Announcing The Creators Of THE EARTH, THAT IS SUFFICIENT

Annalisa Dias, a Producing Playwright with the Welders' Playwrights Collective, has assembled a dynamic, transnational team of collaborators that will be engaging in an emergent devising and creation process throughout 2019. the earth, that is sufficient is part of Dias' ongoing inquiry into contemplative arts practice as a response to the rampant social inequities and anthropogenic climate change caused by late-stage capitalism. The development process of the earth, that is sufficient is grounded in emergent process design (building off of Adrienne Maree Brown's definition of Emergent Strategy).

The structure of the process manifests performances inside the ecological concept of a mycelial network, which is a hidden network of mushroom roots. Almost all plants on earth are linked to each other via the mycelial network, once described by the BBC as a wood wide web. Dias envisions that the iterative performances, called mushrooms, will connect to each other in an organic way over the year-long period. Phase 1 of the process will result in a set of spring equinox mushroom performances in late-March/April 2019. Phase 2 will result in a set of harvest mushroom performances in August/September 2019. The process will culminate in a center of gravity mushroom performance to be presented in November 2019.

A process like this, shares Annalisa, is critical to how we must respond in the face of the ongoing climate catastrophe. By removing the presupposition that we know where we are going, we open possibilities to create more generative and just futures.

The core team consists of local and International Artists: Annalisa Dias, mia susan amir, and Eric Swartz. They collaboratively designed the process following Annalisa's original concept.

The full ensemble includes Nina Budabin McQuown, Cecilia Cackley, Sanam Emami, DeLesslin Roo George-Warren, Melissa Strova-Valencia, and Kara Turner. Mel Harper is the project's production manager.

As an embodiment of the team's commitment to the principle of interconnectedness, public provocations will be released at certain phases of the project as invitations for public engagement with the questions and materials the ensemble is working on. Audiences, partner organizations, and any interested individuals will be invited to create their own spores of the project as it emerges globally.

About the earth, that is sufficient:

Part theatre, part ritual, part epic journey, the earth, that is sufficient is a contemplative inquiry into the precarity of human relationships to extraction, consumption, and power. the earth, that is sufficient is an iterative performance project that conceptualizes theatre-making as an ecology, and asks audiences to consider the braided legacy of our past and the infinite possibilities we might stitch into a shared future.

Project website: www.sufficientearth.com

About The Welders:

The Welders, winner of the 2016 John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company, is a DC-based playwrights' collective whose mission is to establish an evolving, alternative platform for play development and production. The intent of that platform is to inspire and encourage members to take risks and make bold leaps in exploring the craft of playwriting; produce one performance of work created by each member playwrights before turning the company over to a new collective; create significant, meaningful, direct engagement between artists and members of the community; and support future generations of DC-area playwrights.

We produce work that is as varied as the artists making it. We believe that connection to our audiences, our communities, and our fellow artists is an invaluable aspect of the art, and we strongly believe that there is no one way to produce, no one way to create, and no one way to experience theater.

the earth, that is sufficient will run concurrently with LadyM, by Rachel Hynes and the LadyM ensemble. The Welders support new methods and processes of play creation by having these two processes run concurrently. Both of these productions have three-year processes, including performance events, data collection, community conversations, and audience interaction. www.thewelders.org

About The Artists:

Annalisa Dias (Producing Playwright & Director) is a Goan-American citizen artist, community organizer, and award-winning theatre maker working at the intersection of racial justice and care for the earth. She is a Producing Playwright with The Welders, a DC playwright's collective; Co-Founder of the DC Coalition for Theatre & Social Justice; and Co-Founder of Groundwater Arts. Credits include: WRITING: 4380 Nights, the earth that is sufficient, One Word More, The Last Allegiance, A Legacy of Chains, Crooked Figure, Consider the Dust, Matanuska, Coal, and Servant of the Wind. DEVISING: Wit's End Puppets: Malevolent Creatures; banished? productions: Tyger; Theater Alliance: I Love DC. DIRECTING: Source Festival: Dust to dust to dust and Dressing Bobby Strong; The Salima Project (film). Annalisa's plays have been produced or developed by The Welders, Theater Alliance, Signature Theatre (DC), the Phillips Collection, The Gulfshore Playhouse, the Mead Theatre Lab, The Hub Theatre, Spooky Action Theater, Tron Theatre (Glasgow), and Theatre 503 (London). Annalisa frequently teaches theatre of the oppressed and decolonization workshops nationally and internationally and speaks about race, identity, and performance. She is a TCG Rising Leader of Color and also works toward diversity and inclusion full time at the American Political Science Association.

