One Catches Light Festival Kicks Off JACK's 2017 Season Tonight
By: BWW News Desk Jan. 20, 2017
JACK presents its winter/spring 2017 season. Scroll down for details!
Hailed by The Village Voice as "Best Scrappy Brooklyn Theater" in their Best of 2016 issue, JACK presents a flurry of some of today's key experimenting artists in theater, dance and music, with new work by locals Marguerite Hemmings, Amina Henry, Daaimah Mubashshir, Rick Burkhardt, Tyshawn Sorey and from abroad, Abke Haring - the Dutch actress who last year won the coveted Theo D'or award for her acting - as well as Matthew Rogers, who danced with Tere O'Connor from 2007 to 2011 and is now based in Slovakia.
SEASON OVERVIEW:
THEATER:Brooklyn Gypsies: One Catches Light FestivalJanuary 20 - 28
Part of the Exponential Festival Brooklyn Gypsies presents the second-annual One Catches Light Festival, celebrating new solo work of five writers associated with the company, hosted by Olander "Big O" Wilson. Icarus in the L.E.S. is a kaleidoscopic performance-poem by Nic Adams, with the wax-winged hero chasing his destiny and scouting out the divide between artistic achievement and personal happiness. I Have No Room for the Broken, written by Angela Abreu, is a play about a cascade towards romantic ruin. In Please Google Ukraine, Artem Yatsunov leads the audience through a colorful and somewhat-exaggerated depiction of his homeland. Brooklyn Gypsies first commissioned piece, Anna Peretz Rogovoy's How difficult is it for one body, is a choreographed rumination on stolen homes, identities and truths. And finally, Olander "Big O" Wilson brings What the F*** Was I Thinking?, his raunchy comedy talking politics, personal life and his transition from the South Carolina countryside to New York City.
Nic Adams - Icarus in the L.E.S.
Anna Peretz Rogovoy - How difficult it is for one body
Artem Yatsunov - Please Google Ukraine
Angela Abreu - I Have No Room for the Broken
Olander "Big O" Wilson - What the F*** Was I Thinking? Run-time of each play is around 50 minutes. DATES/TIMES:
Friday, January 20 - Sunday, January 22, 6:30 - 11:55 pm
Thursday, January 26 - Saturday, January 28, 6:30 - 11:30 pm
Full schedule can be found at www.jackny.org/One-Catches-Light-2017 TICKETS: $15 per play or $25 for all plays in one night
Abke Haring: UNISONO
Guest production by Belgium's Toneelhuis
March 3 - 4
Friday, March 3 at 8 pm
Saturday, March 4 at 8 pm Tickets: $15 Abke Haring on UNISONO: "UNISONO is a little ritual, a prayer almost. It's a choreography of thoughts and ideas in an intimate, silent space. You see and hear the thoughts of someone who is unsure how to deal with life. In this society there is very little time for silence, uncertainty and searching. Yet all around me I see people looking for an answer as to why things are as they are. This play is about that search for a holdfast. We all want to arrive in a place where we find space, repose and peace." Playwright/performer: Abke Haring
Sound design: Jimi Zoet
Coach: Peter Seynaeve
Dramaturgy: Erwin Jans
Production: Toneelhuis (Antwerp, Belgium) Abke Haring has been a company member of Toneelhuis, one of Belgium's most renowned state-run theaters, since 2010 - writing plays, directing them and acting in them as well. Most recently, she performed at Toneelgroep Amsterdam in the Ivo Van Hove-helmed production De dingen die voorbijgaan, based on the novel Old People and the Things That Pass by the Dutch writer Louis Couperus. Her own plays include Song#2, Kortstond, Hoop, TRAINER and HOUT. In 2014, Haring took on the lead role in Hamlet vs Hamlet, directed by Guy Cassiers and written by Tom Lanoye. That performance led her to win the Theo d'Or for the best female lead role. That same year, she appeared in Maeterlinck's De blinden, directed by Guy Cassiers. In 2016, she appeared in De welwillenden (The Kindly Ones), after the similarly named novel by Jonathan Littell, also directed by Guy Cassiers. In the 2016-2017 season, she will act in De dingen die voorbijgaan, based on the novel Old People and the Things That Pass by the Dutch writer Louis Couperus, directed by Ivo Van Hove; and in Grensgeval (Borderline), a play by the Austrian author and Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek, directed by Guy Cassiers. The Panels, by Rick Burkhardt
