|
Zeitgeist – noun, German. The spirit of the times; general trend, mood or feeling characteristic of a particular period of time, especially as it is reflected in the arts, literature, philosophy, etc.
"SOMETHING FOR AND AGAINST EVERYONE!"
Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center has been bringing alternative art to New Orleans since November 1986 – 31 years and still counting! We are an entirely volunteer, artist-run organization that does not receive grants or public funds. Presenting film, video, performance art, visual art and literary events seven nights a week, all year round, Zeitgeist is considered one of the premier alternative arts center in the South.
|
OUR HISTORY
Founded in 1986 as Zeitgeist Theatre Experiments, inc. by Rene Broussard when he was a BFA student in the Drama & Communications Department at the University of New Orleans. Zeitgeist was initiated as an experimental theater troupe and derives its name from The Adventures of Phoebe Zeit-Geist, a comic series which ran in Evergreen Review in the 1970’s. Phoebe was the lead character in Zeitgeist’s first theatrical production, Blood on the Cat’s Neck by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Zeitgeist went on to produce several other successful plays including Shakespeare the Sadist by Wolfgang Bauer, Rocking Back and Forth by Gunter Grass, Let’s Eat Hair by Karl Lazlo and an environmental theatre piece/musical about the Manson Family entitled Commune. The emphasis of the organization changed to that of the city of New Orleans’ leading exhibitor of alternative cinema with series and originally curated programs of experimental and underground films being presented in various locations. In June of 1990, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, one of the top 10 alternative arts centers in the U.S. offered Rene Broussard the position of Film Curator. In the three years Broussard was in Buffalo, N.Y. (1990-1993), Zeitgeist continued to do sporadic programming. Broussard served as a the co-director of the Ways in Being Gay Festival and the director of the Outrage Gay & Lesbian Festival.
Zeitgeist went on to produce several other successful plays including Shakespeare the Sadist by Wolfgang Bauer, Rocking Back and Forth by Gunter Grass, Let’s Eat Hair by Karl Lazlo and an environmental theatre piece/musical about the Manson Family entitled Commune. The emphasis of the organization changed to that of the city of New Orleans’ leading exhibitor of alternative cinema with series and originally curated programs of experimental and underground films being presented in various locations. In June of 1990, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, one of the top 10 alternative arts centers in the U.S. offered Rene Broussard the position of Film Curator. In the three years Broussard was in Buffalo, N.Y. (1990-1993), Zeitgeist continued to do sporadic programming. Broussard served as a the co-director of the Ways in Being Gay Festival and the director of the Outrage Gay & Lesbian Festival.
In June of 1993, Broussard returned to New Orleans to establish Zeitgeist as a full-time alternative cinema doing regular programming at the Masonic Temple, The Latin American Bar, Muddy Waters and Pussycat Caverns eventually establishing their own screening room at the late Movie Pitchers. After three more address changes on O’Keefe Ave (where we were partnered with Clinton Peltier’s X-Art gallery) and Magazine Street, Zeitgeist found its home, located at 1618 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd, after sharing a space on the boulevard with Barrister’s Gallery for eight years. We moved to Arabi in March of 2019.
Zeitgeist was awarded the Mayor’s Arts Award by the Arts Council of New Orleans and is the main venue for Patois: New Orleans International Human Rights Festival and the New Orleans Middle East Film Festival.
