The New Victory Theater Announces 2018-19 New Victory LabWorks Artists

The New Victory Theater announces the 2018-19 New Victory LabWorks Artists, NYC-based artists pursuing the creation of bold and exciting performing arts for family audiences. Among the ten resident teams working on projects ranging in form from immersive theater to puppetry to cabaret, this year's roster includes 2017 OPERA America Female Composer Discovery Award winner Faye Chiao, breakdancing pioneers Kwikstep and Rokafella, award-winning classical Indian choreographer and dancer Preeti Vasudevan of Thresh, and magician and actor Max Darwin (The Amazing Max) and Academy Award-winner Alexander Dinelaris Jr. (Birdman).

Established in 2012, New Victory LabWorks encourages NYC artists to make works that challenge preconceptions commonly held about theater for young audiences. Artists receive a stipend, coveted rehearsal space in the New 42nd Street Studios and exposure to new creative and artistic principles through The New Victory's community of leaders in the field of performing arts for families. Notably, New Victory LabWorks Artists also have the opportunity to hold open rehearsals for New Victory Member families to garner invaluable responses and feedback from their target audience.

New Victory LabWorks additionally offers professional development resources and opportunities for exchange among a broad spectrum of performing arts professionals living and working in New York City, including workshops, master classes, networking events and connection to the International Artists appearing on New Victory stages. Managed by the New Victory Artistic Programming staff, New Victory LabWorks has grown to include a diverse array of nearly 500 New York City-based artists, practitioners, educators, presenters and producers.

The 2018-19 New Victory LabWorks Artists include:

• Bluelaces Theater Company will build an immersive, multi-sensory "pirate on the seven seas" adventure for young people with developmental differences. The company creates welcoming environments that encourage sensory and social play and challenge theatrical convention.
• New York City's on-the-rise immersive dance theater company, Breton Follies is the incubator for choreographer Breton Tyner-Bryan. For New Victory LabWorks, they are developing a comedic cabaret for children told through animalistic characters, celebrating the female form while debunking stereotypes based on gender. The company's vernacular is rooted in classical ballet and Latin rhythms, with artists from Broadway's Aladdin, Phantom of the Opera, Sleep No More, The Martha Graham Dance Company, Alvin Ailey, and Ballet Hispanico.
• Composer of opera and musical theater, Faye Chiao (To See the Stars, 2017 OPERA America Female Composer Discovery Award) and playwright Anton Dudley (Letters to the End of the World, 2012 Lambda Literary Award Finalist) blend contemporary storytelling with classical forms to build the musical universe of Baba Yaga and the Firebird.
• Actor and magician Max Darwin (The Amazing Max) and Academy Award-winner Alexander Dinelaris Jr. (Birdman) team up to play with interactive storytelling and magic in Something in this World, as they tell the story of a solitary, imaginative boy and his search for connection.
• Molly Powers Gallagher (The Mighty Patsy Mink!) will create The Living History Project, an immersive and empowering new play that aims to rewrite history and bring to life the untold stories of five female change-makers and innovators.
• Told through the company's signature cinematic style of shadow puppetry and live silhouette acting, Hit the Lights! Theater Co. (WHALES, DUNGEON) will animate the story of a Horse and its Tail who've been separated, and their journey to find each other once again in HORSETALE.
• Hip-hop playwright Aaron Jafferis, alt folk songwriter Rebecca Hart, beatboxer Yako 440 and the Mixing Texts Collective featuring breakdancing pioneers Gabriel "Kwikstep" Dionisio and Ana "Rokafella" Garcia (Victory Dance 2014 & Soular Power'd, New Victory 2002-03) use the four elements of hip-hop to reveal the hidden strengths of vulnerability in How to Break, a compelling take on the layered experience of illness. Originally conceived by the Mixing Texts Collective (Jafferis, Adam Matta, Chris Edwards, Kwikstep and Rokafella).
• Nambi E. Kelley will lead audiences on an exciting watercolor adventure in Jabari Dreams of Freedom, where a young African-American boy learns lessons of history and the power of imaginary time travel as he finds hope and courage in visual art, befriending a 7-year old Barack Obama along the way.
• Valerie Clayman Pye, along with Spellbound Theatre (The World Inside Me, two-time Henson Foundation Family Grant recipients and winner of AATE's 2017 Zeta Phi Eta-Winifred Ward Outstanding New Children's Theatre Company Award), New York's only theater company creating work exclusively for ages 0-5, will connect multimedia and Shakespeare's lyrical text to form a visual, celestial realm in Shakespeare's Stars.
• Preeti Vasudevan and her dance company Thresh (Victory Dance 2017) fuse Southern Indian dance and Western music in Drumming a Dream, a fun-filled folktale adventure about a young girl and her travels with a magical talking drum.

New Victory LabWorks has helped develop over 34 projects on their journey to the stage, more than half of which have become full productions, including The Abominables from The Civilians, Birdheart from Julian Crouch and Saskia Lane, Laser Beak Man from Dead Puppet Society, Air Play (New Vic 2018) from the Acrobuffos and The World Inside Me from Spellbound Theatre - scheduled to appear at The New Victory this upcoming spring.

Photo via www.newvictory.org:4432/About/Labworks

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