Experimental Bitch Announces UNSEASONING Campaign

Experimental Bitch announced today their UNSEASONING Campaign. The fiscally-sponsored theater company based in New York City that creates, develops, and produces badly-behaved, genre-defying performances by emerging TGNC and women artists will no longer present their work on a traditional seasonal basis.

ExB's UNSEASONING campaign is in lieu of and in direct opposition to a traditional season announcement.

Using the pandemic to think critically about its values, ExB has concluded it can better fulfill its mission as a development and producing organization, rather than a presenting organization. "Prior to the Covid-19 Pandemic, the expectation that theater companies, regardless of size, produce an annual season of fully mounted work presented a big challenge. In this new normal where Covid is still rampant and added safety-expenses abound, it is nearly impossible," says artistic director, Tatiana Baccari. Concretely, this means that ExB has chosen to focus its resources on multi-year investments in developing large projects and growing its community programming rather than producing new projects every season. Thus, ExB is "unseasoning."

UNSEASONING is three fold:

1. Unveiling a new company name: Experimental Bitch. Previously Experimental Bitch Presents, ExB has now dropped "Presents" from its name.

2. Reflecting on the previous year's works:

   1. Bitchin' Heals. In 2022, ExB launched Bitchin' Heals: a virtual weekend of low-to-no cost workshops for artists to connect with and nourish both themselves and each other. With accessibility at the forefront, Bitchin' Heals 2022 was a container cultivated by and for community members, culminating in a panel on sustainability for disabled and marginalized artists. This program was curated by x senn yuen, an Afro-Chinese-Jamaican, second generation (im)migrant , TRANSdisciplinary artist, Intimacy Coordinator, and curator who investigates post-structural and hyper-accessible frameworks of their own design. Through x's intentional curation, ExB partnered with Sonya Rio-Glick, jas lin, Nia O. Witherspoon, Emily Ahn, bahar baharloo and Bianca Laureano to bring dynamic workshops and community-building opportunities to artists and audiences.

   2. Tany's Lit Clit received a workshop at the Park Avenue Armory on May 9th, 2022. Commissioned in 2020, Tanya's Lit Clit by Emma Goldman-Sherman is a musical phantasmagory featuring original music, text and dance that brings those living with chronic illness disabilities to the forefront with a cast of disabled and non-disabled performers.

   3. Priestess of Twerk performed at HERE Arts Center for a one-night showing on September 9th, 2021 following a HARP residency at Bethany Arts. In this first concert experiment, Priestess explored music, movement, and storytelling as a part of the larger work, which will premiere in 2024. This event was a part of HERE RAW/Resident Artist Works 2021 and was presented with Staging Decadence: a twenty-first-century salon featuring live performances by Nia Witherspoon and Normandy Sherwood, talks on decadence and performance by Annette Saddik and Richard Kaye, and hosted by Murray Hill.

3. Updating Experimental Bitch's ongoing works. First, ExB commissions works that not only falls within its missions to support emerging TGNC and women artists but also speaks to communities that are under-resourced in the theatre industry and in society more broadly. ExB also looks for artists with a strong point of view and rigorous artistic practice. Next, ExB collaboratively produces alongside independent artists with pre-existing developmental support. Finally, ExB builds community programming to foster civic engagement, encourage cross cultural conversation, and build community.

ONGOING WORKS:

EXPERIMENTAL BITCH'S

TANYA'S LIT CLIT

CONCEIVED BY Emma Goldman-Sherman and Tatiana Baccari

WRITTEN BY Emma Goldman-Sherman

DIRECTED BY Tatiana Baccari

A Phantasmagorical Musical About Pain, Pussy and Persistence

ExB's first play commission, Tanya's Lit Clit (TLC) by Emma Goldman-Sherman will continue development culminating in a public presentation TBA in 2023. This production will be a major milestone for the company as its first full-length work entirely conceived, developed and produced by ExB. Commissioned in 2020, Tanya's Lit Clit by Emma Goldman-Sherman is a musical phantasmagory featuring original music, text and dance that brings those living with chronic illness disabilities to the forefront. Led by a chorus of people of multiple abilities, the audience embarks on a wild investigation of the AFAB body and the herstory of its treatment. By building a coalition with the 23 million Americans, 80% of whom are women-identifying, quietly shouldering the heavy burden of autoimmune disease, Tanya's Lit Clit dispels the myth that AFAB bodies are unknowable, untreatable, or destined to suffer.

EXPERIMENTAL BITCH'S

BITCHIN' HEALS

ExB is thrilled to announce that Bitchin' Heals will be coming to JACK, an OBIE-winning performance meets civic space located at 20 Putnam Ave in Brooklyn and led by Co-Directors Jordana De La Cruz and Skye E. Kowaleski. JACK will partner with ExB to present an in-person Bitchin' Heals coming in August of 2023. Creative team to be announced at a later date.

PRIESTESS OF TWERK

BY Nia O. Witherspoon

Inspired by the "bad bitches" of hip hop, the reproductive justice movement, and the sacred sex workers that graced Egyptian temples, Priestess of Twerk is a black feminist temple of pleasure that presents women, queer, and trans-folks of color with opportunities to re-encounter their sexualities through the lens of the sacred, increasing bodily autonomy, and dispelling toxic masculinity. ExB will serve as collaborating producers with commissioner HERE Arts Center and Musical Theatre Factory on Nia O. Witherspoon's upcoming world premiere and subsequent tour of Priestess of Twerk. Further details for 2023 will be announced at a later date.

Experimental Bitch (ExB) is a fiscally-sponsored arts company based in New York City that creates, develops, and produces badly behaved, genre-defying performances by emerging TGNC and women artists and supports those artists through sustained community programming. ExB is unique because it supports emerging artists whose work is not (yet) legible to mainstream theater companies and audiences due to its groundbreaking content, mode of storytelling, and the communities for whom the work is created. ExB is excited for a series of programmatic and organizational changes designed to both better fulfill our mission and meet previously unmet needs among our artists.

Experimental Bitch's work is made possible with support from NY State Council on the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Leon Levy Foundation, Cultural Solidarity Fund, and Experimental Bitch donors.

ExB are proud members of A.R.T./NY and fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas.

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