animals & giraffes

Performance will take place at The Chocolate Factory Theater, 38-33 24th Street, Long Island City.

Musician/composer Phillip Greenlief and writer Claudia La Rocco created animals & giraffes after meeting at Headlands Center for the Arts during their 2013 residencies. An ever-changing ensemble dedicated to interdisciplinary improvisation, a&g has performed at such venues as The Lab (SF), Pieter (LA), Reed College (Portland), and Amalgam Presents at Café Mustache (Chicago), and the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. In 2017-2018, a&g was ensemble in residence at the Center for New Music, hosting monthly happy hours with musicians, visual artists, writers, and dancers. The group has three albums: “July” (Edgetone Records, 2017), featuring a who’s who of Bay Area improvisers; “Landlocked Beach” (Creative Sources, 2018), a live broadcast with Jon Leidecker on Over the Edge at KPFA FM; and “animals & giraffes live @ medicine for nightmares” (Evander Music, forthcoming), with Kyle Bruckmann, Alexandra Buschman-Román, and Adriana Camacho.

For this one-night performance, a&g’s East Coast debut, Greenlief and La Rocco are joined by dance artists Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener, and video & sound artist Brian Rogers — the first time these longtime collaborators have all performed together.

 

A Note On Ticket Prices

Starting in December 2023, The Chocolate Factory Theater will implement a new tiered ticketing price structure, with the goal of remaining accessible to every person who wishes to attend our events while acknowledging the very real value of the service - namely, artistic and administrative labor - that a ticket purchase represents; and adjusting for the realities of inflation and the ever-increasing cost of…everything.

We now offer a range of ticket prices; and ask that you select the option that best reflects your individual circumstances:

1. $35 (our new base price - the equivalent of one hour of labor for a lead artist, performer, design collaborator or technician)
2. $20 (the price we have historically charged, for more than ten years, without an increase)
3. $10 
4. $50
5. $100
6. $275 (the actual, unsubsidized value of a ticket, if box office was our sole source of income)

Our intention here is not to create walled gardens or tiers of access based on monetary status; we’re merely trying to make our practice - of paying artists, technicians and administrative staff a fair wage (more than 80% of our annual budget goes to labor, fyi) - more sustainable (or truthfully, less unsustainable), while remaining (we hope!) accessible and welcoming to all.

As a ticket buyer, you’ll receive the same experience regardless of the price you pay. It’s general admission for everyone. In other words: if you’re used to paying $20, and that feels right to you, nothing will change. If you can pay more, please pay more; if you need to pay less, pay less. We’ll operate on the honor system, no questions asked; and we’ll see how it goes.