March 30 - April 15 OBIE-winner Rick Burkhardt (Three Pianos, The Great Hymn of Thanksgiving) imagines that no matter what your thoughts are on sex education, you've probably got questions about the New Camper movement that's sweeping the country. But he also wonders if you've actually ever met a Camper. In his new play, The Panels, hear the Campers tell their own stories, as they share memories and dispel myths around this exciting and successful (some would say controversial) public health initiative. Maybe you'll make a new friend! Dates/Times Thursday - Saturday, March 30 - April 1
Thursday - Sunday, April 6 - 9
Wednesday - Sunday, April 12 - April 15Rick Burkhardt (Playwright) is an Obie-award-winning playwright, performer, composer, and songwriter whose original chamber music, theater, and text pieces have been performed in over 40 US cities, as well as in Europe, Mexico, Canada, Taiwan, Australia, and New Zealand. He is a founding member of the Nonsense Company, a touring experimental music / theater trio, and songwriter / accordionist for the Prince Myshkins, a political cabaret / folk duo. In 2011 he was listed as an "Off Off Broadway Innovator to Watch" by Time Out New York. Bring the Beat Back, by Derek Lee McPhatter
April 21 - 22
A Music Drama and Dance Party Bring the Beat Back is an energetic music-theater experience, set in a funky futuristic, groove-centered alternative reality. Inspired by Afrofuturism, house music and the underground ball scene, the show follows a young man struggling to reconcile his sexuality with his faith. The hero journeys towards spiritual affirmation and self-discovery as conservative religious authorities and an ostentatious queer subCulture Clash over the music at the center of his world. Dates/Times:
Friday, April 21 at 8 pm
Saturday, April 22 at 8 pm tru believers know mamaship megarhythmic will save them from the end of times. But you can't get on if you can't get down...and somebody done stole da beat! Playwright: Derek Lee McPhatter
Director: Christopher Burris
Producer/Costume Design and Make-Up: Rhonney Greene
Producer/Music: Germono Toussaint
Producer: Bryan E. Glover, Earthseed Visions
Co-Producers: Under the Spell Productions, Inc., Myra Boone
Guest artist music collaborators: ALEXA GRÆ, avery r. young, Lamar "Juslove" Smith, Hijo Pródigo and DJ Alinka and Shaun J. Wright of TWIRL Recordings. Derek Lee McPhatter (Playwright): Alongside Bring the Beat Back, recent plays include: This App is Not the Business, a cyberspace corporate America dramedy, and Life Hack: A Geek Boy Fever Dream. Derek is a 2016-2018 I Am Soul Resident Playwright with Dr. Barbara Ann Teer's National Black Theatre in Harlem, and was an inaugural playwright with the Obie award-winning The Fire This Time Festival. The Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), The Lyric Opera of Chicago, Horse Trade Theater Group, and Harlem9 are among the organizations that have presented his work, with awards from the Jerome Foundation, Harlem Stage, and the United States Embassy in the U.K., with three plays published by Indie Theater Now. Derek holds a Bachelor's of Arts in English from Morehouse College and a Master's of Arts in Humanities from New York University. He is originally from Pickerington, Ohio and splits his time between Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. derekleemcphatter.com Christopher Burris (Director) is an artist and educator. He's an adjunct professor at Pace University, a trainer with Ovation Communications, and a member of Home in the Time of Brooklyn (651 Arts). He directed THE BROTHERS SIZE at Luna Stage which has received five 2016 Broadway World Award nominations including Best Play and Best Director. Other directing credits include the world premiere of GEESE (Samuel D. Hunter) at The Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage, and WHEN WE WAKE UP DEAD (Dennis A. Allen II) at Brooklyn College. Christopher directed POTATO SALAD (Keith Josef Adkins) for the inaugural year of the Obie-winning 48 Hours in Harlem, as well as the first four years of Obie-winning Fire This Time Festival, culminating in their premiere full-length