Michael Portnoy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Michael Portnoy is a New York based multimedia artist, choreographer, musician, actor and director of behavior. He entered pop culture history for dancing with the words Soy Bomb painted on his chest during a Bob Dylan performance at the Grammys.
Contents |
[edit] Soy Bomb
For Bob Dylan's performance of "Love Sick" at the 1998 Grammy Awards, Portnoy had been hired by the Grammys to stand in the background with other dancers and bob his head to the music to "give Bob a good vibe." Instead, halfway through the performance, Portnoy ripped off his shirt, ran up next to Dylan, and started dancing and contorting spastically with the words Soy Bomb written boldly in black across his chest. Dylan glanced briefly at Portnoy, laughed, and went on playing without missing a beat. Portnoy continued to dance for about 40 seconds, making odd grimaces, his eyes often closed as if in a trance, until security realized he wasn't part of the show and escorted him off-stage.
When questioned by reporters, Portnoy made statements about being "almost vegetarian", and said that "Soy...represents dense nutritional life. Bomb is, obviously, an explosive destructive force. So, soy bomb is what I think art should be: dense, explosive life" according to E! and that "he meant Soy Bomb as a "spontaneous explosion of the self" to re-invigorate the currently bland music scene that exists." The Grammy Awards chose not to press charges against Portnoy for the act, but did decline to pay Portnoy's $200 fee for the dancing gig.
[edit] Public reaction
Many found the incident both strange and amusing, and the event was soon parodied on comedy television shows. It was the subject of skits on Saturday Night Live, where he was portrayed by Will Ferrell, and on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. A few days after the Grammys, TVT Records attempted to capitalize on the event with a website, "Soy Bomb Nation." The website claimed to be the home of a grassroots dadaist anti-corporate movement that had been around for years, and that although Portnoy wasn't officially a member, he was honoring Soy Bomb with his performance.
The collective consciousness has not forgotten about Soy Bomb over time. In 2005, the band Eels released a song entitled "Whatever Happened to Soy Bomb" on its album Blinking Lights and Other Revelations. When the same performance of "Love Sick" was included on the bonus DVD released with Dylan's 2006 album Modern Times, but with "Soy Bomb" edited out, many people expressed their disappointment. An instrumental called "Soy Bomb" by Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives appears as a bonus song in Guitar Hero II.
[edit] Portnoy after Soy Bomb
Since his impromptu performance, he has presented work extensively in venues both inside and outside of New York including: P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, The Kitchen, P.S. 122, The Judson Church, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Gallery, Deitch Gallery, White Box, Canada Gallery, ACE Gallery, Andrew Kreps Gallery, Roulette, Kling & Bang (Reykjavik), Foksal Gallery Foundation (Warsaw), Kaaitheater (Brussels), Migros Museum (Zurich), Le Comfort Moderne (Poirtiers, France) and The National Review of Live Art (Glasgow).
Portnoy directs Session, a salon on Manhattan's Lower East Side devoted to the exploration of social exchange as an art form. He has worked with choreographers Chamecki Lerner, Maria Hassabi, Koosil-Ja Hwang, and Scott Heron, with artists Rita Ackermann, David Adamo and musicians Pete Drungle and Sean Lennon. The short film "I KNOW WHO I AM!", produced by SAKANAMA (a collaborative of which he is a member), premiered in The Brooklyn International Film Festival (2006).
