Michael Portnoy
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- For the Dream Theater drummer, see Mike Portnoy.
Michael Portnoy (aka XAR) is a New York based multimedia artist, choreographer, musician, actor and director of behavior.
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[edit] Performance Artist
Portnoy was born in Washington, D.C. and studied comparative literature and creative writing at Vassar College and theater at the National Theater Institute. After moving to New York City, he formed several short lived experimental theater groups and then began concentrating on solo performance. His early performance works, such as Gymnastics and Schizophrenia, and 5teen3sy: Kicking Games of Lip, were antic and unpredictable, and characterized by dense language play, song and movement fragments and rapid transformations of character. In the mid 90's, Portnoy started to perform in venues associated with the new "Alternative Comedy" scene, in the company of comedians such as Sarah Silverman, Upright Citizens Brigade, Marc Maron and Louis C.K. His wild, raw theatrical performances, which occasionally interrupted and challenged other comedians on stage, prompted the press to describe him as "the bad boy of comedy", (Time Out NY) and "the next Andy Kaufman" (Page 6, New York Post). Simultaneously, Portnoy started working as a dancer for NY choreographer Koosil-Ja Hwang, and as an actor in commercials, music videos and short films. He also sang and performed his own operatic, electro-progressive-rock music as XAR, and in the band The Liquid Tapedeck.
[edit] Soy Bomb
For Bob Dylan's performance of "Love Sick" at the 1998 Grammy Awards, Portnoy was 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 alarmingly at Portnoy, but carried on playing. 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, transformational, 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." He has also said that the phrase is a combination of Spanish and English, meaning "the bomb of 'I am'" (Soy Bomb actually translates to "I am Bomb". Note that, in Spanish, there is a clear distinction between "My name is" and "I am". By stating "Soy Bomb" one would be claiming to be an actual bomb of some type, or possibly "I'm the bomb" in colloquial terms.) 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. During Dream Theater's Touring into Infinity world tour in 1998, drummer Mike Portnoy (no relation to Michael Portnoy) would scream "SOY BOMB" during a break in Ytse Jam. 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.
Strawman, a Washington D.C. based band recorded a song called "Soy Bomb" in 2004. 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, some 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. Celebrity Deathmatch also references the event; During a match featuring Bob Dylan, host Johnny Gomez's no-good brother-in-law, Sid, sneaks into the ring under the guise as referee Mills Lane, but eventually reveals himself by dancing frantically and removing his shirt revealing a "Sid Bomb" tattoo on his back.
[edit] Portnoy: 1999-present
Portnoy continued to create solo performance works and music but also expanded his practice to include choreography, video, installation, sculpture and relational works, which he describes as "strangergames". Portnoy's long-standing investigation of social exchange, and the rules of communication and play, is currently conducted through a series of abstract gambling tables, drawing on gambling's roots in ritual and divination.
He has presented work in museums, art galleries, theaters and music halls internationally, including: The 2nd Moscow Biennial, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Art Unlimited Basel, The Kitchen, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Gallery, Deitch Gallery, White Box, ACE Gallery, Andrew Kreps Gallery, Roulette, Kling & Bang (Reykjavík), Foksal Gallery Foundation (Warsaw), Kaaitheater (Brussels), Migros Museum (Zurich), Le Comfort Moderne (Poitiers, 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, collaborated with artists Rita Ackermann, David Adamo, Catherine Despont, Theodore Fivel, Agathe Snow, Marianne Vitale, Shoplifter (Hrafnhildur Anrnardottir), Claude Wampler, 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 in 2006.