Zeitgeist was awarded the Mayor’s Arts Award by the Arts Council of New Orleans and is the main venue for Patois: New Orleans International Human Rights Festival and the New Orleans Middle East Film Festival.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM ZEITGEIST'S 30 YEARS INCLUDE:
|
VISITING FILMMAKERS:
Legendary lesbian/experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer, Mark Pauline (Survival Research Laboratories), Francis James (Moon Blue Traces), transgressive filmmaker Alan Sondheim, Leslie Thornton (Peggy and Fred In Hell), animator/screenwriter Tom Zummer, lesbian video artist Julie Zando, Janet Wondra & Jeff Walker (Uncool Orbit), Tom Richards & Marta (pixel-vision/video artists), drag/activist video artists Brenda Sexual & Glennda Orgasm, documentary filmmaker Harrod Blank, New York gay filmmaker Mark D’Aria, lesbian video artist Sadie Benning, hip hop video artist and media assassin Art Jones, Anne Craig & Maia Harris (Storyville: The Naked Dance), documentarian Paul Stekler, Isaac Webb (The Wedding), underground filmmaker Jeri Cain Rossi, Rene Broussard (The Fatboy Chronicles), German filmmaker/curator Ingo Petzke, Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov, San Francisco filmmaker Eric Saks, transgressive filmmaker Joe Christ, Craig Baldwin (Sonic Outlaws), lesbian filmmaker/curator Jenny Olsen, New York experimental animator Donna Cameron, experimental & documentary filmmaker Lynne Sachs, experimental filmmaker Mark Street, legendary German gay filmmaker Rosa Von Praunheim, gay experimental filmmaker from Berlin Michael Brynntrup, gay filmmaker/producer from Berlin Jurgen Bruning, gay Canadian filmmaker Bruce La Bruce, Wash Westmoreland (Squishy Does Porno and later Quincinera), documentary filmmaker from Bombay Anand Patwardhan, legendary British filmmakers Isaac Julien & Mark Nash, documentarian Les Blank, documentarian Robert Mugge, Peter George (Surf Nazis Must Die), the legendary late Austrian experimental filmmaker Kurt Kren, lesbian experimental filmmaker Jennifer Reeves, legendary German experimental filmmaker Wilhelm Hein & photographer Annette Frick, German filmmaker Stephan Sachs, Will Frank, Mike Lyddon & Karl DeMolay (Zombie vs. Mardi Gras), black independent New Orleans video artists King Jeff & El Timo, documentary filmmaker Rick Delaup, screenwriter/filmmaker Henry Griffin, Cheryl Dunye (Watermelon Woman), Douglas Langway (Raising Heroes) , video artist/curator Courtney Egan, experimental animator/curator Helen Hill, experimental filmmaker Betsy Weiss, documentarian Neil Alexander, San Francisco experimental filmmaker Alfonso Alvarez, New York experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison, Chicago filmmakers Jim Finn & Dean Rank, cult filmmaker John Michael McCarthy, Shreveport filmmaker/curator David Nelson, experimental animator Devon Damonte, cult filmmaker/prankster Igor Vamos, Academy Award winning documentary filmmaker Laura Dunn (Green), Diane Zander (Girl Wrestler), documentary filmmakers Louis Alvarez & Andrew Kolker, San Francisco filmmaker/curator Melinda Stone, cut-up animator Martha Colburn, DIY-punk filmmaker James Schneider, documentary filmmaker/curator Matt McCormick, documentary filmmaker/sex worker Scarlet Harlot, legendary concert filmmaker Steve Gebhardt, inter-active computer/video installation artist Paul