Politaoke

Originally planned for a gallery show in Berlin, Politaoke was proposed as an entry to the 3rd Edition of the International Prize for Performance at the Galleria Civica di Arte Contemporanea in Trento, Italy which took place in October 2007. Despite not making the final cut, Diana Arce reworked and redeveloped the project for a performance which took place at the Gerber 3 in Weimar, Germany in January 2008. The first edition included contemporary German politicians as well as President George W. Bush. The decision to take the work to the US came shortly afterwards and the tour begin to develop in early February.

The USA Tour focuses primarily on the current presidential election and includes speeches and interviews from Presidential candidates from major and third parties as well as independents, President George W. Bush and selected speeches from German politicians from the first show: Bundeskanzerlin Angela Merkel and Edmund Stoiber.

Eventually, Politaoke hopes to expand to include a wide selection of historic, local, national and international politics within the program.

POLITical speeches as karAOKE = POLITAOKE.

Now you too can deliver the great rhetoric filled speeches of today’s most important politicians in this audience participation performance!

Politicians are actors, deliverers of words cleverly written by high paid political scientists working as speech writers sent to them via teleprompters. Other times they are professional improvisers, stringing together the current events jargon into sound bits and phrases that are perfect for being cut into newspapers, radio shows and television. But their words, whether powerful, ridiculous or down right wrong, belong to us. Politaoke provides the audience a platform to perform, mock and finally hear and see clearly what their politicians say.

Completely non-partisan, Politaoke allows the audience to decide how to interpret each politician’s words, whether serious or in a sarcastic manner. The politician’s speeches and interviews are provided, word for word, only edited into sections (songs) of 1 – 8 minutes. A series of debates, interviews and television appearances are also provided as duets. In celebration of the upcoming election, speeches from current presidential candidates Barack Obama, John McCain, Chuck Baldwin, Bob Barr, Cynthia McKinney, Brian Moore, Gloria La Riva, Ralph Nader, et al. as well as the showstopper George W. Bush Jr. will be included in the line up.

Press Release, July 14, 2008

Press Release, June 11, 2008

Created by Diana Arce, Politaoke is a natural progression in her work as an artist, filmmaker and activist, who is interested in using artistic methods as a platform to engage in political and cultural critique and commentary in the public realm. Much of her work stems not only from her personal experience, but also from contemporary politics, economics and news. She is also notorious for her prize-winning karaoke performance at Pan Am Lounge in Berlin.

Politaoke stems from a semester of research into the political discourse of contemporary politics. After organizing the the first German/English version of Politaoke in a Bar in Weimar on January 30, she decided to expand and take the project on the road because of the 2008 elections.