Wingspace Theatrical Design Announces Salon With Members Of The Creative Team For MONUMENTS OF THE FUTURE

As part of their free virtual salon series, Wingspace Theatrical Design will present a conversation with four of the creators of Monuments of the Future: Anya Klepikov, Elisa Gonzales, Rudy Ramirez, and Calypso Michelet, moderated by E.L. Hohn.

The conversation on Thursday, October 28 at 7:00pm will explore the development and production process behind this design-driven devised project, which featured striking spectacle costumes in site-specific outdoor performances on the campus of The University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Reservations are strongly encouraged and are available here.

A recording of the salon will be available on the Wingspace Facebook page for a limited time following live broadcast.

Anya Klepikov designs spaces and clothes to clarify and amplify a variety of performance events in collaboration with theater artists, musicians, and other performers. She launched the Monuments of the Future project, inspired by Covid safety regulations and the controversy around the toppling of monuments throughout the United States. Productions include theater, opera, dance, performance, installation, and a web series. Currently an Assistant Professor in Scenic Design at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Anya has previously lectured on set and costume design at Princeton, Brown and Colgate Universities. She holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama and a BA from the University of Chicago. Her website is https://www.anyaproductiondesign.com/

Rudy Ramirez is a director, writer and performer focusing on the development of new work. They are an Associate Artistic Director of The VORTEX, the founding director of the FuturX Festival, and the founding artistic director of Avante Theatre Project, a company dedicated to producing new and avant-garde Latinx performance. Ramirez has worked with numerous theatre companies in Austin and around the country, has won 6 B. Iden Payne Awards and an Austin Critics Table Award as a director, and was named Best Director in the Austin Chronicle Readers' Poll in 2017. They received their BA from the University of Pennsylvania and their MA in the Performance as Public Practice program at UT Austin.

Calypso Michelet is a French costume and scenic designer based in Northampton, MA. She studied literature, costume building, and architecture in Paris before moving to the United States where she obtained an MFA at the Graduate school of the University of Massachusetts. Her interest in reflecting on social conflicts and her flair for building dramatic tension led her to design a great number of modern plays and musicals. Her current work includes scenic design for KAMLOOPA: an indigenous matriarch story with WAM Theater, and costume design for Stoop Pigeons with Smith College. See more work by Calypso: https://calypso-m.wixsite.com/portfolio

Elisa Gonzales is a performer, theatre-maker, and voice/speech/dialect coach. As a performer, Elisa's work has been seen at the New York International Fringe Festival, the Nuyorican Poets Café, San Diego Repertory Theatre, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, the La Jolla Playhouse, Arizona State University, and the Tempe History Museum. Elisa is a certified teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework and Knight-Thompson Speechwork. Elisa has published peer-reviewed articles in the Voice and Speech Review, and regularly presents her scholarship at national and international conferences. Her creative activity and research focus on embodied storytelling, with a specific focus on stories that live at the intersection of Latinx/Chicana identity, history, voice, and memory. Elisa holds a BFA in Acting from Emerson College and an MFA in Theatre Performance from Arizona State University. She is a proud member of Actors' Equity Association, VASTA (Voice and Speech Trainers Association), and ATHE (Association for Theatre in Higher Education). Her website is www.elisagonzales.com

E.L. Hohn is a costume designer, dramaturg, and member of Wingspace. They specialize in new works, theatre for young actors, and live performance that explores elements of horror and the uncanny. She has worked in Chicago, Austin, and the New York City area. They hold a B.A. in History from Smith College and an MFA in Costume Design from The University of Texas at Austin. Recent work includes costume designs for Chana Porter's Leap and the Net Will Appear with New Georges and Taji Senior's devour. for LadyFest at The Tank, and dramaturgy for a developing untitled solo project about queer identity and desire with Adrian Collins. Website: www.elhohn.com

To post a comment, you must register and login.