Happy Valley Retirement Village: Parts 3 - 6

The concluding installments of my six-part comic movie, Happy Valley Retirement Village, in which I play seven antic characters, can now be viewed on my YouTube channel.

Parts 3 through 6 each feature an "exclusive" interview by probing BBC reporter, BASIL WRAITHBONE, with: KATHERINE HEARTBURN, the indefatigable 116-year-old actress; RANDY PINCER, newly-appointed advice columnist; OLE' GRANDPA, irascible 150-year old, and TALLULAH BANKHEAD, the witty 119-year old actress infamous for outrageous behavior.

See the latest installments (and all available videos of my work) here: https://bit.ly/3u9BjVI.

Graphic Design: Grant King

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"Art–Media–Manipulation" in PAJ

My essay “Art—Media—Manipulation” appears in the September 2021 issue of PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, published by MIT Press. It surveys the historical precedents of multimedia and how the 1960s NYC’s downtown avant-garde art and performance scenes’ mixing of media pioneered the interactive virtuality of our digital world.

“The artist Kenneth King provides a far-reaching history of media and technological developments from the 1960s on up to today, resulting in what he calls 'cyberthesia.' He plots out developments across the arts and humanities and sciences in a much-needed historical view of how we got here, speculating on what the proliferation of platforms, streaming, and social media after a year of lockdown will produce as post-pandemic art.” (Bonnie Marranca, Editor, PAJ)

Here’s a PDF link of the essay: https://direct.mit.edu/pajj/issue/43/3%20(129)

Copies of PAJ are available at some bookstores and at https://direct.mit.edu/pajj.

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SCANDAL at Happy Valley Retirement Village! (Part 2)

Secret’s out—the hidden cameras and sex scandal at this senior facility have been discovered and the lawsuits are flying!

The second part of my antic movie SCANDAL AT HAPPY VALLEY RETIREMENT VILLAGE (Part 2) is now on YouTube: https://bit.ly/2RQN3x8

In it I play seven comic characters: Basil Wraithbone, BBC reporter; Buddy, a construction worker; Ole’ Grandpa, oldest man in the world; Tallulah Bankhead, infamous comedienne; Randy Pincer, London TV fanatic; Katherine Heartburn, celebrated actress; & Foo Chi, renowned chef.

Check out Part 1, too!: https://bit.ly/3tJbR7u

Happy Valley Retirement Village (Part 1)

I've returned to my acting roots for my new movie, Happy Valley Retirement Village (Part 1). A comedy about a sex scandal and hidden cameras at a senior facility, it features 7 characters: Buddy, a construction worker; Basil Wraithbone, BBC reporter; Ole’ Grandpa, oldest man in the world; Katherine Heartburn, celebrated actress; Foo Chi, renowned chef; Tallulah Bankhead, infamous comedienne; & Randy Pincer, London TV fanatic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzgEi7ZUEQk

"Secrets and Ciphers" in The Antioch Review

My latest essay, “Secrets and Ciphers,” was published in the (delayed) Winter 2020 issue of The Antioch Review. It makes unusual and provocative connections between many disciplines—cryptology, espionage, hackers, psychoanalysis, pornography, dance, AI—and mysterious cultural events and figures, including Freud, Alan Turing, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Amelia Earhart, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martha Graham, and Michel Foucault. The Antioch Review is available in libraries and bookstores; electronically via JSTOR; and via AR’s website.

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New Dance, New Novel

My newest dance “Characters in Limbo” will premiere on Friday and Saturday, December 6 & 7th at 8 p.m., at Settlement House, 184 Eldridge Street, NYC, produced by The Construction Company, on a program with Sally Silvers, Alan Good, and Andrew Gurian. Reservations: 212-924-7882; tickets are $15 and can be purchased at: https://www.universitysettlement.org/us/news/PerformanceProject/fall-2019/the-construction-company/

“Characters in Limbo” is a mercurial, shape-shifting, gender-bending solo that mixes antic quick-change character voices with ‘impossible’ tongue twisters.

