Aaron Landsman makes live performances that mix scenes, monologues, dance, installation and the occasional cheap pratfall. Many of his pieces are staged in apartments, offices and other familiar locations, while others utilize established performance venues. Working this way allows the setting to become its own character, helps implicate the audience into the action and exploits the theatricality of places we go every day.
My work exists freely in the middle grounds among theater, performance art, and installation.
Landsman’s site-based works include Open House (2008), commissioned by The Foundry Theatre and presented in 24 New York City apartments; the audio walk and gallery performance Love Story (2007), presented by FuseBox in Austin, Texas, and What You’ve Done (2005), a co‐ production between Houston’s DiverseWorks Art Space and Project Row Houses. His stage performances, including Special Tonight (finalist, Yale Drama Series) Wreckage, How To Get By And Be Easily Understood, and Red White and Still, have been presented in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Minneapolis, as well as in Sweden and Belarus.
Since 2004 Landsman has performed with Elevator Repair Service, touring three continents and appearing Off-Broadway. He has taught at The Juilliard School and NYU, developed a workshop for the Creative Capital Foundation that is taught nationwide, and published writing in several journals. He is a 2010 Artist-In-Residence at HERE, where he is developing a new multi-media work, City Council Meeting.