production, LORDS RESISTANCE (Camille Darby). Acting credits include television (The Guiding Light, Damage Control, As the World Turns), stage (Oregon Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse), commercials (Dr. Scholl's, ESPN360, NY Post), and voice-overs (Grand Theft Auto V, McDonald's, AT&T). AEA Member. SDC Associate Member. Twitter/Instagram: @misterburris Rhonney Greene (Costume Design and Make-Up) is a multi-hyphenate creative artist and has worked on numerous film and television programs as a costume designer, supervisor and key costumer, including: The Avengers, Shots Fired, Marshall, Nurse Jackie, The Haves and Have Nots and Elementary, to name a few. Currently, he is the Costume Designer of MTV's teen drama Finding Carter. He co-founded Under the Spell Productions in 2005 and serves as Artistic Director of the company. He was a featured director in the 2016 Season of 48 Hours in... Harlem Festival. Additional credits include world premieres of Fantasy Girl and It Goes Unsaid, Under the Spell's signature show, which has been performed at UCLA's Raw Performing Arts Series, The Poet's Den (Harlem) and London's Institute of Contemporary Arts (U.K.). He also co-created and directed Under the Spell's first web-series, She's Out of Order which won the best guest actress award at LA WEBFEST 2015. Acting experience includes a starring role in the equity musical showcase, Dance Bojangles Dance. Bryan E. Glover (Producer) is an arts producer, filmmaker, and writer who has supported the arts and emerging artists for over 25 years. He is a founding member of Harlem9, and is an inaugural fellow in the Field Leadership Fund's Arts Management Fellowship. He has worked with musicians, choreographers, performance artists, and playwrights in a variety of contexts and cities. Previous NYC productions include: First Dark Drama (Co-producer, Ontological Theater, August 2006); A Love Like Damien's (Associate Producer, Here Arts Theater, November 2006); It Goes Unsaid (Producer, Poet's Den, July 2007); Monstah Black and the Sonic Leroy: Submerged in Blue (producer, various venues, 2010); and A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People (Producer, FringeNYC, 2010). Learn about his work as a professional leadership and life coach at www.bryaneglover.com.Everyday Afroplay, by Daaimah Mubashshir
April 27 - 30 Inspired by Chris Ofili's series of 181 watercolors, "Afromuses," playwright Daaimah Mubashshir has written Everyday Afroplay, a collection of tiny plays that stretches the concept of blackness from the political to sublime. Multiple directors and a cast of five taking on several different characters will collectively shape these tiny plays into an evening of 'blackness'. Dates/Times:
Thursday, April 27 at 8 pm
Friday, April 28 at 8 pm
Saturday, April 29 at 8 pm
Sunday, April 30 at 3 pm TICKETS: $15 Daaimah Mubashshir's plays have been developed with The Bushwick Starr, Going to The River Festival, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Fire This Time Festival, JACK, and Rising Circle Theatre Collective. Full Length plays are Night of Power, Rum for Sale and Not In This Room. Daaimah is a member of New Georges and a Fellow at The MacDowell Colony.Sanctuary, by Sadah "Espii" Proctor, Paul Leopold, Wi-Moto Nyoka
May 20 - 21 Created by Sadah "Espii" Proctor, Paul Leopold, Wi-Moto Nyoka out of their experience collaborating as students at Brooklyn College's Performance and Interactive Media Arts (PIMA) MFA program, Sanctuary is a performance installation and an invitation for a ritual journey that shatters time. Through the ancient motif of a labyrinth, audiences will move freely through wandering halls of fictions and illusions exploring themes of self-care, ritual and power. Interactive sound sculptures, wearable technologies, live movement capture and video projection design combine to illuminate a vision of altered states of reality. Walking the labyrinth will turn spaces of pain into portals of pleasure, conjuring invented deities and investing in impossibility. The experience will culminate in an investigation of how we can leverage virtual realities, speculative fictions, performativities and invented codes to manifest other futures. Dates/Times:
