Mabou Mines Presents the Work of 2020 SUITE/Space Artists

Mabou Mines will present the work of the 2020 SUITE/Space Artists Christopher-Rashee Stevenson, Sean Devare, Shenny de Los Angeles and Sim Yan Ying "YY" streaming live from October 22-31, 2020. Tickets are now available at https://ci.ovationtix.com/3092 and at wwmaboumines.org, or by calling 212-352-0255. Tickets: $10 suggested donation or pay what you can.

The 2020 SUITE/Space Artistic Advisors - Mabou Mines Co-Artistic Directors Karen Kandel, and Carl Hancock Rux. Video Designer and Digital Streaming Director - Eamonn Farrell. SUITE/Space is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council.

Shenny de Los Angeles | the ritual to beauty

October 24th at 7pm

October 25th at 3pm

October 26 at 8pm

Created and Performed by
Shenny de Los Angeles
Co-Directed and Filmed by
Maria Marrone

Voice of Yemaya and Film Composed by

Amyra Leon

Zoom Performance & Q&A talkback curated by Talia Paulette Oliveras and Shenny de Los Angeles

the ritual to beauty is a mixed media piece integrating the stylization of documentary and spoken word. Inspired by Shenny's one woman show What Happens to Brown Girls Who Never Learn How to Love Themselves Brown?, this piece invites you to witness the meaning of beauty through three generations of Dominican women -- the grandmother, the mother, and the daughter. In learning about the ritual to beauty that was passed down to each woman, a pain is buried deep in the denial of their blackness. It is only through the secret voice in the water, that the daughter is able to release herself from a pain she's been holding onto since she was born. By forgiving herself and the women before her, will she finally see just how beautiful she is when she's free?

Shenny de Los Angeles is a Dominican-American storyteller based in Brooklyn. Shenny centralizes Black Caribbean femmes in her writing; captivating the power of their joy. "when you in pain just focus on somebody else's business," is her first piece to be published by The Caribbean Writers. Her most recent collaboration has been with European network, Zoomin.TV, as they highlighted her in their docuseries as a local hero of New York, focusing on the intersection of her art and activism. Shenny's also excited to announce her debut as a playwright; as her 10 minute play, Las Mujeres de Hierro, was commissioned by The Latinx Playwright Circle and will be premiering online this fall! Now, as a 2020 SUITE/Space Artist, Shenny is currently developing her one woman show What Happens to Brown Girls Who Never Learn How to Love Themselves Brown: the ritual to beauty.

Christopher-Rashee Stevenson | Victims

October 22 at 7pm

October 24 at 3pm

A Revival Of Eugene Ionesco's "Victims Of Duty"
Direction/Sound Design
Christopher-Rashee Stevenson
Featuring Jacob Ready & Jessie-Kenner Tidball
Lighting By Wyatt Moniz & Eamonn Farrell

In VICTIMS Stevenson and collaborators present an excerpted section of their revival of Ionesco's absurdist psycho-drama exploring power, class, the theater, genre, and memory. The Choubert's are an upper middle class suburban couple who spend their days philosophizing about art, cinema, and duty until an insane police detective comes on the scene flipping their world on its head sending them headlong on a batshit, existential search through such psychological heights and depths in order to find Mr. Mallot "with a 't' at the end."

Christopher-Rashee Stevenson is a theatre artist from Baltimore, Maryland interested in extremity. His devised work and experimental explorations exist at the intersection of classic drama, current events, film, literature, and music. Using theater as psilocybin, his work bridges the gap between theatermaking and making declarations of healing, war, and social justice, as primal and tribal rituals. A current SUITE/SPACE('20-'21) artist at Mabou Mines and an alum of Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab '18. His work as director and performer has been featured at The Performing Garage, The Tank, JACK, HERE Arts Center, The Actor's Studio, American Repertory Theater, Millennium Film Workshop, Lincoln Center Education, LaMaMa, and the Eubie Blake Jazz Institute. He is currently working on a post-COVID chamber version of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, as well as an Afro-futurist mash-up on the vampire genre using everything from Stoker's Dracula, Bill Gunn's Ganja & Hess to Octavia E. Butler's Fledging, a piece on blood & survival.

Sean Devare | First Violin: Anugraha EP

October 23 and 25 at 7pm

Created and Performed by Sean Devare

Additional music and sound contributions by Luke Santy

An act of defiance leaves the half-breed demon king of Lanka trapped under a mountain for a thousand years. In his isolation, he fashions a stringed instrument that becomes the oldest ancestor of the violin and composes a song of devotion to earn the favor of the Great Destroyer in an attempt to earn his liberation. First Violin: Anugraha EP will be the first release in a series of autobiographical musical meditations by Sean Devare on the re-creation, rebirth and reclamation of the king of instruments.

Sean Devare is a New York-based interdisciplinary performer, designer, musician, writer and director. His solo show 'First Violin,' premiered at HERE Arts Center and United Solo Festival, and will return to the stage at Mabou Mines in 2021. Sean's work explores questions of cultural inheritance and hybridization through reinterpreting folklore and Asian diasporic performance traditions, from mask-making and shadow puppetry to Carnatic violin. He has worked on original ensemble pieces with artists in Singapore, Ecuador, and Sicily, and performed in NYC at BAM, Signature, Target Margin, The Flea and more. Founding member of Trinacria Theatre Company and The Transit Ensemble. MFA Theatre, Sarah Lawrence College; BFA Illustration, RISD. www.seandevare.com

Sim Yan Ying "YY" | Where Are You? (Digital)

October 29, 8pm EDT

October 30, 10pm EDT

October 31, 10pm EDT

Devised, directed and choreographed by Sim Yan Ying "YY"

Devised and Performed by Ao Lan Guo, Brendan Schwartz, Guillermo Contreras, John Titus, Maria Müller & Rosalie Neal

Dramaturgy by Carina Goebelbecker, Manuela Romero & Siena Yusi, Multimedia Design by Manuela Romero, Sound Design by Caroline Eng, Assistant Choreography by Carina Goebelbecker

Where Are You? is a series of devised physical theatre productions about how we experience grief and confront death. Drawing from perspectives across a range of ethnicities, nationalities, and religions, this intercultural project attempts to contend with the reality of death and understand the universal experience of grief through its various manifestations. Where Are You? was first conceived and staged at New York University Tisch School of the Arts in 2019, and the team is working towards a live staging in New York as part of the Mabou Mines SUITE/Space program in 2021. Led by Sim Yan Ying "YY" and devised with artists based in Singapore, a Singapore version of the show is currently under development at the WILD RICE Directing Residency, with a production slated for February 2021.

Sim Yan Ying "YY" (Director & Choreographer) is a theatre artist based in Singapore and New York. She creates in the capacity of a director, performer, writer, and choreographer, and is particularly drawn towards intercultural works that challenge existing forms and boundaries. Original works include: Who's There? (The Transit Ensemble & New Ohio Theatre), I LOVE WHITE MEN (Caveat NYC, Ars Nova ANT Fest, Dixon Place), Without Reason (Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay), and 06:58 (The Substation). Assistant Directing: Looking at You (HERE Arts Center), directed by Kristin Marting. YY is currently an artist in the Mabou Mines SUITE/Space program and WILD RICE directing residency. Training: BFA at NYU Tisch and the 2017 Siti Company Summer Intensive. simyanying.com. IG: @simyanying"

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