2005-06 Past Performances

For a PDF of the spring 2006 brochure click here  

"In a town where even the outré is professionalized by insiders, it's refreshing to see artists take matters into their own hands."
- The Village Voice

BBRICStudio kick started its 2006 season with the 5th anniversary celebration of Improvised and Otherwise: A Festival of Sound and Form. The exciting line-up of cross-disciplinary collaborations featured new work by Penny Campbell and Arthur Brooks; Static Decoy with Estelle Woodward, Alison Robinson and Jeff Arnal; Body Cartography with Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad; Lisa Gonzales; K.J. Holmes and Roy Campbell; Maya Ciarrocchi; Lower Lights Collective; Nancy Zendora, Jo Wood-Brown and Rob Brown; and the premiere of Rat Land, an original opera composed by Gordon Beeferman and performed by Anti-Social Music. Established to encourage and support the momentum of experimental composers and performers, Improvised and Otherwise is a direct extension of a nationwide network of artists, dancers and musicians who are dedicated to creating new forums for challenging and innovative expression.

"…Ms. Woods dances looked like rituals for beautiful, young, black goddesses." - Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times

BRICstudio together with Danspace Project presented the third annual Out of Space series, featuring bold new works by a dizzying array of artists working in diverse styles, curated by Marýa Wethers. The program included a solo video/performance by Andrea E. Woods/SOULOWORKS danced to recorded conversations with her 96-year-old grandfather and live harmonica; a piece by the Parijat Desai Dance Company that elegantly blends Bharata Natyam, modern dance, yoga and martial arts techniques; an excerpt from a multi-media work by Janessa Clark/KILTERBOX that playfully poked at stereotypes of queer women; and an old-school hip-hop explosion by the all-women Tru Essencia Cru.

"651 ARTS is a major developer, producer, and presenter of contemporary performing arts by Black artists." - The New York Times

651 ARTS presented Salon 651 at BRICstudio, a month-long series of exciting new work by emerging and established artists of the African Diaspora. April Yvette Thompson opened the series on April 6 with her one-woman show, Liberty City. Co-written and directed by Jessica Blank (The Exonerated), the piece weaved colorful characters from Thompson's childhood together to make a picture of her Miami: a place shaped by immigrants and islands, by intermarriage and rebellion, by history and struggle. Next up on April 13, Okwui Okpokwasili presented Pent-Up: A Revenge Dance, one in a cycle of performance texts inspired by Medea. On April 20, Egyptian experimental theater artist, filmmaker and poet Nora Amin followed the success of her multi-media work ARAB with further explorations of her identity as an Arab/Muslim/woman. Jennylin Duany closed the series on April 27 with Cabaret Unkempt, a live performance piece incorporating music, text, video projections and movement. Each work-in-progress was followed by an audience talk-back session.

"So imaginative it can make your eyes water … Catch them now before the tide takes them away." - The New York Sun

In their debut Brooklyn appearance, the Brooklyn and Montreal-based SaBooge Theatre presented a workshop production of Every Day Above Ground. SaBooge Theatre, winner of best production at the 2004 Dublin Fringe Festival, advanced its interest in history, storytelling and the grotesque through the exploration of Billy the Kid. Inspired by Booker Prize-winner Michael Ondaatje's (The English Patient) virtuoso shifts in narrator, and narrative form, SaBooge recreated history and myth in all its brutality and splendor. In this work, SaBooge explored memory, madness, violence and survival matching their "endlessly inventive" stagecraft (The Montreal Gazette) and rich visual storytelling with Ondaatje's visionary writing. The resulting production was intimate in its carefully realized details and vast in its contemporary resonance. Live music and innovative sound design by Drama Desk-nominee Jeff Lorenz.

Helen Hayes award-winning playwright Oni Faida Lampley (The Dark Kalamazoo, produced by the Woolly Mammoth in D.C. and Drama Dept. in NYC) presented Here to Put My Father in the Ground. In her uncannily humorous and inimitable way, Ms. Lampley delved into legacies of parental absence, frustration and rage, along with internalized racism in the African-American family. Set in Oklahoma City, and in the Heavens, were two families - the "Family of Flesh" on earth and the "Family of Stars" in the sky. Five actors played all the roles in a story that explored a girl's struggle to keep her family together by sacrificing herself to domestic violence. Drawing on Greek and Egyptian mythology, and told in verse integrating rhythms from iambic pentameter to hip hop, this "myth for who we are now" expressed some of the bittersweet feelings that are common amongst many families, across generations and cultures.

"Faye Driscoll, a stark but captivating presence..." -Off Off Off

We concluded our season with a final flourish of four far-reaching dance performances: Faye Driscoll exposed the contradictory beauty in human interactions in her quirky, twitching, fast-paced style; Will Rawls, former dancer for nicholasleichterdance and Shen Wei Dance Arts, assembled a quintet that delved into darkness and dreams alongside the vividness of everyday objects in Goodnight Mush, a contemporary take on the classic, Goodnight Moon; punk-rocker cum belly dancer Tamar-kali incorporated the sacred elements of water and fire in a collaboration with visual artist Scott Ellison Smith; and French choreographer Keïty Anjoure exulted in energy as a language, infusing her work with Mudra, or symbolic hand gestures. Curated by Marýa Wethers.