Saturday, May 20 at 8 pm
Sunday, May 21 at 3 pm TICKETS: $18 general, $15 students (must present ID). Sanctuary was developed at Brooklyn College as a thesis project for the Performance and Interactive Media Arts (PIMA) MFA program. PIMA provides students with training, theoretical and technical knowledge, and practical experience in the conceptualization and production of collaborative, multi-disciplinary artworks.Wi-Moto Nyoka is a performer and transmedia artist. Awards and honors include: Tanzhaus NRW Interdisciplinary Works artist in residence 2011, Puffin Foundation grant recipient 2012, the Brick's Comic Book Theater Festival 2014 selected librettist, Indie Boots Theater Festival Finalist & Audience Award Honorable Mention 2015, A.R.T/New York Creative Space Grant recipient 2016. She holds a BFA in music theater from the University of the Arts and is currently attending the Brooklyn College MFA program for Performance & Interactive Media Arts. Paul Leopold is a multimedia artist and producer. As co-director of art collective The Culture Whore, Paul is known for throwing concept driven warehouse raves such as OASIS, RIOT, DOWNLOAD & the Psychic Series. The Culture Whore is the 2015 & 2016 Brooklyn Nightlife Award winner for Best Producer. As the director of Descent, Paul directed and produced original immersive theatre pieces: GRAVITY at The American Repertory Theatre's Club Oberon (2013) and House of Yes (2012) and ENTOMO (2011) at Oberon. Paul has a BFA in Theatre Arts from Boston University and is currently pursuing their MFA in Performance and Interactive Media Arts at Brooklyn College. Sadah Espii Proctor is a dramaturg, performer, and sound & media designer. Fellowships and honors include: SH//FT Oculus Connect 3 Scholar (2016), NYU Virtual Reality Lab Fellow (Fall 2016), Creative Founder Lab Scholar (2016), Thoughtworks & NYU Tandon Art-A-Hack (2016) and featured artist at Creative Tech Week 2016, for her interactive art installation Graffiti Action. Dramaturgy includes: Spunk (New Perspectives Theatre Company, 2015), Daughters of the Bayou (Theater YinYin, 2015), and Project Unspeakable (Convergences Theatre Collective, 2014). Ms. Proctor also leads panels on Cyberpunk and Afrofuturism, most recently at NYU's ITP Camp. She holds a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Virginia Tech and is currently attending Brooklyn College's MFA program for Performance & Interactive Media Arts.Ducklings, by Amina Henry
May 25 - June 10 In this audacious new play by Amina Henry (The Animals), four plucky finalists are competing for the Dance Hall Queen of Pittsburgh crown, including reigning Queen Rihanna T, determined librarian Donna, revolutionary romantic Rihanna P, and young mother Bunny. Led by a young and shady entrepreneur, the women travel to Pittsburgh from across the country to twerk their way to possible YouTube stardom. During the pageant, relationships are tested and personal dignity is challenged. Is 'twerking' empowering to women, or degrading? Is the American Dream accessible to everyone? What moves does it take to be a winner? What moves do you have to be willing to make? Ducklings explores the complexity of what it means to be a woman within the current American capitalist system. Dates/Times:
Thursday, May 25 at 8 pm
Friday, May 26 at 8 pm
Saturday, May 27 at 8 pm
Thursday, June 1 at 8 pm
Friday, June 2 at 8 pm
Saturday, June 3 at 8 pm
Wednesday, June 7 at 8 pm
Thursday, June 8 at 8 pm
Friday, June 9 at 8 pm
Saturday, June 10 at 8 pm Tickets: $18 Amina Henry (Playwright) is a Brooklyn-based playwright and producer. Productions include: The Animals at JACK, Happily Ever at Brooklyn College, An American Family Takes a Lover at Theater for the New City, Water, produced by Drama of Works and The Minstrel Show, produced as part of the 2013 Bring a Weasel and a Pint of Your Own Blood Festival at 13th Street Theater/CSC (NYC). Her work has been developed by/presented at: The New Group, The Flea, Clubbed Thumb, National Black Theater, Barefoot Theater, Little Theater at Dixon Place, HERE Arts Center, The Brick, JACK, Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Ashland, OR) and Kitchen Dog Theater (Dallas, TX), among others.
