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The Village Voice – Music
published: April 25, 2000
MARK ASHWILL, 1954-2000,
subculture dynamo and singer for the Spitters, died of cancer on Tuesday, April 11.
I first met Mark in the early
'90s. He'd been a founding member of Missing Foundation, a cacophonous bunch who instigated the Tompkins Square riots of 1989.
He had a new band, the Spitters, that he invited me to come see at Continental. The place was packed. The band was cathartically
loud. Mark had scratches all over his torso. He tore shirts off female audience members. He put his fist through a wall. He
leaped into the mosh pit where he was carried, fondled, spat on, kicked, and kissed.
But Mark wasn't a conventional
anarchist. He'd been a state champion swimmer in his native Wisconsin. He had a son he loved. He practiced yoga and listened
to opera. He had been in Larry Clark's movie Kids but ended up on the cutting-room floor. When the Spitters wrecked a club,
Mark would come in the next day and fix whatever he'd broken. "He was a good carpenter," says Bill Bronson, onetime
Spitter, longtime friend. "It worked out."
When I saw Mark right after he'd gotten the initial diagnosis
of advanced terminal cancer, I numbly asked, "So what are you gonna do?"
"Go to the track,"
he said.
A few days later we went to Belmont together. Mark put all his money on a 30-to-1 nag.
"That
horse is a total long shot," I said.
"Yeah, so am I," he said.
The horse won the race.
Over the last few months, Mark was confined to his apartment, where he received droves of visitors and was busy documenting
the decay of his body by manipulating photographs of himself on his computer.
In keeping with his wishes, Mark
died at home, surrounded by friends, including seven ex-girlfriends draped across his bed. He was 45. He is survived by his
sister, Maxine, and his son, Jesse, both of Madison, Wisconsin. —Maggie Estep
nytimes.com
January 28, 1993
HUCK SNYDER, Artist, Dies
at 39; Designed Stage Sets for Dancers
By JENNIFER DUNNING
Huck Snyder, an artist and a designer
of vivid stage settings for dancers and performance artists, died on Saturday at his parents' home in Lansdale, Pa. He was
39.
He died of AIDS, said Elizabeth Dunn, a friend and colleague.
Mr. Snyder, whose full name was Harry
William Snyder 4th, created sets and stage furniture that were surrealistic yet extremely simple and almost childlike at times.
Imaginative and free in their execution and unmistakably his work, his sets often seemed inseparable from the vision of the
performers with whom he worked. The multi-level, boxlike set he designed for the performance artist John Kelly's 1991 work
"Maybe It's Cold Outside" was crammed with the colorful and mysterious artifacts of five people's lives
and was considered by some to be Mr. Snyder's best work.
Other important collaborations with Mr. Kelly included
"Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte," an evocation of the painter Egon Schiele and his work; "Find My Way
Home," a retelling of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice; "Love of a Poet," based on Schumann's
"Dichterliebe," and "Akin," which depicted the relationships of father-and-son troubadours
from the middle ages to the present. Directed His Own Piece
Mr. Snyder also created sets for dances by Bill T. Jones and Bart Cook, and for theater pieces by Ishmael Houston-Jones. He conceived, directed and designed "Circus," a performance-art
piece presented in 1987 at La Mama E.T.C.
His paintings and installations have been exhibited at galleries throughout
the United States and in solo and group shows in Europe and Japan. His theater work received New York Dance and Performance,
or Bessie, Awards in 1985 and 1991 and a 1988 Obie Award for sustained excellence in scenic design. He was nominated for American
Theater Wing Awards in 1987, 1988 and 1991.
Mr. Snyder was born in Lansdale. He graduated from the College of William
and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., and attended the Goethe Institute in Berlin.
He is survived by his parents, David
H. and Helen R. Snyder, and two sisters, Susanne Bishop of Wyomissing, Pa., and Wendy Stiffler of Lansdale. A memorial service
will be held on March 6 at 3 P.M. at St. Mark's Church in the Bowery, Second Avenue at 10th Street.
nytimes.com JEFF BUCKLEY, 30, Who Wrote And Sang Eclectic Folk-Rock By NEIL STRAUSS Published:
Friday, June 6, 1997
Jeff Buckley, a folk, rock and pop singer and the son of the folk musician Tim Buckley,
died on May 29 in Memphis, the police said. He was 30. …
Mr. Buckley and a friend had stopped by the harbor on their way to a rehearsal studio last week.