Vanouse, interactive computer/video artist/curator Patrick Lichty, installation artist Andrew Wade Smith, legendary pranksters RTmark, film/music performers Wet Gate, legendary filmmaker/video artist/composer/musician Tony Conrad, New York underground filmmaker Rachel Amadeo, documentary filmmakers Jane C. Wagner & Tina Tina DiFeliciantonio, Academy Award nominated Cuban/American filmmaker Juan Carlos Zaldivar (90 Miles, Soldiers Pay), comedian/filmmaker/actor/writer Harry Shearer, Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker Sam Green (The Weather Underground), two-time Academy Award-nominated editor/filmmaker Dawn Logsdon (The Weather Underground, Paragraph 174), human rights activists/filmmakers Big Noise Tactical Media, Termite T.V., local activist-turned-filmmaker who went to Palestine with the New Orleans Human Rights Delegation Rebecca Rapp, German experimental filmmaker Caspar Stracke, filmmaker/hobo Bill Daniel, Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Barbara Trent (The Panama Deception), New York filmmaker Michelle Stephenson (Faces Of Change), Leonard Abrams (Quilombo Country), New York activist/filmmaker Peter Kinoy, mayoral candidate turned filmmaker Manny Chevrolet, concert filmmaker Michael Murphy, activist filmmaker Mary Beth Black, filmmaker/professor Mark Morris, computer animator David Sullivan, documentary filmmaker Royce Osborn, documentary filmmaker Jeremy Campbell, documentary filmmaker William Sabourin O’Reilly, Texas filmmaker Nick Cooper, New Orleans filmmaker Jason Vowell (Aperture), filmmaker/organizer Christopher C. Brown, video artist Tim Best, Gordon Soderberg (Walkin To New Orleans), Palestinian filmmakers from The Balata Film Collective, corporate pranksters The Yes Men, legendary feminist filmmaker Julie Gustafson, Canadian Filmmaker Velcrow Ripper, Canadian filmmaker Ingrid Veninger, Barry Jenkins (Medicine For Melancholy), James Spooner (Afro Punk), Big Noise Media Collective, Author Naomi Klein, Berlin filmmakers Wilhelm Hein & Annette Frick, indie filmmakers Russell Brown & Christopher Munch, Palestinian poet, writer & actress Suheir Hammad, trans-gendered filmmakers Kristen Anchor & Rahne Alexander, French Canadian filmmaker Jacob Tierney, etc. PERFORMANCES BY: Richard Schechner, Kathy Randels, Vanessa Skantze, Lisa D’Amour, Anne-Liese Juge, Lucas Cox, J. Hammons, Tamer, Jose Torres Tama, Audrey Elizabeth, Nick Faust, Brenda Sexual & Glenda Orgasm, Penny Arcade, Moving Humans, ArtSpot Productions, Dennis Formento, John Sinclair, Caged, The Death Posture, Joe Goodrich, Brother Clit, Crescent City Puppetry Festival, Ronald Ehmke, Greg Walloch, Alan Reade, Wet Gate, Happensdance Modern Dance Company, Queerly Canadian Performance Festival, David Bateman, David Roche, Michael Achtman, ComedySportz, State Of The Nation: Third Annual Performance Festival, the Annual Sex Workers Art Show Tour, etc. VISUAL ARTS: Gary Oaks, Mary Jane Parker, Michael Landry, James Tancill, Paul Vanouse, Clinton Peltier, Eli Langer, John Lawson, Chuck Aswell, Annette Frick, Matthew Nesbit, Bonita Zielinski, Seth Boonchai, Ann Schwab, Jose Torres Tama, David Bateman, Ralph McGuiness, Hugo Montero, Spencer Livingston, Joe Knight, New Orleans Noir (I & II), The Unbearable Beuys Scouts of America, Framed, Feminine Products, Saints and Sinners, 10 For 10, Darfur Now, 60 Years Nakbe, etc. 
