Mabou Mines Announces New Members on the Eve of its 51st Season

Mabou Mines today has announced a group of multidisciplinary artists whose work affirms the company's 51-year history of collaboration and experimentation. Co-Artistic Directors Karen Kandel, Sharon Ann Fogarty, Mallory Catlett, and Carl Hancock Rux welcome new Associate Artists and members in a new category: Senior Artistic Associates. Together, they exemplify Mabou Mines' intergenerational model.

These new appointments fortify, for the future, the cornerstones of Mabou Mines' half-century of history: a wide network of artists and a commitment to cross-disciplinary collaboration. The new Associate Artists are media designer and performer Tei Blow; interdisciplinary artist Perel; performing artist David Thomson; and MacArthur Fellowship-winning multidisciplinary artist Carrie Mae Weems. Each brings to the company a unique perspective, aesthetic and range of disciplinary expertise. As Associate Artists, they will have three-year residencies at Mabou Mines' theater and studio at the 122CC building in the East Village, supporting their ongoing projects while they provide lasting contributions to the company's creative vision.

To provide ties to the company's history while growing the collective, Mabou Mines Co-Founders JoAnne Akalaitis and Philip Glass will return to the company in newly-formed Senior Artistic Associate roles. Akalaitis and Glass will be joined by longtime Mabou Mines collaborators and former members Greg Mehrten, Bill Raymond and former Associate Artists Clove Galilee, Maude Mitchell and David Neumann. Terry O'Reilly will continue with the company in a dual role: Writer in Residence/Co-Artistic Director Emeritus. These artists will serve as affiliated members and engage with the organization as both artists and advisors in support of the future of the company.

Nurturing the next generation of innovative theatre artists has been central to Mabou Mines' mission throughout its 51 years. With the new positions, the company charts a future that builds on its past-expanding Mabou Mines as a platform for work that interrogates, innovates, and represents a multiplicity of identities and experiences.

Mabou Mines looks forward to announcing its 51st Season in Spring 2021. For more information, please visit maboumines.org. el

About the Associate Artists

Tei Blow is a media designer and performer based in Brooklyn, NY. Tei's work rearranges sound, photography, and video sourced from found materials and re-produces them with live bodies. He is the recipient of a 2015 New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award for Outstanding Sound Design. His company, Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble, is a recipient of the Creative Capital and Franklin Furnace Awards. Tei is currently a Baryshnikov Arts Center Cage/Cunningham Fellow.

Perel is an interdisciplinary artist whose work is centered on disability and queerness as they relate to care, consent, power, and sexuality. They are a Mertz-Gilmore AIR at Movement Research (2018-2020), a 2019 recipient of the Beth Silverman-Yam Award for Social Justice at Gibney Dance, and the first International AIR for Disabled Artists at Sophiensaele. They were a 2018 DiP AIR at Gibney Dance. Previous commissions include Abrons Art Center for American Realness 2018, The Chocolate Factory Theater with the New York International Queer Performance Festival, and at The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts NYC.

David Thomson is a Brooklyn based interdisciplinary collaborative and performing artist who has worked in the fields of music, dance, theater and performance. Thomson has been awarded fellowships from United States Artists|Ford, NYFA in Choreography, MacDowell, Yaddo and The Rauschenberg Foundation. He was a 2017-19 QUEER ARTS Mentor and is currently a LMCC Extended Life|Lifeline Artist (2018-21).

Carrie Mae Weems is an artist working in text, fabric, audio, digital images and installation video, and is best known for her work in the field of photography. Her award-winning photographs, films and videos have been shown in over 50 exhibitions in the United States and abroad, and focus on serious issues facing African Americans today, including racism, sexism, politics and personal identity .Weems has received numerous awards, grants, and fellowships, including the Prix de Roma, The National Endowment of the Arts, The Alpert, The Anonymous was a Woman, and The Tiffany Awards, US Department of State's Medals of Arts, the MacArthur "Genius" grant, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award, BET Honors Visual Artist award, the Lucie Award for Fine Art photography, Guggenheim's 2014 International Gala honoree, the International Center of Photography Spotlight Award, The WEB Dubois Award from Harvard University.

About the Senior Artistic Associates

JoAnne Akalaitis is a theatre director, writer and founding member of Mabou Mines. She has received six OBIE Awards for direction (and Sustained Achievement), and a Drama Desk Award. JoAnne is the former Artistic Director of The Public Theater.

Clove Galilee is an actor, director and choreographer. She has been awarded a TCG New Generations Fellowship, a Princess Grace Foundation-USA Fellowship, a Princess Grace Special Projects award, and a Jerome Robbins Grant. Her work is supported by the Princess Grace Foundation, the Greenwall Foundation, the Asian Cultural Council, the NYFA Emerging Artists Fiscal Sponsorship Program and the New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Commissions. She is co-Artistic Director or Trick Saddle performance company and has been an Associate Artist with Mabou Mines.

Philip Glass is a composer of instrumental, vocal and operatic music for symphony orchestras and ensembles, film and theater. He was among the founding members of Mabou Mines. Glass has received numerous accolades for his work over the years including the Praemium Imperiale in 2012, the Glenn Gould Prize in 2015, the U.S. National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in 2016, and the 41st Kennedy Center Honors in 2018.

Greg Mehrten is a performer, playwright, translator, director and designer. Mehrten has collaborated with many of the legendary figures in the Downtown theater world to create new work in film, video, radio and live performance. A Member and Co-Artistic Director of Mabou Mines from 1980 to 1991, and he has been an Associate Member of the Wooster Group since 2011.

Maude Mitchell is an actor, dramaturg and producer best known for her award-winning portrayal of Nora in the worldwide touring Mabou Mines DollHouse. Mitchell has received numerous awards including an OBIE Award for Performance, an Elliot Norton Award, and BackStage West Garland Award, and a Drama League Nomination and a fellow at MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. She was an Associate Artist with Mabou Mines from 2013 - 2021.

David Neumann is a choreographer, performer and director of plays, operas, films and performances. He is the Artistic Director of 'Advanced Beginner Group', a multi-disciplinary performance company, which has been awarded three Bessie Awards. He has received three Lucille Lortel Award nominations and one Fichandler for his work at Arena Stage. He is a 2019 Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, and Tony Award nominee, as well as the recipient of the 2019 Chita Rivera Award for Choreography for his work on the Broadway musical, Hadestown. He was awarded a 2020 OBIE Award for Creation and Performance.

Bill Raymond is an actor who works in theatre, film, television and radio. He was a Member and Co-Artistic Director of Mabou Mines from 1973 - 1991. His work with Mabou Mines includes B Beaver Animation, Dressed Like an Egg, Mercier and Camieier, The Shaggy Dog Animation, A Prelude to Death in Venice, Cascando, Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said and Cold Harbor, which he also directed. TV and Film: The Wire, Michael Clayton, Lincoln, and 12 Monkeys among many others. Raymond was awarded two OBIEs for Performance.

About the Writer in Residence/Co-Artistic Director Emeritus

Terry O'Reilly is a playwright, performer, director and Mabou Mines Co-Artistic Director Emeritus and Writer-in-Residence. He is a 2014-15 Fulbright scholar in the area of Formosan Aboriginal ritual and theater. His plays are: The Bribe (Radio and Stage), Animal Magnetism, Brer' Rabbit in the Land of the Monkey King, My Sunshine Book, Cee Cee and Dee Dee, and Flying House/Home. International work includes performances in Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Brazil, Singapore, Vienna, Czech Republic, Poland and Serbia. He is published in The American Poetry Review and Applause Books.

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