Updated Lineup Announced for 2017 EstroGenius Festival at The Kraine Theater
By: BWW News Desk May. 12, 2017
FRIGID New York @ Horse Trade in association with Manhattan Theatre Source is presenting the 2017 EstroGenius Festival, a multimedia and multi-genre performance festival showcasing dynamic, diverse female voices from a variety of disciplines, now through May 28 at The Kraine Theater (85 East 4th Street between 2nd Avenue and Bowery). Tickets ($25) are available in advance at www.horseTRADE.info.
This year's EstroGenius Festival is curated by artists Maura Nguyen Donohue and Melissa Riker and features full-length developmental play readings, dances by LMnO3, Estro's SPILL series with new and in-progress works from emerging and mid-career choreographers, studio workshops of dance by Women in Motion, a visual art exhibit, short plays, and a special performance from Girl Be Heard of their newest show, Blurred Lines. All of these segments together support women's invention and development as artists.
Friday, May 12 at 7pm
New
Created by Aretha Aoki
A collaboration with digital and sound artist Ryan MacDonald, New wades through the mud and mystery of family history and explores the relationship between language, translation, silencing, and violence/war as it persists in the body. New longs for a capacious body, one that can channel all the conflicting voices of family, lineage, and memory-in an effort to hold even the difficult, ugly, and paradoxical. Can the body and the space of performance contain all of it?
Primo Tempore
Created by Jessica Nicoll & Barry Oreck
In Primo Tempore, Nicoll+Oreck Dance Theater presents a duet that appears to be a clerical ritual, but morphs into an unfolding dance of seduction. Gregorian chants swirl in and out of sync as the dancers-dressed in red choir robes-veer between being pious and lewd, grounded and untethered, powerful and weak. They seem to grope for higher meaning but find only themselves, alternating between revealing and concealing what goes on under their robes.
Saturday, May 13 at 7pm
New
Created by Aretha Aoki
A collaboration with digital and sound artist Ryan MacDonald, New wades through the mud and mystery of family history and explores the relationship between language, translation, silencing, and violence/war as it persists in the body. New longs for a capacious body, one that can channel all the conflicting voices of family, lineage, and memory-in an effort to hold even the difficult, ugly, and paradoxical. Can the body and the space of performance contain all of it?
PoolPITT
Created by Courtney J. Cook
PoolPITT explores the depth and complexities of Blackness, all the while indulging in the nostalgia of my memories as they manifest in my body and voice; a purge and sharing of my Black Woman self and my stories. Exposing the good and bad, gems and poisons, through this sacred art form that has always been known as space of liberation for Black folk.
Sunday, May 14 at 2pm
New
Created by Aretha Aoki
A collaboration with digital and sound artist Ryan MacDonald, New wades through the mud and mystery of family history and explores the relationship between language, translation, silencing, and violence/war as it persists in the body. New longs for a capacious body, one that can channel all the conflicting voices of family, lineage, and memory-in an effort to hold even the difficult, ugly, and paradoxical. Can the body and the space of performance contain all of it?
PoolPITT
Created by Courtney J. Cook
PoolPITT explores the depth and complexities of Blackness, all the while indulging in the nostalgia of my memories as they manifest in my body and voice; a purge and sharing of my Black Woman self and my stories. Exposing the good and bad, gems and poisons, through this sacred art form that has always been known as space of liberation for Black folk.
glacier sister
Created by Lydia Mokdessi and Emie Hughes
glacier sister investigates modes of shared embodiment and spontaneous composition, and examines topics of spectatorship, agency, submission, kinship, and subtle leadership, while allowing for unplanned emergence of content. Emie Hughes and Lydia Mokdessi share a vocabulary of scores, dialogues, and rituals, and attempt to develop a practice of mutual decision-making as a method of training sensitivity to desire and mutual intuition. glacier sister models a radical form of deep togetherness. Created in collaboration with performer and musician Benjamin Wagner.
Wednesday, May 17 at 7pm
American Mill No. 2
Created by Pioneers Go East Collective
Written & Directed by Gian Marco Lo Forte, Choreographed by Maura Nguyen Donohue
American Mill No. 2 is an original docudrama with new musical arrangements by Kamala Sankaram of existing ballads and protest songs about Ella May Wiggins - a textile mill worker, union organizer and folk singer who found herself at the forefront of the protest movement during the strike at the Loray mill in Gastonia, NC in 1929. American Mill No. 2 features a multi-talented cast of actors and musicians, with Kamala Sankaram, Brittane Rowe, & Anthony Napoletano.
Thursday, May 18 at 7pm
Hoffmann Sirianni Band
Jack Hoffmann and Nancy Sirianni have been singing together since another lifetime. Well, at least in this lifetime through four band iterations, 3 CDs, Woodstock 99, Kerrville, Musikfest, The Bottom Line, Stephen Talkhouse, Whisky-A-Go-Go, and a stint in the Netherlands. Seven of their songs have been licensed by film & TV, and Nancy's solo credits include performances at The Ryman in Nashville and as an opener for Taylor Hicks. HoffmannSirianni Band 2017 includes Jon Lauter on lead guitar, Lesley Stoller (Stoller Brothers) on bass, and Jack's son, Jackson Hoffmann, on percussion. It all comes back around. www.nancysirianni.com for more.
