OZ Arts Nashville Spring Line-up to Feature Artists From The Congo, South Korea & More

Following up on a slate of Fall programming that included theater legends and breakout dance stars, the Spring 2025 presentations at OZ Arts will feature some of the most adventurous and cutting-edge performances to ever visit Nashville along with innovative new works from local artists.

Contemporary arts center OZ Arts Nashville launches 2025 with a robust Spring line-up of vibrant original works by changemaking artists from around the globe. Cutting-edge artists from the Congo, South Korea, New York City, and Nashville alike will present thought-provoking performances at OZ's singular creative warehouse, providing Nashvillians a unique opportunity to engage with the international dialogue around contemporary culture. OZ Arts continues its commitment to keeping these world-class performances accessible by offering individual tickets from just $20, or a 5-show Spring package to experience all the productions in the coming months for just $120.

JANUARY:

Riveting performer and multimedia artist Faustin Linyekula, hailing from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, kicks off the 2025 line-up with his latest work, My Body, My Archive. In this deeply personal and compelling movement and theater piece, Linyekula tells the stories of his ancestors and women in his family that had been all-but-erased. The powerful dance and music collaboration runs January 24-25, and features accompaniment from acclaimed trumpeter Heru Shabaka-Ra of the Sun Ra Arkestra.

On January 31, OZ Arts welcomes Parnassus Books back to the creative warehouse with a lively conversation between music icon Neko Case (of the New Pornographers fame) and respected critic Ann Powers. The dialogue will center around Case's provocative new memoir, The Harder I Fight The More I Love You. Tickets for this special add-on event are handled by Parnassus Books and include one signed copy of the memoir with each admission.

FEBRUARY:

On February 19, OZ Arts presents the 10th installment of its signature benefit Conversations at OZ in the organization's vibrant Creative Warehouse. The annual fundraiser celebrates the art of conversation with an illustrious list of 30 community leaders and vibrant personalities, each welcoming an intimate group of guests to their table for a lively discussion on a range of contemporary topics, including arts and culture, social issues, business practices, and political insights. Conversation Hosts will range from Mayor Freddie O'Connell to lauded visual artist and performer Maria Magdalena Compos-Pons to Mosaic Changemakers founder Renata Soto. The event is co-chaired by Wendy & Stephen Burch, Monica Cintado & Daniel Scokin, MD, and Dr. LaDonna Boyd & Waddell Wright. The evening is made possible by support from Presenting Sponsors HCA Healthcare / Tri-Star Health and Amazon. All proceeds from the event directly benefit OZ's artistic programming in 2025. Full info available at:

MARCH:

South Korean choreographer Soon-Ho Park and his internationally acclaimed Bereishit Dance Company continue OZ's international dance series with two high-velocity performances on March 5 & 6. The company will present two of its most visceral and acclaimed pieces: Judo and Balance & Imbalance. This explosive performance is grounded in athletic precision as dancers seamlessly partner and hurtle through space, using intensely physical movement that blends martial arts, Hip-hop and street dance. With only two performances, tickets for this engaging, all-ages presentation are expected to move quickly.

Later in March, local theater legends with Nashville Story Garden transform the OZ creative warehouse with the world premiere of Human Resources, March 27 - April 5. This form-busting, site-specific new theatrical commission marries the talents of notable local playwright Nate Eppler (former director of the Ingram New Works Lab at Nashville Rep) with lauded director Lauren Shouse (whose recent credits include The Cake and Waitress) and NSG co-founders and stage icons Lauren Berst and Tamara Todres, who will also appear in the cast. In this immersive creation, an intimate audience is led through a dizzying cubicle maze in which they encounter hilariously surreal depictions of the modern American workplace via a fictional pharmaceutical company, prompting questions about our relationship to labor in the midst of late-stage capitalism. Additional cast members for the all-star production include local favorites Megan Utech, Geoff Davin, and Bakari King. The full cast and creative team will be announced in the coming weeks.

APRIL:

The season's final visiting artist presentation is a visceral and incisive new work by choreographer and performance artist Faye Driscoll, showing April 24-26. Creating a distinct buzz around the globe, Weathering is an unforgettable performance that transforms nine performers clinging to a central platform into a kinetic sculpture of vulnerable human bodies. The singular, sensory experience has been hailed by The New York Times as "enthralling" and "epically adventurous," and has toured in Europe, Asia and North America.

MAY:

Finishing out the 2024/25 season, OZ Arts continues its support of artistic risk-taking and local innovation with the fourth annual Brave New Works Lab from May 15-17. A showcase for Nashville's most daring artists to develop and premiere experimental new works and works-in-progress, the Lab encourages multimedia experimentation and collaboration across disciplines. A free open call for artist proposals in the Fall generated dozens of applications from the local creative community from which four performance projects will be chosen to participate in the Lab. The full line-up will be unveiled in February.