Mr. Buckley was wading and swimming when a speedboat passed by, creating a wake. The friend, Keith Foti, said he turned away
to protect the pair's stereo and that when he looked up, Mr. Buckley had disappeared. The police and the harbor patrol searched
for Mr. Buckley with helicopters, scuba divers and foot patrols.
His body was not found until a passenger on the riverboat spotted it floating in the harbor near the city's main thoroughfare,
Beale Street.
Mr. Buckley was born in Orange County, Calif.
His father, whom he remembered meeting only once, was an influential, eclectic and introspective folk singer who died of a
drug overdose at 28 in 1975.
Jeff Buckley eventually
settled in Manhattan, performing regularly in chatty, intimate sets (and sometimes washing dishes) at the small folk club
Sine. His voice, at least as expansive as his father's five-and-a-half-octave range, his sense of humor and his good looks
soon earned him a devoted following and a recording contract with Columbia, which released the four-song album ''Live at Sine''
in 1993.
In concert, his repertory ranged from Leonard
Cohen and Van Morrison songs to material by Edith Piaf and the Pakistani Sufi singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
In 1994 Mr. Buckley released his first full album, ''Grace,'' which generated
a minor hit, ''Last Goodbye.'' In the years that followed he performed on albums with the Jazz Passengers, John Zorn, Patti
Smith, Rebecca Moore, Brenda Khan, Shudder to Think and Inger Lorre of the Nymphs and at concerts under such whimsical aliases
as Possessed by Elves, Crackrobats, Smackrobiotic and a Puppet Show Named Julio.
Mr. Buckley was in Memphis to prepare for his second album, which he was scheduled to begin recording
on June 30. He had written some two dozen songs for it.
He
is survived by his mother, Mary Guibert of Southern California, and a brother, Corey. nytimes.com Harry Sheppard, 47, Dancer and Teacher Published: Thursday, February 27, 1992 Harry Whittaker Sheppard, a dancer and choreographer active in post-modernist companies
in New York City, died on Friday in the Zieken Huis Rijnstate DH, a hospital in Arnhem, the Netherlands. He was 47 years old. He
died of AIDS, said Yoshiko Chuma, whose company, the School of Hard Knocks, he joined in 1984. Mr.
Sheppard was born in Wilmington, Del. He trained in dance at Bennington College in the late 1960's, then went to Paris, where
he performed and played piano for dance classes. In 1972 and '73, he taught dance at Antioch College in Ohio, after which
he came to New York. Mr. Sheppard and Miss Chuma were in Arnhem working on a project with
Dutch dancers. Mr. Sheppard also performed with Andy De Groat, Bill T. Jones, David Gordon and Wendy Perron. His own choreography
was presented at the Dance Theater Workshop and the 14th Street Dance Center in Manhattan. His
companion was Philip Pares. He
is survived his mother, Beulah Hines; his father, Harry W. Sheppard Sr.; a sister, Virginia, and two brothers, Maurice Sheppard
and James Hines.
Coastal Post Online
ROBIN FELD, age 55, teacher, dancer and musician,
died at home in Bolinas on Monday, December 20, 2004 following a courageous battle with cancer. For the last 14 years Robin
directed the music program at Full Circle, a residential treatment center for troubled teenage boys located in Bolinas. She
founded the music program, was instrumental in its growth and its continuing success.
She was born October 2, 1949
in the town of New Rochelle, NY to Betty Lipinsky Feld and the late Edward Henry Feld. She grew up in the beautiful town of
Asheville, NC where she graduated from Lee Edwards High School in 1967.
Robin attended the University of Georgia
and then decided to enter the world of the performing arts. First she quietly converted the Twelfth Gate in Atlanta, GA from
a Christian coffee house into a national concert club where musicians like Oregon, Little Feat, Wet Willie, Bill Evans and
McCoy Tyner could perform before an intimate, live audience. This is where she met her husband, Paul McCandless, the Grammy
winning jazz musician and composer.
Following her passion for dance, Robin studied contact improvisation with Steve
Paxton and Nancy Stark Smith and ballet at the Collette Barry-Susan Klein School of Dance. Robin and Paul moved to New York
City in 1976 where Robin started her internationally renowned career as a professional dancer and teacher in contact improvisation.
Robin taught and performed contact improvisation at her own studio in New York City and in Europe. Her choreography was presented
at the Dance Theatre Workshop and St. Marks Church in New York; at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado as well as several
locations in Europe. She was a member of the Nina Martin Dance Company (1980-82) and the Julie West Dance Foundation (1983-85).
For 20 years she traveled every summer to Bern, Switzerland to teach contact improvisation; many international dancers cite
her as their formative teacher.
