Culturemart 2017

TAYLOR MAC – Prosperous Fools

Prosperous Fools (Inspired by the Moliere play “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme”) is part III of Mac’s Dionysia Festival: four plays that deal in some way with our cultural polarization, (which will be premiered separately but, at some point, will be performed in an all-day festival mirrored after the Greek Dionysia). Set on an Opera House stage and consisting of a thirty-minute ballet at the top of Act II, the play tells the story of a gauche philanthropist as he prepares an acceptance speech. The CULTUREMART presentation will be a reading of the 2nd draft of this new play.

RADY & BLOOM COLLECTIVE PLAYMAKING – Ding Dong It’s The Ocean

An arts collective gathers to celebrate their director’s birthday. With Moscow mules and assorted belongings they sprawl freely in all manners across the floor. As the night unfolds, the play that they are building (a piece about our planet’s ailing oceans) pervades every conversation, until the party guests find they are performing it.

ZOEY MARTINSON / SMOKE & MIRRORS COLLABORATIVE – The Black History Museum… According to the United States of America

The Black History Museum…According to the United States of America delves into the fraught relationship between Black Americans and the criminal justice system. Inspired from town hall discussions held after fatal shootings of unarmed Black Americans, this production will explore modern Millennial identity in response to incarceration and #BlackLivesMatter.

The Black History Museum…According to the United States of America delves into the fraught relationship between Black Americans and the criminal justice system. Inspired from town hall discussions held after fatal shootings of unarmed Black Americans, this production will explore modern Millennial identity in response to incarceration and #BlackLivesMatter.

CHRIS GREEN – American Weather

American Weather, created by Chris Green with an ensemble of multi-disciplinary performers, uses off-the-shelf goods, minimalist puppets, animated video, audience participation, and original songs to closely examine the messy ‘look and feel’ of a nation that may have lost its narrative, but still has plenty to sing about.

ROB ROTH – Soundstage

Soundstage is a theater and film hybrid performance piece created by artist Rob Roth. This ‘meditation on the muse’ explores the parallel vulnerabilities of the sexually confident beautiful woman—the screen goddess—and the effeminate homosexual male—her adoring follower. Roth will perform the original music from the upcoming production.

LEAH COLOFF – ThisTree

ThisTree, an autobiographical song cycle sews together music, family stories, animation, home movies and handmade objects to explore identity, legacy and loss, propelled by the question – “What do we leave behind when our family tree has died?”

GISELA CARDENAS + MILICA PARANOSIC / INTANDEM LAB – Hybrid Suite No.2: The Carmen Variations

Hybrid Suite No. 2: The Carmen Variations is a piece inspired by Bizet’s Carmen. Mixing opera, text, and performing objects, this project excavates the remains of the feminine archetype. It is the story of Elizabeth Sherman, an archeologist curating an exhibition of fiction.

TREY LYFORD – The Accountant

A HARP Alum Presentation
Surrounded by papers and an inbox filled to the ceiling, a forgotten office clerk’s mind slowly slips from the tedium of work into a comical and haunting world of memory and regret.

PURVA BEDI, KRISTIN MARTING, & MARIANA NEWHARD – Assembled Identity

What makes a human authentic? Is it their genome sequence? Their DNA profile? Their life experience? Exploring ethnic ambiguity, race and identity, this duet uses original and found text, live cinematography, and contemporary music to explore the science of identity, including genomics, genetics, eugenics, and cloning, all of which impact our culture.

Assembled Identity received developmental support as part of the 2017 Artist Residency Program of The Drama League of New York (Gabriel Stelian-Shanks, Executive Artistic Director; Travis LeMont Ballenger, Associate Producer; Sherri Eden Barber, Program Director). The Drama League Artist Residency Program is funded in part by the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust and the Howard Gilman Foundation. The project also received support from The Puffin Foundation.