BMCC Presents WORK & SHOW FESTIVAL Beginning 3/23

BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center at the Borough of Manhattan Community College presents its annual WORK & SHOW FESTIVAL beginning March 23. This outgrowth of their twelve year old Artist-in-Residence program will feature five programs of new work by artists representing both dance and theater. The program for the series is as follows:

Mondays, March 23 & 30 at 7:30pm:
Lynn M. Thomson - America-in-Play
For nearly four years, over two dozen playwrights have investigated a neglected legacy from America's popular drama created between 1776-1914. This year, our writers, composers and videographers are exploring the 1848 hit comedy A Glance at New York by Benjamin A. Baker. Led by Lynnn Thomson, the team will present two original pieces that integrate an adaptation of the older play with a variety of new writing to address the bewilderments and rewards of life in New York City-and America. Lynn M. Thomson is a dramaturg, director, and teacher devoted to the development and production of new American plays. She has worked with companies including the Philadelphia Theatre Company, Circle Repertory Company, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, New Dramatists, and The Drama Department. She is currently an Associate Professor of Theater at Brooklyn College. She is perhaps best known as the dramaturg for the hit musical Rent.

Thursday, March 26 & Friday, March 27 at 8pm:
Daniel Jose Older & David Michael Friend - City of Love & Disaster
Just after the fall of slavery in New York, free Blacks took to the streets in an all out celebration of freedom. The events that followed, including the surge of the first all-Black Shakespearean theater company, the Manhattan race riots and the exodus of free people of color into Brooklyn, are chronicled in this mutlimedia show featuring storytelling, choreography, poetry and shadow puppetry set to live music by Brooklyn Latin Soul group BURUNDANGA. Daniel José Older has been creating multimedia performances for the past 10 years including collaborations with dancers (including The Urban Bush Women and Inspirit Dance Company), filmmakers, and puppeteers. Besides working as a paramedic, Daniel currently co-coordinates Reflect Connect Move, an organization dedicated to ending gender violence in Brooklyn. David Michael Friend has been a part of the puppet community since the mid-90s, working with Drama of Works, Kevin Augustine, Animal and the Czech-American Marionette Theater. Friend is also an art director and illustrator for television and film.

Saturday, March 28 & Sunday, March 29 at 8pm:
Michael Crowley & Michael Rau - Rag Fur Blood Bone: The Epic of Gilgamesh
Written by Michael Yates Crowley and directed by Michael Rau, this retelling of the Gilgamesh epic is set in New York City and narrated by animals. Ishtar is a spoiled, celebrity goddess and the evil Bull of Heaven is played by former police commissioner Bernard Kerik. The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest literary works, but this story from Uruk (ancient Iraq) is particularly relevant now: it's a story of war, corrupt politicians and gay love. It also features a live band, battle scenes and a cast of over twenty actors, singers, and musicians. Michael Yates Crowley is a 2008 Fellow in Playwriting from the New York Foundation for the Arts. As co-founder of Wolf 359, his work has been performed in Germany, Chicago and New York City, and filmed by HBO. He twice received the Seymour Brick Memorial Prize in Playwriting from Columbia University, where he studied English and Astrophysics. Michael Rau's New York credits include: The Ted Haggard Monologues and The Italian Songbook. He has directed readings of new plays at New York Theater Workshop, Primary Stages and Lincoln Center. He has served as an assistant for Les Waters at A.R.T., Anne Bogart at Glimmerglass Opera, and RoBert Woodruff at San Francisco Opera.

Thursday, April 2 - Saturday, April 4 at 8pm:
dre.dance (Andrew Palermo and Taye Diggs) -- beyond.words
This World Premiere (open for review) dives into the world of autism with both wonder and sympathy. With movement gleaned from 'typical spectrum behavior,' beyond.words gives voice to these 'multi-sensory' individuals. Inspired by first-person accounts of people on 'the spectrum,' beyond.words challenges common misconceptions that the 'afflicted' want and need to be cured, and hopes to shed light on the beauty and spirit of people with autism. Founded in 2004 by childhood friends Andrew Palermo and Taye Diggs, dre.dance has presented four full-length New York seasons as well as performances at the New York City Festival of Dance, Dance New Amsterdam's 'In the Company of Men' festival, Tribeca PAC's 'Work and Show' festival, the Usdan Concert Series, the Ugandan Arts Benefit at John Jay College, and a well-noticed solo for Desmond Richardson of Complexions Contemporary Ballet. This is dre.dance's third year as an Artist in Residence at BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center.

Sunday, April 5 & Monday, April 6th at 8pm:
Triple Bill:

Ellis Wood Dance - Bricolage
The dictionary definition of "bricolage": a construction made of whatever materials are at hand; something created from a variety of available things. Wood's new work explores all avenues of creating a dance work with what is at hand. As a forty four year old choreographer and mother of three, Wood's newfound body, mind and spirit, and dancers are what are available to create a merging of strikingly personal, and at times, possessed solos. Ellis Wood choreographs, teaches and does residencies at universities and festivals both nationally and abroad. Wood is a 2007 recipient of Building Up Infrastructure Levels for Dance (BUILD), a program of New York Foundation for the Arts, and she received a 2002 NYFA Fellowship in Choreography. Ellis Wood is in her eighth year at BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center.

Todd McQuade - Open to below
Told through expressive physical performance, Open to below challenges not only the empirical knowledge of the body in motion, but also the qualitative content physiometry fails to detect. The work questions the prevalence in dance tradition to delineate movement to a language, practice and consciousness of geometry. Why, in dance, does one speak more of line and shape instead of red and water? Todd McQuade earned a degree in Art History from the University of California at Los Angeles and integrates this knowledge towards his investigation of matter and movement. He has worked in the companies of Lucinda Childs, Alonzo King, Mark Morris Dance Group,bMikhail Baryshnikov's Hells Kitchen Dance, and currently Trisha Brown Dance Company.

Edisa Weeks/DELIRIOUS Dances - Elephant Dreams
During the last four years of his life, Joseph Merrick (The Elephant Man) lived in a secluded room at White Chapel Hospital. His main connection to the outside world was his imagination and occasional visitors. In this dance-theater work, Merrick escapes the harshness and solitude of his life by entering the world of Dumbo the Flying Elephant. Five dancers and three actors animate Merrick's world by portraying various characters, including Dumbo's mother, Timothy the mouse, and Ross the Freak Show manager. Edisa Weeks' work has been performed in a variety of venues including swimming pools, storefront windows, senior centers and various living rooms, as well as at Jacob's Pillow, Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum, and Summerstages Dance Festival, among others. Edisa is interested in creating intimate environments for experiencing and interacting with contemporary dance.

BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Centers Artist-in-Residence (AIR) Program enables emerging and established theatre artists -- writers, directors, choreographers, and composers -- to create and develop a new work. The residency takes place on site in Tribeca PACs two theatres and spans a ten-month period. Public showings of the work in process and the opportunity for a produced presentation at the annual WORK & SHOW FESTIVAL are significant components of the residency. The program is made possible, in part, by contributions from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, corporate, foundation, and individual support.

WORK & SHOW FESTIVAL runs March 23 - April 6. Tickets to all shows are $10, except America-inPlay, which is free. BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center is located at the Borough of Manhattan Community College at 199 Chambers Street (between Greenwich and the West Side highway, accessible from the 1, 2, 3, A, C, E , N, R , 4, 5, 6, J, M trains New Jersey Path train and the M20 & M22 buses). For tickets or more information call 212-220-1460 or visit www.TribecaPAC.org.