Robin is survived by her husband Paul, her mother Betty Feld and her brother Tom
Feld of Asheville, NC; her mother and brother now reside in Thousand Oaks, CA. Robin is also survived by Tom's wife Peggy
Feld and their two daughters Melissa Feld of Hollywood Hills, CA and Jamie Feld of Westwood Village, CA.
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nytimes.com
December 18, 1998
CARLOS A. FOSTER, 76, Cowboy and Role Model
By WOLFGANG SAXON
CARLOS ABRAHAM FOSTER, a real-life urban cowboy who toured the rodeo circuit around New York and started
a program to teach city children about riding as a way to counter the dangers of drugs and AIDS, died on Saturday at his home
in Scarsdale, N.Y. He was 76 and had let it be known in August that he was hanging up his spurs.
The cause was
heart failure, his family said.
Mr. Foster was raised on a cattle ranch in Oriente Province, Cuba, where he became
an expert rider and cowboy. After years of raising cattle and breaking horses, he joined the Mexican rodeo circuit.
In 1960, he came to the United States. After learning English, he worked first at the drug rehabilitation center Horizon
House and then for 10 years as director of community relations for the New York City Drug Addiction Services Agency.
But he still considered himself a cowboy.
''When I first came here, I was a janitor because I couldn't speak
English right,'' he said in 1983. ''But I bought a horse right away, before I bought a car.' (His family listed his beloved
palomino horse, Santiago, as one of his survivors.)
By then he had started the Urban Western Riding Program, renting
horses at a stable on Pelham Parkway and rewarding children with riding lessons if they did their homework and stayed away
from drugs. On the theory that youngsters did not see black cowboys like him very often, he brought in other black rodeo performers
for parades and exhibitions.
A tall man who liked to wear a Stetson hat and full cowboy regalia, he organized rodeos
under the auspices of the Federation of Black Cowboys throughout the New York City region. He talked to children about black
cowboys during school appearances and programs observing Black History Month in Harlem.
''The major point is that
black cowboys helped build the Old West; there were 5,000 of them,'' he said in 1983, citing the book ''The Black West'' by
William Loren Katz. ''It was a mean, dirty, low-paying job.''
Mr. Foster eventually had a theater-dance presentation
dedicated to him. In 1984, an improvisational Off Broadway happening, ''Cowboys, Dreams and Ladders,'' by Ishmael
Houston-Jones and Fred Holland, invoked Mr. Foster's name, exploring images of the West, from real cowboys to dream versions.
Mr. Foster was also honored in August at the Mind-Builders 10th annual Community Folk Arts Festival in the Bronx.
Mr. Foster's first marriage ended in divorce. He is survived by his wife of more than 30 years, the former Gladys
Coombs; five sons, Roland, of New City, N.Y., and Carlos Jr., Eduardo, Pablo and Ruben of the Bronx, and four daughters, Jeraldine
Ocasio of the Bronx; Diana Elena Matsoukas of Hackensack, N.J.; Miriam Clark of Montclair, N.J., and Marcia Luisa Foster of
Guantanamo, Cuba.
He is also survived by two brothers, Rodolfo and Pedro, of Miami; a sister, Catalina McCook,
also of Miami; 21 grandchildren, and 6 great-grandchildren.
nytimes.com
July 24, 1992
DAVID
WOJNAROWICZ, 37, Artist in Many Media
By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN
David Wojnarowicz, one
of the most individual artists of the 1980's, whose impassioned and outspoken work about AIDS thrust him into the center of
the recent debates involving the National Endowment for the Arts, died on Wednesday night at his home in Manhattan. He was
37 years old.
He died of AIDS, said his companion, Tom Rauffenbart.
Mr. Wojnarowicz (pronounced voy-nah-ROH-vitch)
worked in many media, often mixing them together, to produce an art that was distinguished by its rage and its spirit of personal
longing. His paintings, photographs, installations, performances and writings railed against the status quo as they also mourned
death. He dealt not only with AIDS but with many other issues, both public and private. His art could be simplistic and preachy.
Yet it could also be unnerving, wry and very moving.
Like the artist himself, his art never pulled punches. Mr.
Wojnarowicz gained the national spotlight in 1989, when the National Endowment for the Arts decided to rescind money for a
catalogue to an exhibition about AIDS because of an essay in which he attacked various public figures. The endowment reversed
itself. It also supported a 10-year retrospective of his work that was organized at the University Galleries of Illinois State
University in Normal, Ill., which included a catalogue that reproduced the essay.
