iridescence.
Until then, as a bonus round, watch Caraway’s time-lapsed video documenting the year he did not get a haircut and relates the resulting growth to a rotting bag of potatoes: One Good Minute Will Last Me a Whole Year.
THE MUSIC
EpiscoDisco gets slightly stanky with obscure boogie-funk gems from DJ BT Magnum, one of the founding members of Beat Electric. Hijacking your psychic state and hauling you to sonic fringes is Jonas Reinhardt, who has been manipulating analog synthesizers and vintage drum machines for over a decade with a stint at the Havard Electronic Music Center for music synthesis. The San Francisco act describes their sound as “a spirited conversation between man, machines, and the ecstatic truth of the chaotic unknown”. Creating music that is at times stark and spare and at others lush and all-encompassing, the effect is a warm, hauntingly familiar sound bounded by unpredictability.
PARADISE NOW
Theology, music and art all share the aspiration to transcend the borders that language cannot. Paradise Now is a nondenominational curatorial duo that is exploring this commonality by showcasing artists who engage the awe-inspiring space within Grace Cathedral through multi-media installations and performing arts. Paradise Now is Eve Ekman and Jean Cooney.
EPISCODISCO
Recently voted one of 7×7 Magazine’s 250 Things To Do In San Francisco Before You Die and anointed “unusual fun” by the SF Chronicle, EpiscoDisco is a monthly event where community congregates to enjoy contemporary art installations, live performance, drinks and DJ’ed music at Grace Cathedral. EpiscoDisco is hosted on one Saturday of each month by Reverend Bertie Pearson and curatorial duo Paradise Now.
GRACE CATHEDRAL
“Great buildings are outward expressions of the human spirit…which speak to the human urge to transcend the mundane and commune with the divine”. A San Francisco landmark, Grace Cathedral is also home to a spiritual community that has continuously enjoyed relationships with contemporary artists, most notably Ansel Adams and Keith Haring, and currently forges new connections with Bay Area Artists though the Reverend Bertie Pearson and Paradise Now. These alliances are enabled by the openness at Grace to “embrace innovation and open-minded conversation where inclusion is expected and people of all faiths are welcomed.”
Saturday, February 20th || 7PM to 10PM || Grace Cathedral
February’s EpiscoDisco features a gravity-defying installation of a thousand flowers by Elizabeth Parks Kibbey, real and unreal video projection from David Yun, and a snarky noise-pop performance by Nodzzz, all under one gothically vaulted roof
THE ART
The Persian word pairi-daeza was used to descrribe the beautiful enclosed gardens built to uplift the human spirit. With its connotations of ideal beauty, delight and harmonious conviviality, the word paradise came to be equated with the heavens, a non-earthly place that awaits the human spirit in the afterlife. Artist, writer and naturalist Elizabeth Parks Kibbey reclaims paradise for the earthbound with her installation of a thousand suspended flowers. A transient garden in the sky, Parks Kibbey’s fantastical creation encourages those below to comingle with the unconditional joys of the here and now.
San Francisco-based artist David Yun manipulates digital video with scratch film technique in ethereal vignettes that capture momentary pleasures of the natural world. Drawing from the aesthetic that experimental filmmakers such as Stan Brakhage and Carolee Schneemann applied to 16mm film, Yun’s video projections instantly stimulate memory, emotion and sensation, dreamily blurring the lines between reality and reproduction.
THE MUSIC
On the 20th, DJ Cimi will be laying down the beats that will leave you sweating between the pews. To follow, San Francisco-based noise-pop trio Nodzzz will have the nave quivering with their West Coast cadence and lo-fi style delivered by a brazen attitude and punky, give-it-to-me-straight lyrics. Nodzzz-men Sean Paul Presley, Anthony Atlas and Brian Girgus cite their influences as British New Wave singles from the 70′s and 80′s as well as the San Francisco Public Library.
