The premise of a talent show is rooted in its lack of form: The content is intentionally varied, and explicitly experimental. Though most often executed by karaoke-happy pre-teens in school auditoriums, the format is by no means confined to the elementary.

This Saturday, at Pioneer Works, the talent show takes elevated form. Quantum Piñata: A Deranged Talent Show of Doom boasts performances spanning underground music, audio-visual media, puppetry, free jazz, and performance art. Variety show is maybe a more accurately mature term by which to refer to the night’s performances, as there is an element of curation that the standard talent show cannot boast.

Organized by 29 Speedway and emceed by Alex Tatarsky, the event features performers who are alluringly disparate in style: twin brothers Pablo and Efrain Del Hierro’s Poncili Creación art collective, which specializes in multisensory puppet shows; Nu Jazz, a sonic project set apart by its “vast electronic soundscapes, extraterrestrial vocal textures and open improvisation submerged in raw punk swagger”; textural sound artist and experimental performer Evicshen; composer Ben Shirken’s Ex Wiish, whose collage-based practice creates “generatively-based yet composed soundscapes”; and worldbuilding studio Laser Days, which is developing a real-time rendering, motion capture animation pipeline.

With its performers unified by the spirit of experimentation, Quantum Piñata promises to put on New York’s most experientially provocative talent show.

Left: Poncili Creación. Right: Laser Days.

Left: Iliana Penichet-Ramirez. Right: Damien Maloney.

Ex Wiish.

Quantum Piñata: A Deranged Talent Show of Doom will take place on July 15 in Pioneer Work’s Main Hall.