Mr. Wojnarowicz was in the news
again after the American Family Association of Tupelo, Miss., an antipornography lobbying group, and its leader, the Rev.
Donald E. Wildmon, issued a pamphlet criticizing the endowment. The pamphlet included photographs cropped from works by Mr.
Wojnarowicz that included sexual images. The artist sued the organization for misrepresenting him and damaging his reputation.
In 1990, a Federal District Court judge in New York ruled in his favor and ordered that the organization publish and distribute
a correction. Mr. Wojnarowicz was the only artist to challenge Mr. Wildmon in court. The East Village Scene
An
abused child and a teen-age street hustler, Mr. Wojnarowicz made much of his personal history in the social margins in his
art and writings. He was born in Red Bank, N.J., ran away from home, lived on the streets, and eventually graduated from the
High School of Music and Art in Manhattan. One of many artists of his generation to achieve recognition in the boom-and-bust
East Village art scene of the early 80's, Mr. Wojnarowicz was first known for stenciling images of burning houses and falling
figures onto the sides of buildings. He typified the approach of artists from the East Village who felt free to explore various
media, to mix high and low art.
In his writings, which moved from the shrill to the elegiac, he often recounted
the goings-on of those on the sexual and economic periphery. In 1990 he published "Close to the Knives" (Random
House). Another book, "Memories That Smell Like Gasoline" is to be published by Artspace Books in San Francisco.
In his paintings and photographs, which sometimes incorporated texts, he borrowed from popular culture and created
images that could be darkly surreal. One concocted photographic image, of buffaloes toppling over a cliff, became the cover
of an album by the band U2. The death from AIDS of his friend Peter Hujar, the photographer, in 1987, and the diagnosis in
1988 of his own illness, prompted Mr. Wojnarowicz to bear witness in his art to the disease and its social and psychological
impact.
He is survived by his mother, Dolores Voyna of Manhattan; two sisters, Pat Bernier of Paris and Linda Zaccaria
of East Brunswick, N.J.; and two brothers, Peter, of Englishtown, N.J., and Steven, of East Windsor, N.J.
nytimes.com
May 5, 1992
BURT SUPREE, a Dance Writer, 51; A Village Voice Editor and Critic
By JENNIFER
DUNNING
Burt Supree, a writer on dance who was a senior editor and dance reviewer at The Village
Voice, died on Friday morning in Manhattan. He was 51 years old and lived in Manhattan.
The cause of death was
believed to be a heart attack, said a friend, June Ekman.
Mr. Supree wrote a weekly column called "Kids"
for The Voice from 1973 to 1979. To both subjects, children and dance, he brought equanimity, an eye for vividly telling detail,
and a quiet passion and sense of humor. In the late 1960's and 1970's, he was the author of three children's books, including
"Mother Mother I Feel Sick Send for the Doctor Quick Quick Quick" and "Harlequin and the Gift of Many Colors,"
prize-winning picture books written with and illustrated by Remy Charlip. Acted for a Time
Mr. Supree was born
in New York City. After graduating from City College with a degree in literature, he performed as a dancer with Aileen Passloff,
Elaine Summers, Surya Kumari and Sabine Nordoff. He acted in many productions of the Judson Poets' Theater, among them "What
Happened," "A Beautiful Day," "Pomegranada" and Lanford Wilson's "Un
titled Play," working with Al Carmines, Ruth Krauss and Harry Koutoukos. Mr. Supree also appeared in Paul Goodman's
"Jonah" and Paul Foster's "Madonna in the Orchard" at the American Place Theater, in
John Braswell's "Troyer" at La Mama, and as an extra in the Kirov Ballet's "Cinderella" at Madison
Square Garden.
Mr. Supree taught "A Workshop in Making Things Up" with Ms. Ekman and Shirley Kaplan at
Sarah Lawrence College in the early 1970's. With Ms. Ekman, he presented a participatory exhibition called "Costumes
and Performing With Newspaper" at the American Crafts Museum.
He began writing about dance in 1976. His articles
appeared in The Los Angeles Times and Herald-Examiner, the British Mirabella, Elle, Interview and Dance Ink. He contributed
to "Body to Body," a book on Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, and was on the editorial board of Inside Arts, a publication
of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters. As the dance editor and listings editor of The Voice, he made a point of
promoting the work of new and little-known choreographers and performers. Mr. Supree was also a former member of the dance
panel of the New York State Council on the Arts and was a member of the Bessie Awards committee at the time of his death.
He is survived by his father, William, of the Bronx, and his brother, Robert, of Manhattan.
