Victor Dada was a popular performance art, poetry and music group active in the Dallas, North Texas area between 1970 and 2000. They were well known in Dallas and instrumental in the revival of the Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas arts scene of the 1980s where they opened Club Dada as a performance venue.
The group was founded in 70s by Joe Stanco and Gary Deen, who began experimentation with performance pieces by banging pots and pans in their living room while they recited poetry. Farley Scott was also a member who joined the group later. The group's original name, "Victor Dada and the Ten O'clock Kaon," which came from the street co-founder Joe Stanco lived on in Dallas and the influence of the Dada art movement on the overall irreverent tone of their work.
Some of Victor Dada's popular works included the titles His & Herpes, Ranch Style Beans from Outer Space, Monotony, (Take Me Up Your) Love Canal and No Jacuzzi, among many other more serious Dada and nonsense works.
Joe Stanco, one of the founding members of the group, died of malignant melanoma on June 5, 2002, bringing an end to Victor Dada's reign as one of Dallas' top performance poetry groups. Some of Stanco's poetry may be found on his page on DallasArtsRevue.com.
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Tristan Tzara was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, composer and film director, he was known best for being one of the founders and central figures of the anti-establishment Dada movement. Under the influence of Adrian Maniu, the adolescent Tzara became interested in Symbolism and co-founded the magazine Simbolul with Ion Vinea and painter Marcel Janco. During World War I, after briefly collaborating on Vinea's Chemarea, he joined Janco in Switzerland. There, Tzara's shows at the Cabaret Voltaire and Zunfthaus zur Waag, as well as his poetry and art manifestos, became a main feature of early Dadaism. His work represented Dada's nihilistic side, in contrast with the more moderate approach favored by Hugo Ball.
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The University of North Texas (UNT) is a public research university in Denton, Texas. Until 1988, it was known as North Texas State University. It consists of 14 colleges and schools, an early admissions math and science academy for exceptional high-school-age students from across the state, the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, and a library system that comprises the university core. The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". According to the National Science Foundation, UNT spent $78.4 million on research and development in 2019.
Performance poetry is a broad term, encompassing a variety of styles and genres. In brief, it is poetry that is specifically composed for or during a performance before an audience. During the 1980s, the term came into popular usage to describe poetry written or composed for performance rather than print distribution, mostly open to improvisation.
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This article is about the culture of Dallas, Texas (USA).
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