|
MAJOR FILM SERIES AND EVENTS:
The Performance Group on Film; Neue Deutche Kino; The World Made Flesh: American Experiments In Marginality; Beuys And Beyond: Contemporary German Artists On Film; Louisianalysis & Texastentialism; Kino Der Obsessionen; Avant-garde Cinema; Female Ejaculation Night!; Fluxus & Situationist Cinema; German Film in the Experimental Feature & Short; Contemporary Silent Classics; The Visual Politics of Hip Hop; Films In The Hood; Dissident Films; Recent African Cinema; Queerly Canadian; The Films of Kidlat Tahimik: A Third Wold Projector; Beckett on Film; Inspired by Bach; A Young Boy’s Dreams Are Often Wet: Appropriated Images of Youth; The Films of Pier Paolo Passolini; The Films of Atom Egoyan; The Early Films of Peter Greenaway; The Surreal Animations of The Brothers Quay; The Films of Jan Svankmajer; The Films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder; The Films of Danny Lyons; Northern Exposures; Tales from the Winnipeg Film Group; 50 Years of Perversion: The Films of Rosa Von Praunheim; The Films of Isaac Julien; The Films of Marlin Riggs; The Films of Kenneth Anger; The Films of Stan Brakhage; The Films of Derek Jarman; The Films of Andy Warhol; The Films of Fernando Arrabal; Mondo Manitoba Marathon; Movie Days: International Children’s Film Series; Zelten verboten! (No camping!): New Queer Cinema from Germany; Laurels For The Stans: Films from the Silk Road; 15 Years/15 Films; Film Movement Presents; Why They Hate U.S.: Thirty documentaries depicting U.S. Acts of Terror and Foreign Policy Run Amok; The Silent Films of Stan Brakhage (as interpreted by the Improvisational Arts Council); Super Super 8 Film Festival Tour; Lenin Busted; Rural Route Film Festival Tour; Madcat Women’s Film Festival Tour; Gadabout Film Festival Tour; Clermont-Ferrad Short Film Festival Tour; Rooftop Films; Iranian Films; Arab Cinema Celebration; Juvenile In-Justices; NOVAC Retrospective; Classic and Contemporary Japanese Cinema; The New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival (I, II & III); Beyond the Veil; Global Film Initiative Tour; Soccer Cinema/Football Films; Zeitgeist Finds Religion; Tibetan Buddhism: A Film Survey; White Fluffy Duckies; Mao Now; Masculine/Feminine; Africa on Film; Europe Watches America; The Films of Michael Haneke; Free Cinema Retrospective; New Orleans Filmmakers Present; Banned Book Week Film Series; The Films of Pierre Coulibeuf; Zeitgeist’s 20th Anniversary Retrospective; A Yoiko Ono/Fluxus Celebration, The Art of Activism on Film, The Desert Trilogy, Beur is Beautiful: A French/Arab Film Retrospective, Las Americas Film Series, Canada is Bigger than the U.S., The Sixth New Orleans Middle East Film Festival (December 7 through 16, 2012), etc. THEATRICAL PRODUCTIONS: Blood On The Cat’s Neck, Shakespeare The Sadist, Commune, Let’s Eat Hair with Rocking Back and Fourth, Eye Of The Beholder, The Elephant Man starring Mark Krasnoff; Rage Within/Without, Fields of Gold, The End and Back Again, Casino America, We Are Patriots With Dark Faces, In Exile Close to The Equator, Jackie O: The Show She Never Gave, What Dreadful Tings To Say About Someone Who Just Bought Me Lunch, Medea Mix, Ego Rites, Into the O, Salad Days, Boy With A Bugle, My Friend; Semen, Dah Teater, Nita & Zita, The Desperate Hours, Steaknife Bacchai, Xmas X; Venus, Vulcan, Mars and the Dancing Dwarf; Lucifer, Brecht On Brecht, The Music of Erich Zann, Dis+Graced, etc. CONCERTS: Multiple Places, Shot Down In Equator, Jr., The Royal Pendletons, Lump, Patsy Cline and the Memphis G-Spots, The Gas Tank Orchestra, Androo Cahill, James Singleton, Dave Easley, Charlie Miller, 3NOW3, 3NOW4, 3NOW4KESTRA, Wendy Mae Chambers, Glen Styler, Tony Green and Gypsy Jazz, The Violent Prawns, Tribe 8, Bonfire Madigan, Improvisational Arts Council, Hot Club of New Orleans, Edward “Kidd” Jordan, Peter Brotzmann, Frank Zappatistas, John Sinclair and his Blues Scholars, Quintron, Liquidrome, Bones, New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars, Jonathon Freilich, Naked On The Floor, The Naked Orchestra, Kevin O’Day, Live Animals, Peter Kowald, Heartifacts, Rick Trolson, Nick Sanzenbach, Unit One, Children of the Sun, Michael Ray