I’m delighted to present this piece in conjunction with the imminent publication of my new novel, So Much For Posterity, a mind-blowing thriller that is also a novel of ideas with many moving parts and eye-popping information:

Art and politics collide head-on: Steven Stabile, America’s leading culture critic, famous for his controversial hard-hitting political exposes about the Mideast’s antiquities scandals and underground sex haunts, is mysteriously drugged and lands in a psychiatric ward. Mattressa Hopkins, his protégé, comes to his rescue. After discovering their news syndicate is undergoing a secretive takeover, they find themselves in political crosshairs and surprising adventures that take them to the Capitol for the last-ever American presidential election…and the transformation of the entire U.S. government.

Now available for Kindle (https://amzn.to/2NEteo7), So Much For Posterity will also soon be available in paper from Amazon.

“A famous writer… stumbles on evidence of a sprawling network of conspirators—including some major nations… the orations are exceedingly thoughtful, in particular those on the profound political power of art.” – Kirkus Reviews

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Photo: Karen Robbins



My "Glut and Indigence" essay in The Antioch Review, Spring 2019

My wide-ranging essay, “Glut and Indigence (Art, Commerce & The Potlatch),” has just been published in the Spring issue of The Antioch Review (delayed due to a printing snafu). It critiques Christo and Jean-Claude’s 2005 Central Park extravaganza The Gates, once the site of shanty villages, and explores how the excesses and stark contradictions between commerce, art spectacle, enclaves of poverty, the modern media phenomena of Times Square and Hollywood, and the decimation of warfare have uncanny parallels with the potlatch, the intentional squandering of harvest surplus reserves by indigenous tribes and peoples. The Antioch Review is available in libraries, at bookstores such as Barnes & Noble, electronically via JSTOR, or via their website: http://review.antiochcollege.org/spring-2019

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Now online: "Labyrinth With Voices"

Charles Dennis and I have collaborated on a video that condenses my dance theater solo: now on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_ll7rvxEsg

I started out as an actor before getting hooked on dance. “Labyrinth” features characters and comic impersonations of: Ol’ Grandpa, madcap witty Brit Randy Pincer, Basil Rathbone, Zarathustra, construction worker Buddy, and Tallulah Bankhead preparing for another comeback in “Suddenly, Suddenly Last Summer”!

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LABYRINTH WITH VOICES: PREMIERE

I’m looking forward to debuting my latest dance, Labyrinth with Voices, produced by The Construction Company at University Settlement House, 184 Eldridge Street, NYC, at 8:00pm on Friday 12/8, and Saturday 12/9.

Labyrinth with Voices is a shape-shifting, gender-bending solo, in which I ventriloquize and impersonate 8 dramatic and ridiculous characters, famous...and infamous!

The program will include choreographer Sally Silvers and video artist Andrew Gurian, and will feature a dance tribute to the late Marjorie Gamso, curated by Carolyn Lord and Linda Seifert.

Reservations and tickets ($15): 212 924-7882. To order online: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3067178

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ON THE CUSP OF SUPERSTARS

“On the Cusp of Superstars—Andy Warhol's Silver Factory as Underground," the second part of my essay/memoir about appearing in the early movies of Warhol, Gregory Markopoulos, and Jonas Mekas, has been published in the recent Spring issue of PAJ: #116 A Journal of Performance and Art (MIT Press). The first part, “Orbiting Andy Warhol’s Silver Factory” was published in the Fall 2014 issue; you can read an excerpt here on my site: http://www.kennethkingmedia.com/warhol.

Both parts in full are available from PAJ, here: http://bit.ly/2jtJdD2

Attached is a screenshot from Jonas Mekas’ film Award Presentation to Andy Warhol — I’m seated front left, beside Baby Jane Holzer.

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"Communicating With The Spirit World Through Dance" - NY Times, 11.2.15

Over the Halloween weekend, I presented two new dance solos: Secret Border, to an unusual electronic score, and Frances’ Unfinished Dance, a tone poem for a medley of character voices written by the late multimedia dance artist Frances Alenikoff—on a program of dances by Sally Silvers and Sally Gross, presented by The Construction Company, on Friday and Saturday, October 30th, 31st at 8 p.m., and on Sunday, November 1 at 3 p.m. at University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street, NYC. The New York Times 11/2 review: http://nyti.ms/1Mc46ya