February 10–12, 2021
La Mama’s Ellen Stewart Theatre
Some Serious Business is proud to support “Whiteness: Part One” by Paul Pinto and Kameron Neal. Presented by La MaMa and CultureHub, his immersive music video cantata surrounds the viewer in a white void, while a chorus of floating heads muse (in 4-40-part harmony) on privilege, appropriation, and the history (or plague) of “whiteness” in the U.S.A. Told through chants, rants and micro-pop songs, “Whiteness: Part One” is a humorous self-interrogation of Pinto’s maddening inner thoughts as a mixed-race American, visibly brown, and invisibly trying to not be so white. Set to a whirling video installation directed by Neal, the duo is reflecting the silliness, the severity, and the anxieties of skin color.
Timed entry tickets will include half-hour access to the installation. “Whiteness: Part One” is 10 minutes long and will play on loop so you can experience it more than once.
Music, lyrics written and performed by Paul Pinto
Video design and direction by Kameron Neal
Sound design by Philip White
Cinematography by Jon Burklund/ZANNI Productions
Projection and Audio Systems by CultureHub
“Whiteness: Part One” was developed in the CultureHub Residency Program. Originally commissioned by PROTOTYPE Festival with additional support by Some Serious Business and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.
Kameron Neal is a multi-disciplinary artist working at the intersections of media, performance, and design. He uses technology as a tool to encode history and craft compelling performances of self. A Princess Grace Awardee and NYSCA/NYFA Fellow, Kameron is currently a Public Artist in Residence in the NYC Department of Records where he is researching new ways to engage with the city’s municipal archives. In 2020, he co-created MukhAgni, an irreverent multimedia performance memoir which was presented at Under the Radar. He has also collaborated with artists like Billy Porter and Rufus Wainwright to bring their music videos and live performances to life. Kameron’s work has been featured in Forbes, The New York Times, National Geographic, HYPEBEAST and presented by a variety of institutions including The Public Theater, BAM, Ars Nova, CultureHub, Digital Graffiti, New Orleans Film Festival, and the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum.
“He’s Ernie Kovacs crossed with Leonard Bernstein… and in a society run by artists, he would be president.” -The Wire
Paul Pinto is a multi-disciplinary musician, creator and performer, and band member of thingNY, Varispeed and LoveLoveLove. He’s performed Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King, originated the role of Balaga in Dave Malloy’s Great Comet of 1812, and wrote the autotuned opera Thomas Paine in Violence, and the dance arias 15 Photos. During COVID times, Paul’s created music for the Prototype Festival, Colgate University, The Fisher Center, and online and interactive shows with thingNY. Recent commissions include The Approach for Quince, I pass’d a church for the Rhythm Method String Quartet, and upcoming premieres for the Yarn/Wire, Look+Listen Festival and The Fisher Center.
SELECTED PRESS:
Musical America: PROTOTYPE Fest Launches an Explosion of DIY Modules
Paul Pinto’s Blanc (Whiteness) … lampoons white people’s frequent misassumptions about ethnicity. Razor sharp, wildly witty, and often acerbic, Blanc features video artist Kameron Neal whirling and multiplying Pinto’s filmed head in five-minutes of visual and musical anarchy.
Seen and Heard International: Compelling and Cutting-edge
“The most original, experimental and exuberant of all the pieces is ‘Blanc’ by the composer, writer and multi-disciplinary performer Paul Pinto. In collaboration with Kameron Neal, Jon Burklund and Philip White, Pinto has taken the medium of digital performance and created a theatrical universe all his own. It feels like Beat poet meets barbershop quartet with the surreal underpinnings of ‘Yellow Submarine’. Humming, spoken word, snapping fingers and floating heads transport the audience into Pinto’s mind, and it’s a trip worth taking. It’s not opera, but it is a musical, visual and theatrical delight.”
Wall Street Journal: Arias on Identity, Isolation, and Fear
“Paul Pinto’s “Whiteness: Blanc,” uses snappy spoken text and the exponentially multiplied image of the artist’s brown face for a seriocomic exploration of the answer to the question ‘Where are you from?’”
Picture This Post: Operas We Love
“If the notion of contemplating identity is itself a fraught subject for you, you might find a sympathetic reflection in Paul Pinto’s piece Whiteness: Blanc. A Hispanic person who isn’t fluent in Spanish, his acapella poetry establishes that he’s fifty percent Latino and twenty-to-eighty percent white, depending on varying definitions, putting him at a loss for how to fit into the current cultural narratives surrounding race in the United States. The piece is frantic, discordant, and suffused with ironic humor. His many anxious inner monologues are sent snowballing into a cacophony by a not so simple four-word long question, rendered visually by director Kameron Neal and cinematographer Jon Burkland of the aptly named Zanni Productions.