BILLALIEN, A New Work By Pew Fellow Annie Wilson Debuts This Fringe

Philadelphia choreographer Annie Wilson brings original dances to the Fringe festival for the first time since the smash hit Lovertits (2014). bilialien an evening of three 20-minute pieces: bite sized explorations of wailing, faux-futurism, heavenly creatures, and trash. Lots of trash.

bilialien, the 70-minute show will run for just 5 performances, September 6th-10th, at Theatre Exile in South Philadelphia. The evening of short works may or may not involve keening in the dark, tracing the periphery, and constructing celestial bodies from our current ones. Performers are some of the best from Philadelphia and beyond and include Anita Holland (Perfect Day), Christina Gesualdi (Lovertits), Laura Vriend (The Quiet Circus), and Mina Estrada (Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge). The design team is also star-studded: lighting design by Maria Shaplin, Sound Design by Adriano Shaplin, and Costume Design by Kierceton Keller.

Yesterday's Garbage is a late-night extravaganza hosted and produced by Wilson and Anita Holland. Yesterday's Garbage is the worst open-mic night you can imagine. Philadelphia artists and non-artists will perform their worst, laziest, most self-indulgent ideas. The show is an opportunity to perform tributes and anti-tributes to your most loved and hated pieces of art. The budget is strictly zero dollars. The ticket price is nothing. Performances range from 3 minutes to 4 hours long. Once-in-a-lifetime pieces will be performed-only once because they are so boring they should only be seen once.

"We want to interrogate what 'good' art was, what aesthetic ideals we are upholding, and who are we upholding them for?" Wilson says. "If 'good' art is so often by and for a

system that produces unimaginable atrocities, then what is our allegiance, as 'professional' artists, to 'good' art?"

Annie Wilson is sharing the week of performances with Choreographer/Performer Nichole Canuso. Wilson and Canuso are sharing the venue, running their performances in rep and curating late-night programming with drinks and snacks available.

About Sneakers by Nichole Canuso When someone departs your life they also enter it in a new way. Sneakers is about that shift. Created and performed by Nichole Canuso (Wandering Alice, TAKES, The Garden, Pandæmonium) in collaboration with director Suli Holum and sound designer Michael Kiley, Sneakers is an elegy for what has gone, and a tender tumble through what remains.

Full schedule as follows:

• Friday 9/6, 6pm Sneakers by Canuso // 9pm bilialien by Wilson (followed by Yesterday's Garbage)

• Saturday 9/7, 3pm bilialien by Wilson // 8pm Sneakers by Canuso

• Sunday 9/8, 3pm Sneakers by Canuso // 8pm bilialien by Wilson (followed by Yesterday's Garbage)

• Monday 9/9, 5pm bilialien by Wilson // 8pm Sneakers by Canuso (followed by Today's Elegies)

• Tuesday 9/10, 1pm bilialien by Wilson // 8pm Sneakers by Canuso

About the team Annie Wilson is a 2017 Pew Fellow in the Arts. Her work has been presented by Fringearts, Bryn Mawr College, JACK, thirdbird, the Center for Performance Research, and Mascher. Recent work includes: Design Your Own Death, At Home with the Humorless Bastard, Lovertits, The Remix Festival, At the Gloaming with the Hipster Shaman, and Solo. She is an Associated Artist at Applied Mechanics, and an incubated artist at Headlong. Artists she has worked with include: Meg Foley/moving parts, Lucinda Childs, Nichole Canuso Dance Company, , Almanac Dance Circus Theater, Pasion Y Arte, Mary Tuomanen.

Anita Holland is a performance artist, deviser, theatre maker, avid mover, and children's book author. Anita's work interrogates language, excavates ancestry, and strolls with the jungian shadow. They are building a creative family in Philadelphia. Anita has appeared on stage at Quintessence (company member), InterAct, Flashpoint, Orbiter 3, PolyGlamourous, Philadelphia Artists Collective, Philadelphia Asian Performing Artists, CCTC, The Philadelphia Free School, StageWest, People's Productions, Pioneer Theatre Company. They've created original roles in collaboration with Headlong Dance Theater (incubated artist), Swim Pony, The Painted Bride, and Applied Mechanics (Associate Artist). Hailing from the exotic states of Utah, Iowa, and New York. Anita has had the honor of studying at the University of Utah, Gateway Dance Theatre, Samba Fogo, Jeni Breen Tango Academy. www.theanitaholland.com

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