Object Collection was founded in January 2004 when founders Kara FeelyandTravis Just
presented a concert of John Cage's seminal theater and music composition, Song Books, at the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter in Cologne, Germany.
This landmark work, that pairs experimental music and theater together within a single interdisciplinary performance, became an inspirational
model for the genesis of the company. Now entering into its fifth year, Object Collection puts these ideas into practice by presenting hybrid
theater-music performances, which take the shape of large-scale projects, duo performances, and curated performance series. Based in
New York City, the company collaborates with an increasing number of actors, musicians, composers, designers, and visual artists, actively
combining techniques and methodologies from different mediums in order to generate new artistic work in unchartered forms. Object Collection's
work has appeared at a variety of theaters, concert venues, galleries, art spaces, and festivals, including: Performance Space 122,
the Ontological Theater, Experimental Intermedia, Chez Bushwick/AMBUSH, Issue Project Room (New York); Podewil/TESLA, KuLe,
REM/Reihe Elektronischer Musik (Germany); Loop-Line, SuperDeluxe, Urbanguild, Art Space Tetra, Gallery Soap (Japan); and Art Basel (Miami).
Kara Feely is a writer, director and designer for experimental theater and interdisciplinary performance. Her work draws inspiration
from experimental writing and music composition strategies, and combines a variety of materials, from found text fragments and landscapes of
objects, to recorded interviews and radio broadcasts. In 2004 she co-founded the theater-music performance group, Object Collection, and has
since written and directed several projects for the company: "Problem Radical(s)" (PS122, 2009), "FAMOUS ACTORS" (Ontological Theater, 2007),
"Evoke memories of a golden age." (Ontological Theater, 2006) and "Is this a gentleman?" (Ontological Theater, 2005). "Is this a gentleman?"
was also published in "Antennae #7", a journal of experimental writing and performance.
Additional projects with Object Collection for which she has worked as writer, director, and/or performer include: the 2008 "Experimental Music"
series at the Ontological Theater; the experimental music and reading series "CHOP SHOP" (Berlin); the sound-interview installation
"L-shaped not more than seven feet" at TESLA/Podewil (Berlin); and John Cage's "Song Books" at the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter (Cologne).
She has also performed throughout Japan on Object Collection's 2008 and 2009 tours, at KuLe (Berlin), Experimental Intermedia (New York),
the AMBUSH series at Chez Bushwick (Brooklyn), Issue Project Room (Brooklyn), and presented a solo show at the Los Solos series (Baltimore).
Kara has also worked extensively as designer for theater and dance in New York, Los Angeles and abroad. Her designs have appeared at
Dance Theater Workshop, MASS MoCA, The Baryshnikov Arts Center, St. Ann's Warehouse, the Kitchen, The Merce Cunningham Studio, Miller Theater,
and the Ivan Franko National Theater (Kiev).
She received her BA in Theater and Art History from Barnard College in 1999, and has taught and mentored students in playwriting and design at
the Women's Project in New York and the LA County High School for the Arts. She currently teaches in the theater department at
Barnard College/Columbia University.
Travis Just comes from a background in improvised music and experimental composition, his work often uses texts, gesture, and unconventional technologies in addition to instruments and electronics.
His work has been presented throughout the US and Europe at the Ontological Theater, Experimental Intermedia, Chez Bushwick/AMBUSH, Brooklyn College, Columbia University, Merce Cunningham Studio, NYC; TESLA/Podewil, KuLe, Berlin; CalArts, LA; Brown University; Galerie Mark Müller, Zürich; Kunst-Station Sankt Peter, Cologne; Kunstraum, Düsseldorf; Ivan Franko National Theater, Kiev, Ukraine, among others. His music has been performed by numerous ensembles including: Maulwerker, Wandelweiser Composers Ensemble, incidental music, Reihe Elektronischer Musik Bremen, and the Dog Star Orchestra.
He studied with Andrew Cyrille, James Tenney, Wadada Leo Smith, Michael Pisaro, and Johannes Fritsch and was a 2003 DAAD scholar in Cologne, Germany. He is a resident artist at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater where he a curator for the OHT-Incubator and the Experimental Music series.