On BURT
SUPREE
Ishmael Houston-Jones
From Movement Research Performance Journal #6, spring / summer 1993,
heroes and histories
I hate moving. I hate making Solomon-like decisions of whether to toss or keep my mountains
of magazines. I hate going through archeological digs through molehills of cash receipts. I hate trying to pack my files but
finding it impossible not to read every item in each drawer. This has been my life for two months. While wallowing in this
neurosis I came upon two ancient reviews by Burt Supree which, of course, I read. Burt’s keen observations about these
two pieces made two and a half years apart tell a lot about my work as an artist and how it is informed by the times and frame
of mind in which I live and create.
The first piece was Cowboys, Dreams, and Ladders a collaboration with
Fred Holland that premiered at The Kitchen in February 1984. In Cowboys Fred and I used a collage of movement, text and visuals
to explore and deconstruct the “western” myth through the eyes of two Afro-American “downtown” male
performance artists. Trying to place our identities within and without this myth was key, and although we used familiar western
iconography, (movie music and crickets on the soundtrack, tumble weed and cacti made of urban debris as sets), the idea of
making a performance piece about “Black Cowboys” was often greeted by nervous or ironic giggles by our white peers.
I worried that people would not get it. In his review Burt concluded that Fred and I “with the very potent intimacy
of performers who have worked a lot together ... give Cowboys, Dreams, and Ladders the translucent depth of a world
you’re not in a hurry to leave. And like diving to see the creatures of the reef, you’ve got to come up slowly
when the air runs out.” In other words, he got it. He also wrote that he was able to find such easy empathy with our
particular cowboy roles because “... it’s a cinch when they favor antic grace over stiffness of brutality.”
I remember reading this review over breakfast at 103 feeling that I had found a critic friend who understood what it was I
was trying to do.
The second review was of THEM a collaboration for six male dancers with writer Dennis
Cooper and composer/musician Chris Cochrane performed at PS 122 in November 1986. Burt had seen an earlier work-in-progress
version but found the completed piece “grimmer ... as if too many emotional and sensual options have been terminated
since then.” And though he conceded that THEM wasn’t a piece about AIDS, “AIDS constricts its view
and casts a considerable pall.” So again Burt’s critique was on the mark. By November 1986 I already had friends,
ex-boyfriends, heroes who were dying of The Plague and making an upbeat work about the ways six men could possibly be together
seemed impossible then. I remember feeling nervous the evening Burt came. I knew that his companion had died earlier that
week and I was anxious about the nerves the piece tweaked. In the end he wrote a respectful review of a piece that I doubt
he liked very much. He ended with what I took as a plea for Ishmael to lighten up (just a little bit) by writing – “Simple
pleasures and affections are far away. In Houston-Jones’ outlook the bullying, clamorous, brusque, torn-up aspects of
... relationships are intrinsically knotted up with our passion and tenderness and need... (B)ut our rough human grace is
overwhelmed by frustration and defeat.” I hope that in the years since then, I have learned to regain some of that
rough, human (and occasionally antic) grace.
I hate moving.
Ishmael Houston-Jones has been living and
making work in New York since 1979.
nytimes.com
September 22, 1987
BARRY LAINE,
36, Dies; Arts Writer and Editor
Barry Laine, a writer, editor and producer, died of AIDS-related
pneumonia on Saturday at his home in Brooklyn. He was 36 years old. Mr. Laine was senior editor of Stagebill magazine and
contributing editor to the Manhattan-based Dancemagazine. He wrote on dance and music for The New York Times, The Los Angeles
Times, The Washington Post, The Village Voice and The Advocate, a publication devoted to news about the gay community.
He was born June 25, 1951, in Queens, received a bachelor's degree from Cornell University in 1973 and a master's
degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Mr. Laine helped establish the Glines, a Manhattan-based
gay theater and arts center that eventually brought two productions to Broadway, ''Torch Song Trilogy'' by Harvey
Fierstein and ''As Is'' by William Hoffman.
He was a consultant for the National Endowment for the Arts
and the New York State Council on the Arts.
He is survived by his parents, Sam and Rose Laine of Tamarac, Fla.;
two sisters, Susan Cohen of Coral Springs, Fla., and Harriet Laine of Cold Spring, N.Y., and a brother, Jeffry Laine of Westerville,
Ohio. His longtime companion was Stephen Greco.
nytimes.com
April 14, 1992
Charles
ARTHUR RUSSELL Jr., 40, Cellist, Dies
Charles Arthur Russell Jr., a cellist,
vocalist and composer who was known for his fusion of classical and popular music, died on April 4 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center. He was 40 years old and lived in Manhattan.