Eric Swartz (Associate Producer & Associate Director) is a playwright and director based in his homeland of Washington, DC. Previous producing credits include Still Life with Rocket, Mnemonic, Word Becomes Flesh, and Occupied Territories at Theater Alliance where he was the Associate Artistic Director and the 2017 Encuentro de las Am ricas as a Creative Producing Fellow with the Latino Theater Company at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. Most recently, Eric co-wrote and directed Don Crist bal a bilingual adaptation of a Federico Garc a Lorca puppet show for Pointless Theatre. He creates work in Spanish and English on queer and latinx themes.

The Ensemble:

Nina Budabin McQuown is a poet, essayist, puppeteer, printmaker and gardener. Originally from the Bronx, they live in Washington, DC, where they make puppet shows with Wit's End Puppets and with the Bread and Puppet Theater, print at Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center, edit poetry books for The Word Works Press, and garden with Love and Carrots. You can find their poems and reviews published with Thethepoetry.com, SAND, The Cimarron Review, The Kenyon Review Online, Hotel Amerika, and Rabbit Catastrophe Press. You can find their essays, contact info, and all the rest at yeswehaveno.com.

Cecilia Cackley is a playwright and puppeteer based in Washington DC. She is the artistic director of Wit's End Puppets and co-creator of their shows Cabinets of Kismet, Saudade and Malevolent Creatures. Her bilingual children's plays have been presented by GALA Hispanic Theater and toured around DC to local schools. Cecilia is an affiliated teaching artist with Imagination Stage, Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, Ford's Theatre and Young Playwright's Theater. Internationally, she has performed or taught workshops in France, Canada, Armenia, Guatemala and El Salvador. Her new project Son Titere, a fusion of street puppetry and Mexican folk music, will premiere in May 2019.

Sanam Emami is a space alchemist. Her art dives into all the variables needed to align for us to be able to receive art. She is the head creatrixes of a womyn artists' collective, The Omi Collective, where she encourages ALL art lovers and artists from as far as the mind's eye can reach.She aspires to strengthen the bond between all by communing artfully and welcoming as much cray cray an artist or art lover can bring.

DeLesslin Roo George-Warren is a queer artist, researcher, and organizer from Catawba Indian Nation whose work ranges from performance to installation art to community education to food sovereignty to language revitalization. Since 2017 he has been the Special Projects Coordinator for the Catawba Cultural Preservation Project where he facilitates the Catawba Language Project, several food sovereignty initiatives, and other community education projects. He has performed, lectured, and exhibited throughout the U.S. including the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, College of Charleston, Vanderbilt University, Ithaca College, and more. In 2018 DeLesslin was recognized as a 2018 40 Under 40 by the National Council on American Indian Enterprise Development. In 2017 he was selected as a Dreamstarter by Running Strong for American Indian Youth and in 2016 he was recognized as a 25 Under 25 by United National Inter Tribal Youth. Some of his work can be seen at delesslin.com

Melissa Strova-Valencia is a Colombian artivist, actress, storyteller, dancer, and educator. She appeared in Yo tambi n hablo de la rosa and Volcanes at GALA Hispanic Theatre, in Siempre amigos and The rainbow s magic at Teatro de la Luna in Celebremos and Madres de la Revoluci n Part I and Azul with Teatro la Bolsa. Among her other credits in Colombia, in Washington, DC, works as an actress and Education Department director of Teatro la Bolsa. A native of Cali-Colombia, she earned a Master's in Advanced Theatre Studies from La Rioja University-Spain. See her next in Madres de la Revoluci n Part II, Jukumari and La gallina y la tortilla at Teatro la Bolsa. Currently, she is doing studies in Neurobiology and brain plasticity with a focus in dramatherapy and teaches music to early childhood at Children s House Kindergarten, Sitar Art Center and at Levine Music school.

Kara Turner is an actor and artist. Recent regional credits include: Anon(ymous) with Theatre Prometheus, New Game Theatre's Play Cupid, and the mixed media piece, Positive. SAFD-certified in rapier and dagger and unarmed combat (recommended pass), she continues to train in broadsword in 2019. In 2017, she served as a devised theatre teaching artist for tweens. Kara is a proud graduate of The Theatre Lab Honors Acting Conservatory and Stetson University.

To post a comment, you must register and login.