DANCE
Marguerite Hemmings: to make ready againFebruary 2 - 3
Part of JACK's year-long series, Reparation365 (more info coming soon) Choreographer Marguerite Hemmings - whose work reflects the rich history of African diasporan social dance, with an emphasis on dancehall/reggae culture and music - presents the latest piece in her multimedia endeavor 'we free,' a series that focuses on what liberation means for the millennial generation. Kicking off JACK's year-long series, Reparations365, Hemmings describes to make ready again (referring to the etymology of the word "reparation") as "a non-performance. . . a call to a very very very obvious collective action." Dates/Times:
Thursday, February 2 at 8 pm
Friday, February 3 at 8 pm Tickets: $12 advance/$15 door Marguerite Hemmings (Choreographer) specializes in street styles, social dances, hip hop, and dancehall. She currently teaches Experimental Dancehall, a class that looks at the power of African diasporan social dance through a lens of dancehall/reggae culture and music. Marguerite's choreographic work centers around liberation. She has received grants from the Jerome Foundation, Brooklyn Arts Council, Gibney, Dancing While Black, and University Settlement to further her work as an artist/organizer. As for her latest projects, she has been working on a multimedia endeavor called 'we free' that explores the millennial generation's take on liberation. The first installment of 'we free' was shown at Gibney Dance's Double Plus Series, curated by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. Since, iterations of 'we free' have been shown at Brooklyn Museum, BRIC Arts Media, and MoCada.Matthew Rogers: a fragile son
February 9 - 12
Part of the series Images//Landscapes, curated by Stacy Grossfield Matthew Rogers -- a dancer and choreographer known in New York especially through his performances in the work of Tere O'Connor from 2004 - 2011 -- returns from his current home base in Slovakia to share a fragile son, a performance event constructed from movements, words and objects that Rogers collected throughout Slovakia and the Czech Republic during a process of contextualizing his dancing body in a new foreign home. The project steers attention to the hostile world that exists between the performer and the community that watches, exposing the beauty of vulnerability and the desire to survive. Dates/Times:
Thursday, February 9 at 8 pm
Friday, February 10 at 8 pm
Saturday, February 11 at 8 pm
Sunday February 12 at 3 pm TICKETS: $18 Choreography, performance: Matthew Rogers
Sound design, atmosphere: Tomas Morvek
Translation advisement: Gabriel Rivera
Lighting design: Tuce Yasek Matthew Rogers: Since 2012, Rogers has been based in Zilina, Slovakia, but maintains a working base in Hamburg, Germany, participating in regular dance projects with Antje Pfundtner & Gesellschaft and Hamburg based choreographer Jenny Beyer. From 2004 to 2011, Rogers lived in New York and collaborated with many choreographers, including Johannes Wieland, Ivy Baldwin, Sara Pearson, Patrik Widrig, Heather Olson, Jack Ferver, Jon Kinzel, Palo Zustiak and Amber Sloan. During this time he danced through the creation of five works by choreographer Tere O'Connor. In 2010, he was a re-performer in Marina Abromovic's The Artist is Present at MoMA. His most recent co-creation, Desire & Discipline, premiered in August 2016 as Swiss and Czech co-production.
MUSIC
Ensemble Pamplemousse: Chance & Circumstance FestivalWith Tyshawn Sorey, TAK Ensemble, Mocrep, Dan Weiss, Object Collection
May 11-14 Taking its name from Carolyn Brown's eponymous book, the inaugural Chance and Circumstance festival aims to present daring, experimental work from a wide cross-section of the NYC and greater national arts communities. Curated by the members of the new music troupe Ensemble Pamplemousse, the festival places special focus on trans-disciplinary work - drawing disparate influences from improvised music, experimental theater, conceptual art practices, installation art, and contemporary music performance. Featured performers will include Tyshawn Sorey, TAK Ensemble, Mocrep, Dan Weiss, Object Collection, and miniature sound installations (hidden within the venue's structure!) by Nolan Lem, Bryan Jacobs, Celeste Oram, and others. Dates/Times:
Thursday, May 11 at 8 pm
Friday, May 12 at 8 pm
Saturday, May 13 at 8 pm
Sunday, May 14 at 3 pm Tickets: $10 advanced/$15 door, with festival passes available at a later date More concerts will be added to the season in the coming month.
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