THE EPHEMERA TRILOGY to Bring Sand, Light and Shadow to The Tank

After the wide acclaim of Ada/Ava and The Paper Hat Game, The Tank continues their mission to present ground-breaking puppetry performance with the New York premiere of the ephemera trilogy, created and performed by Kimi Maeda, with music by Bill Carson and Kishi Bashi.

Part of The Tank's Flint & Tinder series, the ephemera trilogy begins performances on Tuesday, February 21 for a limited engagement through Sunday, March 12. Press Opening is Sunday, February 26 at 3 PM. The performance schedule is Monday, Wednesday - Saturday at 8 PM; Sunday at 3 PM with an added preview on Tuesday, February 21 at 8 PM. Performances are at The Paradise Factory (64 East 4th Street, between Bowery and Second Avenue).

Tickets are $20 for general admission, $30 for premium reserved seating. Student tickets are available for $15 (with valid student ID). To purchase tickets, visit www.thetanknyc.org.

Paper and sand, light and shadow, memory and identity, the familiar and the strange; woven together these are the elements that compose Kimi Maeda's ephemera trilogy. Using a range of innovative storytelling techniques and stunning visuals, the ephemera trilogy is a striking mediation on bi-cultural identity and family history, taking audients from a Japanese American internment camp during World War II, to postwar Japan, to suburban New England.

The ephemera trilogy launches with a special event at the Noguchi Museum on the Japanese Day of Remembrance on February 19.

Kimi Maeda is a theatre artist based in Columbia, SC whose intimate visual performances cross disciplines and push boundaries. Her ephemera trilogy is a collection of sand drawing and shadow performances that deal with memory, home, and trans-cultural identity. In 2011 she founded Belle et Bête, a puppet production and promotion company, with local artist Lyon Hill. Together they produce the bi-annual Spork in Hand Puppet Slam. They also created Planet Hopping, an intergalactic puppet adventure, as well as Grime and Glory, a multimedia puppet celebration of barbecue pitmasters. Kimi received her MFA in scenic design from the University of South Carolina, her MA in Scenography from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, and her BA in studio art from Williams College. She was the recipient of the 2005 Rose Brand Award from the United States Institute of Theatre Technology and her costume design for Polaroid Stories was chosen for display in the 2007 Prague Quadrennial. She has designed sets and costumes in Columbia, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Baltimore, Norfolk, London, and Sevilla and was a puppeteer for several years for the Columbia Marionette Theatre.

The Tank is a Manhattan-based non-profit arts presenter and producer. We serve emerging artists engaged in the pursuit of new ideas and forms of expression. Our goal is to foster an environment of inclusiveness and remove the economic barriers from the creation of new work for artists launching their careers and experimenting within their art form. The heart of our services is providing free performance space in the 62-seat blackbox that we operate in Manhattan, and we also offer a suite of other resources such as free rehearsal space, promotional support, and artist fees. Our programming is multi-disciplinary, representing disciplines including theater, music, dance, comedy, film, and storytelling. We keep ticket prices affordable and view our work as democratic, opening up both the creation and attendance of the arts to all and positioning the arts within civic and socio-political discourse.

Founded in 2003 by nine emerging artists, The Tank has since provided an artistic home for tens of thousands of New York City-based performers. Recent successes produced by The Tank as part of Flint & Tinder include Manual Cinema's Ada/Ava (Drama Desk nomination for Unique Theatrical Experience, New York Times Critics' Pick), Mac Wellman's The Offending Gesture (New York Times Critics' Pick), Andrew Schneider's youarenowhere (Drama Desk nomination for Unique Theatrical Experience, New York Times Critics' Pick), and Torry Bend's The Paper Hat Game (New York Times Critics' Pick). Artists who have presented work at The Tank early on in their careers include Alex Timbers (Tony-nominated theater director), Reggie Watts (theater performer/comedian/ musician currently the bandleader on The Late Late Show with James Corden), Amy Herzog (Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright), Lucy Alibar (whose one-act play Juicy and Delicious premiered at The Tank and was adapted to be the Oscar-nominated Beasts of the Southern Wild), Andrew Bujalski (film director, Computer Chess), and We Are Scientists (rock band). The Tank also presented the premiere of A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant by Kyle Jarrow, which won an Obie Award and went on to a national tour. The Tank has been honored with an official City Council proclamation, chosen for the WNYC *STAR* initiative, and featured on CNN, BBC, the New York Times, and more.

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