He died of AIDS, said Tom Lee, his companion.
Mr. Russell, known professionally as Arthur Russell, performed experimental music widely as a soloist and with other musicians
and choreographers at places like the Kitchen, where he had been a director, La Mama and Experimental Intermedia Foundation.
As a cellist, he gave premieres of music by composers including Peter Zummo, Philip Glass and Christian Wolff.
Mr.
Russell was born in Oskaloosa, Iowa. He attended the Manhattan School of Music and studied Indian music at the Ali Akbar Khan
School in San Francisco. In 1981 he began his own record label, Sleeping Bag Records, and produced some hit dance singles,
including "Go Bang!" and "Wax the Van." He also released two albums of orchestral music, "Instrumentals"
and "Tower of Meaning," and a solo album, "World of Echo."
He is survived by his parents, Charles
and Emily Russell of Oskaloosa, and two sisters, Kate Henry and Julie, both of Mount Desert Island, Me.
nytimes.com
April 17, 1993
LONA FOOTE, 42, Dies; Known for Jazz Photos
Lona
Foote, a photographer known for her portraits of jazz musicians, died on Thursday at Beth Israel Hospital. She was
42.
The cause was breast cancer, said a friend, Howard Mandel.
Ms. Foote was born in New York, and she
developed a special interest in the avant-garde. At ease with both musicians and dancers, she made her way around New York
on her bicycle, photographing artistic activity at performance spaces from the Village Vanguard to P.S. 122.
For
the last 15 years, Ms. Foote worked at the Experimental Intermedia Foundation and also as a freelance photographer. Her work
was published in The New York Times, The Village Voice, Downbeat and Ear. One of her last assignments was photographing artists
for Arabesque Record's new jazz series. Among the jazz figures she photographed are Walter Davis Jr., Henry Threadgill, Lawrence
(Butch) Morris, Abbey Lincoln and Marilyn Crispell.
She is survived by two sisters, Naomi Kennis of Glendale, Ariz.,
and Regan Levin of Staten Island, and her parents, Ronald and Mona Foote of South Carolina.
nytimes.com
April 18, 1994
RON VAWTER, Actor, Dies at 45; Known for Avant-Garde Roles
By ERIC PACE
Ron Vawter, an avant-garde actor who was a pillar of the Wooster Group, an experimental theater collective
in SoHo, died on Saturday on a plane flying from Zurich to New York, his agent said. He was 45 and lived in Greenwich Village.
He died of a heart attack in his sleep and had AIDS, said his agent, Philip Carlson. Mr. Carlson said Mr. Vawter had
been acting in a production of Sophocles' tragedy "Philoctetes" in Brussels when his health deteriorated.
He had been hospitalized in Milan, Italy, before leaving for New York.
A versatile performer, Mr. Vawter won praise
from critics for his acting in "Roy Cohn/Jack Smith," his 1992 one-man show Off Broadway, and for other
roles.
Since the mid-1980's, he was also seen in small parts in mainstream vehicles including the films "Philadelphia,"
"Sex, Lies and Videotape" and "The Silence of the Lambs." A Dual Role
In
the first half of "Roy Cohn/Jack Smith," which was directed by Greg Mehrten, his companion, and performed
at the Performing Garage in SoHo, Mr. Vawter wore a purple smoking jacket and gave what has been called an eerie impersonation
of the lawyer Roy Cohn denouncing homosexuality. After intermission, Mr. Vawter appeared in sequined eye makeup, a mustache
and what has been described as bogus Ali Baba finery to depict the eccentric Jack Smith, the creator of the 1962 movie "Flaming
Creatures," which celebrated transvestite fantasy and camp posing.
Mr. Vawter said the two disparate
men had much in common. "They were both white male homosexuals, and they both died of AIDS," he said in a 1992 interview.
But, he added, "You couldn't pick two more vastly different reactions to being homosexual and responding to a society
that told them their sexuality was wrong or bad or abnormal. Cohn was in complete denial of his homosexuality and on the attack
against homosexuals. Smith was the reverse. His theatrical world had to do with the ultimate flaunting."
Mr.
Carlson said Mr. Vawter's film work included starring in the movie version of "Roy Cohn/Jack Smith," which
has been filmed but not yet completely edited.
