Aligning with her presentation for New York Fashion Week, Hillary Taymour, designer and founder of cult-favorite fashion label, Collina Strada, offers a glimpse into her childhood as a self-proclaimed “horse girl.” Reimagining the all-American state fair as a night-long, multi-room performance program and party, models gallop on hobby horses and leap over hurdles, guests are invited to play games, eat carnival food, as country music plays from the speakers all night amongst stacked bales of hay. Encapsulating the essence of horse girl culture, our theaters transform into Collina Land for one night only, where chaos and absurdity reign.
Show Category: Performance
Abrazos de Luz
Access Provisions: ASL Interpretation, CART, and Audio Description
Abrazos de Luz is a performance evening showcasing four artists: Koyoltzintli, Alx Velozo, Mónica Palma, and Nima Jeizan, curated by Guadalupe Maravilla. Abrazos de Luz is rooted in the belief that all entities—whether birds, plants, rocks, the ocean, food, animals, buildings, cars, or even a hospital chair—possess intrinsic energy. Guadalupe chose these four artists because of their roles in their communities and who they represent in our society. Animism has been central to many ancient cultures’ spiritual perspectives, and it also plays a pivotal role in this performance event and the artists performing. Maravilla highlights the four artists’ individual artistic practices and their existence as individuals who channel love and empathy into everyone around them. Their energy, and energy like theirs, is especially important right now considering how our world constantly challenges us with unwanted wars, political turmoil, forced migrations, overall mental health issues, and the influx of news and information.
As part of the evening’s rituals, Guadalupe has invited these four artists to perform and bring an offering—a home recipe of a beverage to share with the audience during intermission—to welcome everyone into our space.
Alx Velozo’s Take it explores using their medical records as a performance score, drawing parallels between contemporary medical industrial spaces, peep shows, freak shows, and medical theater.
For this participatory performance, Koyoltzintli will enact an invocation to the four terrestrial energies—fire, earth, water, and air—and the cosmic energy that activates them, known as undifferentiated form, chaos, path, the weaver, and/or love. Four participants will be invited to take part in this invocation by coming to the stage and playing along with her.
Cae mi voz is an active drawing involving ropes and levers that constrain and outline the artist’s movement around an area. Cae mi voz can also be seen as a Rube Goldberg machine, a process that accomplishes by complex means what could otherwise be done simply. The artist uses a pulley system of hand-dyed and braided cochineal rope to move around the room, making clear stops to collect or complete an action. As the performance evolves, a clear unifying thread or braid reminds the viewer that all actions and forces in life are connected.
“Caught between an object and a being (subject), I will become the pomegranate. A chainmail of fruit husks oozes with tie-dyed horse hair filaments. A vacant body, the husk becomes a fruitless vessel, bearing dried seeds that rattle like bones. The rattling echoes a world that is not yet here. The rattling of a glass instrument. I live in the future with the innate knowledge of my past, masquerading as a body in the presence of turbulent times; masquerading as in masking—to shelter, a shell, a husk, a cocoon built for ceremonies; a ball. I wish to transcend the present time, moving into a simultaneously prehistoric and future form. I will become the pomegranate.”
*Please note masks are required for this event.
Art Workers are Artists Too
Host: Champagne Jerry
Artists: Sarai Frazier, Andy Sowers, Žilvinas Jonuśas, ESSA.A (Electric Sewage Systems and Analysis), Naomi Harrison-Clay and Tal Mor, Noodt, Matthew Deinhart + Sara Vandenheuvel, Ansel Combs, Jimmy Kavetas and Friends, Emily LaRochelle + Sarazina Joy Stein, Sophia Alaniz, Andrew Fox, Robin A. Ediger-Seto, AMARII, MF BUTCH, CULEBRA, Georgina Kritikos, Sophia Alaniz, Alex Vasquez-Dheming, Evangeline Dillard, and Yisel G.
While artists toil to bring their work to life, there are many unsung heroes that often labor behind the scenes, weaving the intricate threads that bring an artist’s vision to the public. “Art Workers are Artists Too” celebrates and shines a spotlight on the inherent artistry embedded within the daily lives of arts workers, inspiring a shift in perspective to foster a greater understanding and recognition of their skills and creativity. Our crew members, hailing from diverse production backgrounds in theatre, dance, and music, bring a unique set of skills honed from their own artistic practices to support the work of their fellow artists. Grounded in an ethos of support, this creative exchange forms the foundation for a vibrant collaborative environment.
The night honors the vital contributions of those working behind the scenes but also encourages a broader acknowledgment of the artistry, extending beyond the spotlight to encompass the unseen labor wrapped into the creative process.
All of the proceeds raised from this event will support our Derek Lloyd Production Fellowship.
Photo Credit: Rachel Papo
Autonomy
“All of who I am now lies on a continuum—I no longer operate to fulfill roles that were illusions to begin with.”
In this deeply personal and introspective performance, Chella Man shares their narrative of self-determination, grief, healing, and reclamation of one’s body through tattooing and explorations of their scars from the medical industrial complex. To Man, piercing their skin is an act of erosion, revealing what lies beneath the surface, both within the body and the broader societal constructs we navigate. The piece compiles revelations of liberation that have become their leading values in life. Shattering the constraints of binary thinking, the performance celebrates queer, disabled, and trans bodies. Autonomy lives as an embodied experience, a testament to resilience and adaptability. Through this work, Man explores the continuum of art, disability, gender, and race by adapting and navigating their body as a mutable canvas for profound self-expression.
Autonomy is co-produced with the Jewish Museum, where it will be on view, in installation form, as part of Overflow, Afterglow: New Work in Chromatic Figuration, a seven-person group exhibition opening May 24th.
Please Note: Autonomy will facilitate different access experiences based on hearing status and location in the theater. A part of an artistic approach Man calls “intentional inaccess,” captions will be obscured and inverted for hearing audience members to evoke the access glitches, flaws, and friction that what D/deaf and Hard of Hearing people, including Man, often experience. These moments of partial or unreliable accessibility can feel socially alienating, disempowering, and can make it impossible to fully participate. In this production, the tables are turned, and D/deaf and Hard of Hearing people sit in a section where captions are readable. Man aims to expose these experiences in myriad ways for the audience and spark a meaningful conversation about inaccessibility. Man notes, “This piece is rooted in creating an experience of oscillating access, evoking the perpetual stain of inclusion that I experience every day. Creating these intentional moments questions and reveals how the act of creating access for one can inevitably result in in-access for another.”
Support for this program is provided, in part, by the Barnett and Annalee Newman Foundation.
You can hear footsteps
Access Provision: ASL Interpretation will be provided on May 31, 7pm.
Elliot Reed Laboratories presents a dance where linguistic expression, and introspection converge. In this solo performance, Reed assumes the role of a storyteller, producing a world of inner and outer dialogues in search of freedom. Reed considers the dynamics of consumption, spectatorship, and the sublimation of self through this offering, engaging in a thought-provoking exploration of both the individual and the audience.
*Please Note: This production contains strobe lighting which may be disruptive to people who are sensitive to light.
You can hear footsteps is the Performance Space Annual Visionary Commission generously supported by the Performance Space Visionaries, additional support is provided by ICI—Centre chorégraphique national de Montpellier Occitanie / Pyrénées Méditerranée under the Direction of Christian Rizzo, and by the National Performance Network (NPN) Artist Engagement Fund.