Politaoke

Mission Statement

The People’s Party for Participatory Democracy and the Advancement of Karaoke (PPPDAK) is an artist-run movement to bring the power of political karaoke to the people who need it most.

Party lines

• - We believe that the words of our politicians, past and present, belong to everyone and that to speak them is the right, perhaps even the obligation, of all citizens in our contemporary democracy.
• - The PPPDAK is trans-political and post-partisan.
• - The PPPDAK is headquartered in the minds, voices and bodies of our participants and audiences. Be it a karaoake bar, cafe, shop or gallery, no space is too small or too large to be a potential forum for the Advancement of Karaoke.
• - The party could not exist without the performative energies of our participants, audiences and supporters who call our movement into being.
• - We see a day, in the not too distant future, when the light of political karaoke will be found in every corner of the earth. The PPPDAK is founded on collaboration and welcomes the efforts and support of others in spreading the political karaoke form.

About the founders of the PPPDAK

The PPPDAK was founded by artists Diana Arce and Daniel Peltz. In 2007, unbeknownst to each other, Peltz and Arce developed two separate political karaoke projects: Karaoke Convention [an intervention scheduled to coincide with the DNC in Denver] and Politaoke [a touring political karaoke production which first took place on January 30 in Weimar. Germany]. Although different in method, both projects have similar goals and aims. Finding each other through the wonders of the internet, the artists decided to combine their efforts and form The PPPDAK.

The US-premiere of Politaoke will take place on Wednesday, July 30th and 31st as a part of the Buffalo Infringement Festival and will subsequently tour across the US. Karaoke Convention will be launched with a celebrity kick-off on Friday, August 22nd in Denver and run through the 27th in karaoke bars and performance venues throughout the city as part of the curatorial project Dialog:City, scheduled to coincide with the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Arce and Peltz are multimedia artists who create works that combine installation, intervention and performance strategies.

The Karaoke Convention is led by artist and educator Daniel Peltz. His most recent projects have been conducted in Sweden and Cameroon. Peltz grew up in Oyster Bay, NY where he often found himself in the basement giving speeches to an imaginary audience with a microphone plugged into his pants.

Peltz was a 2007-08 Fulbright Scholar at the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Konstfack in Stockholm and will spend the coming fall at The School of Arts and Communication [K3] in Malmo as part of the International Artist Studio Program in Sweden [IASPIS]. When not working abroad, he lives in Pawtucket, Rhode Island where he is an Assistant Professor of Film/Animation/Video at the Rhode Island School of Design.
www.danielpeltz.net

Politaoke is a project developed by Diana Arce. Growing up in close proximity to Washington DC, Arce developed a love-hate relationship with politics that carried over into her art. After completing her Bachelor’s in Cultural Studies and Experimental Film at Hampshire College, Arce received a fellowship from the State Department and the German parliament to study and work in Berlin.

Currently an MFA candidate in Art in Public Space at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany, Arce is interested in using artistic methods as a platform to engage in political and cultural critic 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 in Berlin for her winning karaoke performance at the Pan Am Lounge.
www.visualosmosis.com