8BC was a nightclub, performance space, and art gallery located in New York City’s East Village.
It was founded in 1983 and, after shining brightly but briefly, was closed by the end of 1985.
A handful of years earlier, co-founder Cornelius Conboy had purchased a building on 8th Street
between Avenues B and C, an area known at the time as “Little Dresden” due to the large number
of burned out and abandoned buildings. Conboy’s intention was to open a theater in the building,
but when he became aware of the lack of production support for experimental performance in the
immediate neighborhood, he decided instead to open a performance-oriented club space with
his partner, visual artist Dennis Gattra.
The previous tenant had been a laundromat, and the floor at street level in the front half of the
building was rotten. When the decayed floor was removed and the basement level revealed, it
created a deep cavern between the street level entrance and the original ground level floor in the
back half of the building. It was Conboy’s inspiration to use the entire back half as the stage area
and to use the much lower recessed area for the audience, thereby creating a dramatically high
stage and an equally dramatic descent from the entrance to the pit-like viewing area.
The space opened in October 1983, with a capacity of only two hundred people, relying solely on
bar sales and a nightly cover charge as income. Although it was not a theater, 8BC retained some
decidedly theatrical elements – most notably, a large, deep stage and a red velvet curtain that
was closed between acts. This allowed the acts to set up as elaborately as they needed out of the
sight of the audience and created an atmosphere of expectation and mystery about what was to
come. Performers who were used to the cramped stages in clubs took some time to adjust to the
large stage. Musicians, however, often found this configuration ideal and appreciated the
excellent acoustics in the cavernous room.
The dismal condition of the unfinished stage floor was actually an advantage for performers like
Jo Andres, who liked to combine choreography with such theatrical effects as tossing around
phosphorescent paint, and Dancenoise (Anne Iobst and Lucy Sexton), who employed copious
amounts of stage blood. Andres and Sexton also performed in the work of another 8BC regular,
Poppo, who had studied in Japan with one of the original creators of butoh dance. Poppo’s
large-scale productions made use of the entire stage and the audience area as well.
The most unusual stage obstacle was a live rabbit that hopped about freely onstage as well as
backstage and lapped up any unguarded drinks, often in full view of the audience. Despite the
unusual practical challenges, many artists developed a fierce loyalty to the space. One factor that
distinguished 8BC from other spaces was the attitude of producers Conboy and Gattra who treated
the acts with respect and made them feel not only welcome but essential to the club’s success.
Favorite acts were encouraged to perform regularly, permitting them to build an audience for their
work. Conboy and Gattra watched They Might Be Giants, given the opportunity to perform
regularly, go from a closing act, playing at 2 AM for a handful of patrons and staff, to an extremely
popular act with a well-established core audience of fans. Performers at 8BC felt they were
emboldened to experiment and allowed to fail. Other regulars on their schedule included the
Alien Comic (Tom Murrin), Ethyl Eichelberger, Steve Buscemi and Mark Boone Junior (as Steve and
Mark), Penny Arcade, and the Ordinaires.
Perhaps because Gattra was principally a visual artist, 8BC established close ties to the gallery
scene that was emerging in the neighborhood. Conboy and Gattra attended openings, and
galleries held post-opening parties at 8BC. The club displayed a rotating selection of the work of
local artists on the west wall, which loomed so high above the crowd that even in the club’s
unrestrained environment none of the work was ever damaged. The visual focus of the space was
a mural above the bar (the east wall), by Don Herron, entitled “Civilization Teeters”, depicting a
woman single-handedly holding up a Greek temple as a vicious dog gnaws her heel.
Watchface performed many times at 8BC, and Watchface member James Siena also briefly
curated a series there called Quiet Nights, which presented acoustic music and low-key
performances such as an 8-year-old girl reading an A.A. Milne poem.
By the summer of 1984, 8BC had established its own niche within the East Village scene, and its
popularity continued to grow. When the club closed a year later, it changed the tone of the
neighborhood, affecting not only the local performance and music scenes, but also the gallery
scene. 8BC was given a Bessie Award for their contributions to the local art community in 1985,
the same year the space closed due to violation of zoning laws. Underappreciated at the time,
8BC is now remembered by many as the heart of the 1980’s East Village performance
phenomenon.
Watchface performances at 8BC:
Boys Will Be Men
Nancy/Marty/Masterpiece Theater
National Enquirer
Negotiations
Of Little Women