and the Kosmic Krewe, Carl Leblanc, Mikiel Williams, Raymond Williams, Shiek Rashied, Jimbo Walsh, Jana Saslaw, Jeanne Hubert, Blake Amos & Saudade, Patrice Fisher, Arpa Latina, Duo Calibri, Chiko & Rogerio, JAC3, Rob Cambre, Endres Landsnes, Tim Green, Contra Contra Bass, Cambre/Copello, Dry Bones Trio, The Death Posture, Donald Miller, Quintology, The Silent Films of Stan Brakhage (as interpreted by the Improvisational Arts Council), LA Monster, Afroskull, Dan Sumner, Antijazz, Andrew McLean & Priyo Mujumdar, Tabla For 4, Henry Butler, Chris Alexander, Kelcy Mae Band, Dirtfoot, Jeff Albert, Albert/Ankrum Project, Roshibobo, Jeff Zielinsky & Ed Miles Duo, Mahfouz, Ear Floss Ensemble, Johnny Vidacovich, Jason Marsalis, Ken Vandermark, Vandermark 5, William Parker, Alvin Fielder, Mats Gustafsson, Harriet Tubman, Konk Pack, The New Thing, Joe Cabral, Egg Yolk Jubilee, Muvovum, Morning 40 Federation, Andrew Cyrell, Fred Van Hove, Dennis Gonzales, Dennis Gonzales Yells At Eels, Mark Fowler, Earl Tubinton, Rob Wagner, Rob Wagner Trio, James Alsanders, Melt Banana, Tony Conrad, Cluster (featuring Mobius & Rodelius), Melomane, Vic Thrill, Bond Bergland, The Brain, Blacklight Confessions of Pantopan Rose, Potpie, Ed Porter, Martin Krusche, The Rishis, Sean Johnson, Zeitgeist Creative Music Festival (I, II, & III), etc. I defy you to find or name another organization who has consistently done so much with so little. This is one hell of an accomplishment. Please come help us celebrate. And if you support what we are doing, please join us by becoming a volunteer or a paid member. We can’t continue without your support. Please Join or Renew Today! Thanks, Rene Broussard Founder/Executive Director Zeitgeist Multi-disciplinary Arts Center 
|
T h e a t e r R e n t a l S
I am constantly asked about renting for screenings, meetings and private events. We generally have film or music events booked every night of the week a couple months in advanced, but we do usually leave an open slot each night to holdover a film if it is doing well, so we do have some wiggle room.
The earlier you can schedule an event the better. Our rates are extremely reasonable. Depending on size and type of event usually no more than $100 or $150 per hour. For larger events we also ask for an additional fee for toiletries and cleaning. Standard screenings or meetings are $100 per hour. Four parties, banquets, concerts or large social events where furniture is moved and the space rearranged its $150 per hour.
These rates do not apply for weddings or raves. We do not do weddings or raves!
Been there, done that. Never again!
To reserve a date a deposit of 50% is required with the remaining balance the night of the event.
We usually only charge rentals for private events. As an artist run space it is against our principles to charge artists to exhibit their work, so we often offer to co-present events which are open to the public with a split of the door unless an organization or presenter chooses to do a rental and do their own admissions or donations.
For any and all inquiries please contact Rene Broussard at [email protected] or (504) 352-1150
The earlier you can schedule an event the better. Our rates are extremely reasonable. Depending on size and type of event usually no more than $100 or $150 per hour. For larger events we also ask for an additional fee for toiletries and cleaning. Standard screenings or meetings are $100 per hour. Four parties, banquets, concerts or large social events where furniture is moved and the space rearranged its $150 per hour.
These rates do not apply for weddings or raves. We do not do weddings or raves!
Been there, done that. Never again!
To reserve a date a deposit of 50% is required with the remaining balance the night of the event.
We usually only charge rentals for private events. As an artist run space it is against our principles to charge artists to exhibit their work, so we often offer to co-present events which are open to the public with a split of the door unless an organization or presenter chooses to do a rental and do their own admissions or donations.
For any and all inquiries please contact Rene Broussard at [email protected] or (504) 352-1150