Mr. Vawter's acting career began in the 1970's. Among his roles
with the Wooster Group, he played a talkative prosecutor in "LSD (Just the High Points)," the central figure
in "Frank Dell's Temptation of St. Anthony" and a bleak Vershinin in its adaptation of Chekhov's "Three
Sisters." Inspiration From Rehearsals
Mr. Vawter was born in Glens Falls, N.Y., and grew up in Latham,
N.Y., near Albany. He graduated from Siena College in Loudonville, N.Y., a private liberal arts college with Franciscan ties,
and earned a master's degree from New York University.
He served in the Army, became an Army recruiting officer
in downtown Manhattan, watched rehearsals at the Performing Garage, which was on his way to work, and was inspired to become
an actor.
In addition to Mr. Mehrten, Mr. Vawter is survived by his mother, Matilda Buttoni Vawter of Latham, and
two sisters, Celeste Fonda of Albany and Shelley Booth of Kitty Hawk, N.C.
A memorial service is to be held at
a date to be announced.
nytimes.com
August 14, 1990
ETHYL EICHELBERGER,
Performer, 45; Creator of a Gallery of Characters
By MEL GUSSOW
Ethyl Eichelberger, a flamboyant
presence on the New York theatrical scene for the last 15 years as an actor, performance artist, clown and playwright, died
over the weekend at his home on Staten Island. Black-Eyed Susan, an actress who was a frequent leading lady in his plays,
said that he had AIDS and had committed suicide by slashing his wrists. He was 45 years old.
His body was discovered
on Sunday morning by Lola Pashalinski, an actress, and Linda Chapman, a director.
Mr. Eichelberger performed both
male and female roles with equal panache. In more than 30 plays of his own creation, he portrayed a gallery of characters
that included Casanova, Medusa and Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln.
In ''Leer,'' his zany one-man condensation
of ''King Lear,'' he played the King, the Fool and Cordelia while accompanying himself on the accordion, concertina
and piano. For climatic effect, he also rumbled a thundersheet. With the versatility of a circus artist, he often ate fire
and did cartwheels on stage, all of which came to be known as his signature. Most of his skills were self-taught.
Upsetting the Classics
Mr. Eichelberger performed on Broadway (as the Ballad Singer who sings ''Mack the Knife''
in John Dexter's revival of ''The Threepenny Opera'') as well as in the experimental theater. His art had a firm
comedic base.
He described himself as a storyteller who specialized in classics, but classics never were the same
once Mr. Eichelberger offered his interpretation. He re-invented ''Medea,'' mixed ''The Royal Family'' with
Corneille's ''Nicomedes'' and in ''Dilbert Dingle-Dong'' adapted Moliere's ''George Dandin.'' His
last produced work, ''Das Vedanya Mama,'' was a variation on Chekhov. For Black-Eyed Susan, he wrote versions of
''St. Joan'' and ''Hamlet'' (retitled ''Hamlette'' to accommodate a woman in the title role).
Mr. Eichelberger was born to Amish parents on July 17, 1945, and was named James Roy. He grew up in Pekin, Ill. After
studying theater at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., he attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. For seven
years he acted with the Trinity Square Repertory Company in Providence, R.I., under the direction of Adrian Hall.
Movie Still to Come
Coming to New York, he worked with Charles Ludlam and the Ridiculous Theatrical Company,
perfecting his flair for comedy and his craftmanship as a wig maker. In 1975, he legally changed his first name. As his reputation
grew, he began making forays into mainstream theater, doubling as the courtesan and the abbess in the Flying Karamazov Brothers
production of ''The Comedy of Errors'' at Lincoln Center. He plays himself in Oliver Stone's next movie, ''The
Doors,'' about Jim Morrison.
nytimes.com
May 20, 1994
MICHAEL SCHWARTZ,
47, Dancer And Video Archivist of the Arts
By JENNIFER DUNNING
Michael Schwartz, a dancer
and pioneer in dance video documentation, died on Tuesday at New York Hospital. Mr. Schwartz was 47 and lived in Manhattan.
The cause was AIDS, said his companion, Mark Robison.
After a career performing with choreographers who
included Margaret Jenkins, James Cunningham and Elizabeth Streb, Mr. Schwartz established a career as a video archivist of
dance and theater. He founded and was president of Character Generators Inc., one of New York City's major performance videotaping
services. Mr. Schwartz made a point of hiring and training dancers to videotape performances, and the company was known for
the sensitivity of its work.
Mr. Schwartz developed special training techniques. Because of the financial constraints
on most dance companies, he also developed single-camera techniques and he insisted on the use of the camera's manual rather
than automatic features. "The camera danced with the dance," said Mr. Robison, a dancer and video photographer who
is vice president of Character Generators. Studied Dance in College
Mr. Schwartz was born in Chicago. He began
his dance training in college, at Arizona State University in Tempe, and later studied with Viola Farber and Merce Cunningham.
