The Essentialisn’t
Can you be Black and not perform? Incorporating art gallery aesthetics and an electronic soul score, Eisa Davis performs a piece about performance, exploring the cultural techniques that make musical expression a kind of imprisonment – or a transcendent liberation.
The Essentialisn’t was originally commissioned by Laura Kaminsky at Symphony Space with funding from the Virginia B Toulmin Foundation. The piece has been supported and developed by The Public Theater, The Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, The Park Avenue Armory, Christopher Hibma at Sundance Theater Lab, New Georges, Performance Space New York, United States Artists Fellowship, Jack NY, and Creative Capital Foundation.
Location: HERE Mainstage, 145 Sixth Avenue, New York, NY
Performances will take place on:
Wednesday, September 10 at 8:30pm
Thursday, September 11 at 8:30pm
Friday, September 12 at 8:30pm (Opening Night)
Saturday, September 13 at 4pm
Saturday, September 13 at 8:30pm
Sunday, September 14 at 8:30pm
Tuesday, September 16 at 8:30pm
Wednesday, September 17 at 8:30pm
Thursday, September 18 at 8:30pm
Friday, September 19 at 8:30pm
Saturday, September 20 at 4pm
Saturday, September 20 at 8:30pm
Sunday, September 21 at 8:30pm
Tuesday, September 23 at 8:30pm
Wednesday, September 24 at 8:30pm
Thursday, September 25 at 8:30pm
Friday, September 26 at 8:30pm
Saturday, September 27 at 4pm
Saturday, September 27 at 8:30pm
Sunday, September 28 at 4pm
Sunday, September 28 at 8:30pm
Tickets: $30-120
Running Time: Approximately 70 minutes, with no intermission.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Eisa Davis (Creator/Performer) is an award-winning performer, writer, musician and composer working in multiple aesthetics on stage and screen. A recipient of a USA Artists Fellowship, a Creative Capital Award, an AUDELCO, an Obie for Sustained Excellence in Performance and the Herb Alpert Award in Theater, Eisa was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her play Bulrusher. Along with other stageworks such as Angela’s Mixtape, the upcoming ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||, and the score for Devil In A Blue Dress: The Musical, she has written for television, recorded two albums of original music, Something Else and Tinctures (with Daniel T. Denver), and directed the short films Remembrance and Before We Got Took, After We Got Took. Notable performance work includes Kindred, Mare of Easttown, The Wire, Relay, Ex-Husbands, Kings, Preludes, This, the musical of The Secret Life of Bees, and Passing Strange. Her collaborations include Raphael Saadiq’s No Bandwidth tour, Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It series, Carrie Mae Weems’ Grace Notes, Afrofemononomy // Work The Roots at Performance Space New York, Cirque du Soleil’s Crystal, and the Warriors concept album with Lin-Manuel Miranda. An alumna of New Dramatists, and a Cave Canem fellow, Eisa lives in Brooklyn, NY.