PARADISE NOW
Theology, music and art all share the aspiration to transcend the borders that language cannot. Paradise Now is a nondenominational curatorial duo that is exploring this commonality by showcasing artists who engage the awe-inspiring space within Grace Cathedral through multi-media installations and performing arts. Paradise Now is Eve Ekman and Jean Cooney.
EPISCODISCO
Recently voted one of 7×7 Magazine’s 250 Things To Do In San Francisco Before You Die and anointed “unusual fun” by the SF Chronicle, EpiscoDisco is a monthly event where community congregates to enjoy contemporary art installations, live performance, drinks and DJ’ed music at Grace Cathedral. EpiscoDisco is hosted on one Saturday of each month by Reverend Bertie Pearson and curatorial duo Paradise Now.
GRACE CATHEDRAL
“Great buildings are outward expressions of the human spirit…which speak to the human urge to transcend the mundane and commune with the divine”. A San Francisco landmark, Grace Cathedral is also home to a spiritual community that has continuously enjoyed relationships with contemporary artists, most notably Ansel Adams and Keith Haring, and currently forges new connections with Bay Area Artists though the Reverend Bertie Pearson and Paradise Now. These alliances are enabled by the openness at Grace to “embrace innovation and open-minded conversation where inclusion is expected and people of all faiths are welcomed.”
Saturday, January 23rd || 7PM to 10PM || Grace Cathedral
The Art
Many world religions exalt the role of the mother in scripture and iconography, from the central role of the Madonna in Christianity, to the adage taken from the Quran that “heaven lies under your mother’s feet”. Two artists address the uniqueness of motherhood from disparate perspectives, one personal and another investigative. Oakland artist Derek Weisberg uses the rituals of his work to reconcile his mother’s passing. Ceremonially adorned with candlelight, Weisberg’s twisted figurative sculptures embody states of emotional grief both intensely personal yet universally recognizable. New York photographer and installation artist Jessica Levey invokes all the loaded associations that accompany the simple imagery of mother and child with her straightforward video piece. The imagey marks Levey’s time working as a nanny, when she found herself participating in all the intimacies and exhaustive trials of being a mother without actually intending to be one.
The Music
To kick things off, musical whiz Nadia Shihab will be wielding both violin and keyboard to improvise playfully layered electro-folk music. Beats down the middle courtesy of DJ BusStation John and DJ Mrs. Blythe, and bringing up the rear will be the debut performance of Alters, the dark pop fusion of the talented Reverend Bertie Pearson and Little Melanie Anne Berlin. Alters formed when Bertie heard Melanie sing R. Kelly’s ‘Like a Snake’ in a Karaoke bar in Japantown in 2008. After discovering a mutual love of The Wake and Jermaine Dupri the two decided to form their band.
Paradise Now
Theology, music and art all share the aspiration to transcend the borders that language cannot. Paradise Now is a nondenominational curatorial duo that is exploring this commonality by showcasing artists who engage the awe-inspiring space within Grace Cathedral through multi-media installations and performing arts. Paradise Now is Eve Ekman and Jean Cooney.
EpiscoDisco
Recently voted one of 7×7 Magazine’s 250 Things To Do In San Francisco Before You Die and anointed “unusual fun” by the SF Chronicle, EpiscoDisco is a monthly event where community congregates to enjoy contemporary art installations, live performance, drinks and DJ’ed music at Grace Cathedral. EpiscoDisco is hosted on one Saturday of each month by Reverend Bertie Pearson and curatorial duo Paradise Now.
Grace Cathedral
“Great buildings are outward expressions of the human spirit…which speak to the human urge to transcend the mundane and commune with the divine”. A San Francisco landmark, Grace Cathedral is also home to a spiritual community that has continuously enjoyed relationships with contemporary artists, most notably Ansel Adams and Keith Haring, and currently forges new connections with Bay Area Artists though the Reverend Bertie Pearson and Paradise Now. These alliances are enabled by the openness at Grace to “embrace innovation and open-minded conversation where inclusion is expected and people of all faiths are welcomed.”
