Aviva Silverman presents their ninth ‘dog play’, in which a small cast of untrained dogs take on well-known characters from popular culture.
This performance combines elements from the disaster film Twister, 1996, with Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, interspersed with songs from the musical, Oliver!. Each dog carries a speaker that projects the internal monologue of its character, prerecorded by human actors, including Vaginal Davis. The play takes place against an apocalyptic backdrop, made in collaboration with Matthew Schrader.
Silverman’s performances embrace and question the nostalgic spaces occupied by mainstream films, music, and literature through a performative re-telling. Creating elaborated fantasies, the series of dog plays (2010-ongoing) refashion, expand, and revise male-authored narratives.
The reconfiguration of iconic characters and exploration of cultural nostalgia is further examined in Silverman’s series of small resin sculptures, created in soup bowls, currently on view as part of Greater New York.