Friday, May 19 at 7pm & Saturday, May 20 at 7pm
More Like Your Mom
by LMNo3
More Like Your Mom, created by three women who are child-free by choice, is a multi-media dance theater rollercoaster, shape-shifting through ideas of what it means to be female today when old ideals still hold strong images in our collective conscious. Through games, interactions, and interruptions, LMnO3 (Deborah Lohse, Cori Marquis, and Donnell Oakley) encourages the audience to engage with the multitude of ways in which we identify as women by challenging notions of femininity and celebrating alternative ways of channeling the instinct to nurture.
Some of the Shame Symposium
Created & Performed Chelsea Murphy and Magda San Millan
Chelsea and Magda have been researching shame in performance for the past year. Having recently performed The Shame Symposium at FringeArts they are hot on the trail of lecturing and demonstrating their own and others' shame. What will be the long-term effect of exaggerating the shameful parts of their personalities? What happens when they perform the "less than ideal versions" of themselves again and again and again? There is only one way to find out.
Sunday, May 21 & Monday, May 22 at 7pm
Blurred Lines
Presented by Girl Be Heard
Blurred Lines draws attention to how we navigate and survive in a world where 1 in 5 college women are sexually assaulted, and challenges audiences to reflect on the roles we all play in a culture that promotes silence and blurs the lines of consent. Girl Be Heard is excited to bring their 2017 MainStage show Blurred Lines to the EstroGenius Festival. This show is reflection on and deconstruction of rape culture. Devised by eight performers over three months Blurred Lines originally premiered at HERE in February 2017.
12:30-4pm Girl Be Heard will be running a workshop to devise new pieces to be worked into the show and evening performance. This exploration will not only be through watching but also playing.
Wednesday, May 24 at 7pm
Women in Motion
Studio 2x2 (44 E. 2nd St Floor, 5E)
Presented at Kinesis Project dance theatre's East Village studio 4 dance artists show work in development as a part of the EstroGenius In Development series.
Broken Bone Bathtub
Secret Location (somewhere in the East Village)
Only 10 Tickets Available!
Broken Bone Bathtub is an immersive theatre project, which takes place inside a bathtub, in an actual home. After a serious bike accident, a young woman musters up the courage to ask for help, and shares her story, exploring themes of trauma, suffering, human generosity and connection. The audience takes on the role of Siobhan's close friends; not only listening but also sharing in their experiences, and assisting the cast-clad artist in the actual ritual of taking a bath.
Friday, May 26 at 7:30pm & Saturday, May 27 at 2pm & 7pm
Short Play Series
Curated by Deborah Long
An evening of 5 short plays celebrating dynamic roles for women.
Sunday, May 28 at 12pm
The Estro Award Show
The Audience Votes, we count, the winner of the Audience Choice Award will have one more show and the festival will bestow awards to the festival participants.
Sunday, May 28 at 2pm
Closing Celebration
Featuring Detective Logan
Detective Logan combines slick rock and dance tracks with downtown choreography. It's escapist and sincere, raw and wild: it fits in a bass-heavy dance club, a sticky-floored rock venue, or in a recital hall. Detective Logan aggressively rejects authority and conformity and embraces originality. Their live performances incorporate kitschy stage design, light shows, and choreography by MICCA.
Founded at Manhattan Theatre Source in 2000 by FIona Jones, EstroGenius is an annual celebration created largely in reaction to the many talented female artists in the downtown theatre scene without adequate opportunities to present their work. The festival is committed to showcasing art that explores deep and complex female characters and giving voice to women who aren't often heard in the theatre. As one of the most inclusive festivals of its kind, EstroGenius also accepts submissions from any artist whose work features a strong female voice. Previous EstroGenius playwrights have included Liz Duffy Adams, Bekah Brunstetter, Sheila Callaghan, Wendy Caster, Kara Lee Corthron, Cheryl Davis, Quirara Alegria Hudes, George Hunka, Andrea Lepcio, Melissa Maxwell, T.D. Mitchell, Mac Rogers, Crystal Skillman, and Saviana Stanescu. Visit www.estrogenius.org for more information.
MANHATTAN THEATRE SOURCE ("the Source") is a not-for-profit arts producing organization whose mission is to support the development of new works by emerging artists. For 12 years, the Source operated a multi-use performance space in the heart of Greenwich Village. Beginning in 2000, the Source proudly honored Off-Off-Broadway's Greenwich Village roots by creating a home for artists of all disciplines and offering a playground for passion and mistakes, hard work and cooperation, big ideas and small budgets. At the end of 2011, we made the difficult decision to close our doors and become one of the thousands of passionate arts production companies that operate without owning a performance space. Now, in partnership with HorseTrade, The Source, via EstroGenius will continue Nurturing artists of all levels, honoring our legacy of being a launching pad for dozens of successful artists, companies and projects, which have gone on to the Fringe, Off-Broadway runs and even the Great White Way - the 2006 Obie Award-winning musical [title of show] had its first ever production in our space, and went on to its Broadway debut in July 2008 at the Lyceum.
FRIGID NEW YORK @ HORSE TRADE is a theater development group with a focus on new work that produces a massive quantity of stimulating downtown theater every season. FRIGID's Resident Artist Program offers a home to a select group of Independent theater artists, pooling together a great deal of talent and energy. FRIGID New York grew out of the annual FRIGID Festival, the first and only festival of its kind in New York City to offer artists 100% of their box office proceeds, and Horse Trade Theater Group, a self-sustaining theater development and management group.
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