Festival of Disruption 2018 at Brooklyn Steel
photo by Toby Tenebaum

pics: David Lynch's Festival of Disruption (Angel Olsen, Kyle MacLachlan, AnCo, more)

The first-ever New York edition of David Lynch‘s Festival of Disruption happened Saturday and Sunday at Brooklyn Steel. Curated and produced by Lynch on behalf of David Lynch Foundation which works to raise awareness and funding to bring Transcendental Meditation to schools and communities. The event was divided between moderated discussion with practitioners of TM, longtime David Lynch collaborators and friends (and Lynch himself), movie screenings, and musical performances in the evening.

Saturday night (5/19) featured live performances by Jon Hopkins and Animal Collective, and a DJ set from Flying Lotus, while Sunday night (5/20) featured Angel Olsen and My Morning Jacket’s Jim James who also performed together, plus Au Revoir Simone played their first show in four years (and possibly their last ever), as well as Rebekah Del Rio and DJ Nancy Whang.

David Lynch’s talk on Sunday was a lighthearted affair eloquently moderated by Paul Holdengraber who asked Lynch to elaborate on specific sections of Lynch’s forthcoming memoir Room To Dream. Lynch offered his thoughts on smoking (which he loves), Transcendental Meditation and the notion that films require no further explanation to what is in the actual films themselves. He then took 20 or so questions from audience members.

On Saturday, Kyle MacLachlan and Isabella Rossellini talked with The Ringer’s Lindsay Zoladz before a screening of Blue Velvet. Each talk and performance had a short film including a number of Cleveland Show excerpts featuring Lynch himself (in animated form), as well as the Sandro Miller-directed “Psychogenic Fugue,” which features John Malkovich and Zola Jesus.

Brooklyn Steel was bedecked in David Lynch quotes and featured “The Eraserhead Experience” installation that included a recreation of “Lady in the Radiator” stage on which you could get your picture taken.

Jim James will play Rough Trade on Tuesday, and Jon Hopkins plays a sold-out show at Elsewhere on Tuesday and will be back in NYC on his fall tour.

photos in top gallery by Toby Tenenbaum, photos in bottom gallery courtesy of Festival of Disruption and The David Lynch Foundation