HERE Will Present Kalan Sherrard's KOSMOS INVERS: THE MORPHOLOGY OF XOS

As the Earth crumbles around us and we continue to kill everything in our path, it is time we face the paradoxic integration of evils within ourselves: sterility and garbage, meaninglessness, sexuality as the sin of origin, the contradictory drives of human things. KOSMOS INVERS is the creation of two inverse planets filled with bizarre otherworldly puppets: one, an Edenic parallel of our green earth; and the other, its tentacled pink opposite. Strange fragments of stories coalesce through the contours of different biomes piecing together a patchwork of utopian armageddon and weird psychological metaphors with a green cosmic bent.

KOSMOS INVERS develops a kind of Psycho-Ecology to re-frame the position of the individual in its environment and parse the contradictions of ecological collapse. Worst case scenarios for global climate change and catastrophic capitalism will change our planet into something completely unrecognizable to us while our internal ways of being are simultaneously undergoing the shifting effects technology, post-modernity, and alienating sociopolitics.

Seven performances of Kosmos Invers will take place March 5-8 at HERE Arts Center with performances Thursday - Saturday at 7pm, Saturday - Sunday at 2pm, and in a special late night performance on Friday at 10pm. Critics are welcome as of March 5, which will also serve as the official opening. Tickets, priced at $25-$45, can be purchased by visiting here.org or by calling 212-352-3101. In person sales at the box office after 5pm only on performance days and two hours prior to curtain for matinees. For Group Sales, contact tickets@here.org.

KOSMOS INVERS is presented with Théâtre de l'Entrouvert's Anywhere as part of a pair of puppetry productions this spring. Tickets to both can be purchased as a Puppet Pairing package for $40.

About Kalan Sherrard

Described by New York Magazine as "NYC's Most Avant-Garde Nihilist Subway Performer", Kalan Sherrard is a street, subway and alt puppeteer-performance artist with a cult international following (also known as Enormous Face). Combining his stunning artworld level esthetics and sensibility with his deeply committed performance and personal philosophies, Sherrard gives us KOSMOS INVERS: The Morphology of XOS, a new solo piece with a powerful environmental message. It is the story of two planets, a green Edenic paradise and its changeling Demonic counterpoint, who flip back and forth into one another. Sherrard uses his hands, his feet, and his teeth to animate his fascinatingly crafted universe and invite us into it.

About HERE

HERE's Dream Music Puppetry Program, under the artistic direction of Basil Twist, with producing direction from HERE co-founder Barbara Busackino, is one of few programs in the country to grow and commission contemporary adult puppet works, particularly works that feature live music as a collaborative element. Dream Music seeks to secure the future of puppetry by providing increased development and performance opportunities to puppet artists, and by collaborating with artists from other disciplines to develop new puppetry techniques. In addition, Dream Music brings to New York the most excellent of international puppetry, reflecting on Twist's roots at the École Supérieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette in Charleville-Mezieres, France. Dream Music was inaugurated with the premiere of Basil Twist's OBIE-award winning Symphonie Fantastique in 1998 and the opening of the Dorothy B. Williams Theatre, an intimate space created specifically for intimate puppetry. HERE's Dream Music is also proud to house the Griff Williams Puppetry Collection. The 6 antique marionettes of Harry James, Griff Williams, Cab Calloway, Arturo Toscannini, Ted Lewis and Paul Whiteman were all performed with The Griff Williams Orchestra in the 1930s & 40s throughout America's big band era. They have a permanent home outside the Dorothy B. Williams Theatre at HERE.

The OBIE-winning HERE (Kristin Marting, Founding Artistic Director) was named a Top Ten Off-Off Broadway Theatre by Time Out New York, is a leader in the field of producing and presenting new, hybrid performance viewed as a seamless integration of artistic disciplines-theater, dance, music and opera, puppetry, media, visual and installation, spoken word and performance art.

Standout productions include Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, Basil Twist's Symphonie Fantastique and Arias with a Twist, Trey Lyford & Geoff Sobelle's all wear bowlers, Young Jean Lee's Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, James Scruggs Disposable Men, Corey Dargel's Removable Parts, Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge, Kamala Sankaram's Miranda and Robin Frohardt's The Pigeoning, among many others. In 2008, following an extensive renovation, HERE re-opened the doors to its long-time downtown home for the arts, where it continues as a vibrant, welcoming haven for artists and audiences alike.

HERE is also recognized nationally and internationally for the annual PROTOTYPE festival of opera-theatre and music-theatre, co-founded in 2013 and co-produced with Beth Morrison Projects, through which HERE commissions, develops, produces, and presents new 21st century works in that genre; and the Dream Music Puppetry Program, founded in 1998 with the premiere of Basil Twist's Symphonie Fantastique, and co-curated and co-produced with Twist and HERE co-founder, Barbara Busackino.

Since its founding in 1993, HERE and the artists it has supported have received 18 Obies, 2 Bessies, 5 Drama Desk Nominations, 2 Pulitzer Prizes, 4 Doris Duke Awards, and 2 MacArthur Fellowships.

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