He began to work in video in 1979, serving as a cameraman, video consultant and teacher. He began a series of dance video
collaborations in 1984, producing pieces with Trisha Brown and later Ms. Streb, Gus Solomons Jr. and Nina Wiener. In 1991,
he collaborated with the dance writer Sally Sommer in documenting social dancing in New York clubs and developed an interactive
prototype for dance documentation.
Mr. Schwartz's archival clients included the Brooklyn Academy of Music Next
Wave Festival, the DIA Art Foundation Poetry Project, the Danspace Project, Performance Space 122, Jacques d'Amboise's National
Dance Institute, Playwrights Horizon, the Lincoln Center Institute and the Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center,
where he documented performances for the Dance and the Theater Collections.
In addition to Mr. Robison, Mr. Schwartz
is survived by a sister, Betty Jo Schwartz of Phoenix, and a brother, Charles J. Schwartz of Los Angeles.
SFGate.com
PHILIP HORVITZ -- former S.F. performance artist
He was noted for his satiric
musicals and one-man shows
Jesse Hamlin, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, April 11, 2005
Philip
Horvitz, a performance artist, writer, director and choreographer known to Bay Area audiences for his inventive work
at San Francisco theaters, cabarets and galleries during the 1980s and '90s, died of heart failure March 30 while flying from
New York to Oakland. He was 44.
Mr. Horvitz performed in a wide range of solo and collaborative shows at Project
Artaud, Southern Exposure, the Marsh, Theatre Rhinoceros and other venues. He was noted for his satiric musicals and one-man
performances that often explored with bittersweet humor his life as a gay man.
A New York resident for the last
nine years, Mr. Horvitz lived in the Bay Area from 1981 to 1996. At the time of his death, he was en route to perform new
solo works at San Francisco's Jon Sims Center for the Arts. He was the center's first artist-in-residence, in 1995, and is
credited with helping establish the venue as a center for "queer performance.''
In his well-received 1993
solo show, "Yes, I Can,'' based on the autobiography of Sammy Davis Jr., Mr. Horvitz conjured up the entertainer
"with uncanny precision,'' wrote Chronicle critic Steven Winn. Then, Horvitz proceeded to deconstruct Davis' story to
mine what he saw as "the homosexual subtext behind the show-business gloss,'' Winn wrote. "Even if you don't buy
this synthetic thesis -- I didn't -- Horvitz remains passionately inventive and fascinating to watch.''
Mr. Horvitz
was born in Los Altos and spent his early years on the Peninsula. His family moved to Washington, D.C., when Mr. Horowitz
was in his teens. After high school, he moved to New York City, where he trained as an actor and dancer at New York University's
Circle-in-the-Square and at the Alvin Ailey School of American Dance (now the Ailey School). He transferred to UC Berkeley,
where he earned a degree in history.
Mr. Horvitz made his acting debut in San Francisco in 1981 at the Magic Theater,
playing the lead in Pat Pfeiffer's play "The Feeding.'' He became active on the city's experimental theater
scene, collaborating with other performers, the playwright John O'Keefe and visual artists such as Nayland Blake and Lynn
Hershman.
"He was an amazing guy,'' said Blake, Mr. Horvitz's former partner. "He was a remarkable performer,
a really insightful and playful theater artist. He was at home in all so many different modes -- from traditional acting to
really avant-garde performance.''
Mr. Horvitz co-founded the performance trio Absolut Manpussy, for which he wrote,
and was artistic director of the Karidian Players, which developed and performed some of his pieces. One of them was "Being
Alive: A New Musical, '' which took off on Stephen Sondheim's "Company.''
Mr. Horvitz was the
curator for the "Performers Who Write'' series for Berkeley's Small Press Distribution and served on the performing arts
advisory board for the Arts at Yerba Buena Gardens from 1993-1996. He was a guest artist at the San Francisco Art Institute
and UC Berkeley, and last year he was a visiting artist in the department of theater and dance at Kansas State University.
Mr. Horvitz last performed in San Francisco in 2003, in a musical performance piece called "Velvet''
that he, David Johnston and Michelle Rollman wrote as a commission for New Langton Arts. He recently directed and performed
in his play "Faith'' at ART New York's South Oxford Space in Brooklyn.
Mr. Horvitz is survived by his father,
Wayne L. Horvitz, of Washington, D. C.; three brothers, Bill of Petaluma, Lee of New Orleans and Wayne of Seattle; and a niece
and two nephews.
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