"Continuing OZ's most international and most experimental season to-date, we are truly honored and delighted to welcome this stellar line-up of acclaimed artists from around the world to Nashville," said Mark Murphy, OZ Arts Executive and Artistic Director. "Featuring the powerful work of Congolese performer Faustin Linyekula and South Korean choreographer Soon-ho Park alongside the unforgettable experience created by Faye Driscoll is the perfect completion of a year of bold new creations from visiting artists. And we're especially excited to shine the spotlight on our own local theatrical visionaries via Nashville Story Garden's innovative production this Spring as well as the dazzling artists who will perform in our fourth annual Brave New Works Lab."

Spring ticket packages and individual tickets are on sale now at www.ozartsnashville.org/2024-2025-season.

The 2024-25 season at OZ Arts Nashville is made possible, in part, by funding from the Tennessee Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, the HCA Foundation, HCA Healthcare/Tri-Star Health, Amazon, and The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee. For more information or to purchase tickets for the upcoming season, visit www.ozartsnashville.org.

OZ ARTS SPRING 2025 PROGRAMMING LINE-UP

Faustin Linyekula & Studios Kabako (Democratic Republic of the Congo): My Body, My Archive

January 24-25, 2025

The riveting and elegant work of Congolese choreographer and writer Faustin Linyekula nurtures hope in the face of the ongoing legacy of war and ruin in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. With a gripping blend of exquisite and sometimes frenetic movement, poetic text, and evocative live music by potent trumpeter Heru Shabaka-Ra of the Sun Ra Arkestra, Linyekula summons ancestors, friendships, and political struggles - reckoning with what it means to seek beauty, to write or sing or dance, when surrounded by violence and loss.

Linyekula combines the power of theater, the expressive force of dance and sharp political critique to explore post-colonial reality with courage and humor. His international award-winning performances have been commissioned by some of the world's most prestigious cultural festivals and institutions, including the Tate Museum in London, and at New York's Museum of Modern Art, as well as The Metropolitan Museum. He has created work for the Comédie Française, the Lorraine ballets, the National Ballet of Portugal CNB, and famed opera director Peter Sellars.

Soon-ho Park & Bereishit Dance Company (Seoul, South Korea): Balance & Imbalance and Judo

March 5-6, 2025

With live music and intensely physical movement that draws from martial arts, Hip-hop, and street dance, choreographer Soon-ho Park and his internationally-acclaimed Bereishit Dance Company create groundbreaking performances that take your breath away. This Seoul-based group is celebrated for its athletic precision and creative choreography, approaching traditional Korean culture from a contemporary perspective.

The program at OZ Arts features two highly visceral signature works. In Balance & Imbalance, dancers seamlessly partner and then hurtle through space, illustrating the constantly turning wheel of opposition and harmony at the heart of all relationships. The performance, featuring six dancers, is accompanied by an ensemble of traditional Korean drummers. Judo uses the concept of sports as a counterpoint and frame of reference for the harmonious play between rhythm, movement, and space.

Nashville Story Garden, Nate Eppler & Lauren Shouse: Human Resources

March 27-April 5, 2025

"One of the most innovative and exciting companies in town" - Nashville Scene

Journey through a dizzying cubicle maze in this immersive theatrical experience full of comically corporate doublespeak, absurdly endless paperwork, and more hilariously surreal realities of the American workplace. Nashville's most adventurous theater artists join forces to take on corporate culture in this site-specific production designed for OZ Arts' expansive warehouse. Lively physical interactions, surprising humor, and eerily familiar nine-to-five horrors combine to create an inventive, disorienting, and thought-provoking performance you won't soon forget.

Devised and developed by award-winning theater artists from Nashville Story Garden with direction by Lauren Shouse and text by local legend Nate Eppler and an all-star cast including Lauren Berst, Tamara Todres, Megan Utech, Bakari King, and more, Human Resources uses incisive wit and clever visuals to dismantle assumptions about what to expect from the professional workplace.

Faye Driscoll: Weathering (New York & Los Angeles)

April 24-26, 2025

Nine performers cling to a revolving platform, surrounded on all sides by a rapt audience witnessing the careening and awe-inspiring kinetic sculpture of vulnerable human bodies. At times, they are perfectly (almost eerily) still, and at other moments they engage in high-velocity movement that makes them seem perilously close to being flung into space - or is it the sea? Choreographer and director Faye Driscoll describes her latest work, Weathering, as a "multi-sensory flesh sculpture," and a "morphing tableau vivant on a mobile raft-like stage surging through the Anthropocene." Sounds and scents add to the experience, as performers create a sonic score of voices and breaths that crescendos and resonates as we see bodies morph through physical and emotional displays of primordial fear and joy.

A singular experience that is sure to be one of the most legendary and memorable performance works of our time, Weathering created an international buzz that quickly reverberated around the world after its 2023 New York premiere, leading to touring with great acclaim throughout Europe, Asia, and North America.

Brave New Works Lab 2025

May 15-17, 2025

Celebrate local innovation and creativity with a bold evening of entirely original short-form performances featuring dance, theater, music, and multimedia. The fourth-annual Brave New Works Lab invites daring Nashville artists to transform OZ Arts into a laboratory for the creation and premiere of new works and works-in-progress. Encouraging multimedia experimentation and collaboration across disciplines, the lab creates a safe space for high-risk artistic adventures. Following up on the success of 2024's ambitious Lab presentations, this year's event promises to be the biggest and bravest Lab yet.

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