The Chocolate Factory Theater to Present World Premiere of AQUIFER OF THE WEAVE

The Chocolate Factory Theater will present the world premiere of Aquifer of the Weave, a new performative installation by James Allister Sprang. Tickets are $20 and may be purchased in advance at (212) 352-3101 or www.chocolatefactorytheater.org.

"Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeit it's hard, damn, this quick incarnate incompleteness." a?? Fred Moten

Aquifer of the Weave is a 45-minute intimate audiovisual experience featuring a monumental weaving of cyanotypes and immersive sound, both made to cocoon a turning inward.

Comprised of a massive installation of handwoven cyanotypes (constructed over a period of many months via residencies at Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning and the Painted Bride) and a highly detailed pre-recorded spatial audio installation, Aquifer of the Weave is an intimate experience of shifting light, material, and sound, inviting ten audience members per viewing to consider the following:

We are all longing. Nostalgia for the old normal is a pang in all of our sides.

Like a longing for a lost homeland, I feel it under my skin and realize I have never considered my relationship with our ancestral past as a type of nostalgia; as an inherited nostalgia bone. Now, more than ever it is difficult to ignore these bones, like oars, gliding through today's seas of precarity.

Our communities have always engaged nostalgia as a compass, simply by other names. As ritual, as signifying... or the remix; as the American blues, as the Jazz solo, as the sampling of Hip Hop or the second lines of New Orleans. Always returning the joy of the past to the present we somehow know how to be present, in the moment, while moving towards the mirage of what is gone.

This work is written and woven by many. It is rooted in holding together what would like to fray. Rooted in moving forward while fixing our shoulder blades to hold what shines bright on our backs. Let us meditate. Let us remember that deep listening transforms that which is before us. Let us begin...

Created by James Allister Sprang with Marie de Testa: Set Designer and Architectural Intervention. Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew: Lighting Designer. Michael Alexander Hernandez: Sound Supervisor. Sandra Garner: Line Producer / Production Manager. Jasmine Lynea: Documentary Filmmaker. 4DSOUND: Sound Consultancy and Specialized Software.

Musicians - Mathis Picard: Keys. Rafiq Bhatia: Guitar. Jake Goldbas: Percussion. James Allister Sprang: Modular Synthesis and Producer. Brendan McGeehan: Recording and Mixing Engineer.

Construction of cyanotype weaving led by James Allister Sprang, with: Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning / Beautify NYC cohorts: Nakib Abedin, Nazier Alexander, Teniola Bakare, Anabil Biswas, Prama Biswas, Caitlin Charles, Kiara Gabour, Sade Garrick, Prophet Green, Mosuir Jabir, Shaba Jahan, Alyssa Maye, Britney Milo, Tolulope Olowayo, Mmesoma Onukaogu, Janoi Smith and Gabrielle Williams. Cooper Union: Seth Evans and Karla Garcia. Penn Praxis Studio: Bhavana Shyamsundar and Zhonghui Tang.

James Allister Sprang (Lead Artist) is a first-generation Caribbean-American who works across mediums to investigate call and response through poetics, image and sound. This work is informed by the black radical tradition. Sprang has read, shown, or performed at institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Apollo Theater, Abrons Arts Center, the Brooklyn Museum, The Public Theater, David Nolan Gallery, On The Boards, Baryshnikov Arts Center, The Painted Bride, FringeArts, Knockdown Center and The Kitchen.

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