Sunday
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May 17
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pre-fest workshop
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Sunday ✱ May 17 ✱ pre-fest workshop ✱
Join KL Mays and Alice Sparkly Kat for a second run and a new version of Wood Divination. During Wood Divination, we discuss wood as a spirit: a reservoir of potential energy, the movement of stretching, and related wood to both seasonal and historical time. In Wood Divination 1.0, we focused on the plant road boom and the factory farm movement that came out of the Cold War.
In Wood Divination version 2.0, we would like to offer the same movement and arts activities but hold space to discuss wood as fuel for our bodies and for machines in light of the recent oil shortages. Come to gather, read plants together, and hold space for potential.
Wood Divination 2.0
KL Mays is a conceptual artist who works with various storytelling modalities to uncover the interwoven layers of histories that surround us wherever we are.
Alice Sparkly Kat is an astrologer. Their goal is to practice astrology by reconstructing history, interpreting the present, and nurture the future. They are the author of Postcolonial Astrology. alicesparklykat.com.
Saturday
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May 23
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Saturday ✱ May 23 ✱
Upstairs Performances
Country Convenience is an experimental opera for one performer and three musicians set entirely during a graveyard shift at a rural gas station. A middle-aged woman stands alone at the register of a small roadside store — the last outpost for miles — and over the course of a single night, her inner life erupts into song. Part absurdist comedy, part political elegy, the piece traces the distance between what we were promised … and what we got: a country that runs on oil, on convenience, on the labor of people it doesn’t count. Through original songs performed with mandolin, upright bass, and violin, the work moves from delight to devastation — exploring all the extraction points between. Country Convenience is a work-in-progress of a new, experimental and deeply American opera about depletion and exploitation — of resources, of ambition, of the earth itself — and the stubborn, exhausted, still-burning inner life of one queer woman inside it.
Country Convenience
Amy Rox is a queer writer/performer from Southern Appalachia creating new and collaborative experimental theatre and performance works. Maybe you saw: FIRSTandLAST(show) (2017), The Desired Affect (2018), AmySurrattPLAYSMarySurratt (2019), or Hillbillie Baroque (a Work In Progress destroyed by the year 2020). Probably you didn’t, and that’s okay! FIRSTandLAST(show) was called “a dizzy colorful jamboree of mythic proportions” (NY Theater Review) and “a hard-hitting phenomenon of a production” (Culturebot). Amy served as Associate Producer at La MaMa ETC (Best Regional Theatre TONY Award, 2018). MFA, Sarah Lawrence College — but she probably should have gone to clown school.
Astroturf Noise exists at the intersection of free improvisation, effects-heavy noise music, and American roots music. Since forming in 2017, the trio of Sam Day Harmet (mandolin/electronics), Sana Nagano (violin/effects), and Zach Swanson (upright bass) has carved out a distinctive sonic space. Here, American roots music coexists with electronics-spiked free improv, Downtown skronk, and manipulated found sounds. They have played in numerous music venues and art spaces across the Northeast US and the UK. "Fire music served up in a surrealist honky-tonk." -Lars Gotrich, NPR Music
Mari–Revisited
Mari-Revisited is a memoir based solo piece that explores grief, mental health, family, class, poverty, the stories we inherit versus the stories we tell, what it means to be a working class artist and reflections on all of these themes through the lived experience of one middle aged, Mexican-American woman. This work in progress performance is an excerpt of the second iteration of a piece originally titled Mari, which had a workshop performance at the Tank in Dec. of 2025 with a run time of 60 mins. This 20 minute performance is aimed at revisiting the themes and discoveries made during the first workshop of Mari in 2025, with the intent to create a new/revised full length piece.
Marisela Grajeda Gonzalez (writer/performer) is an actor, Comedian, sometimes writer. As an actor I've been featured in plays on New York stages such as The Brick, The Tank, The Public Theater, Joe's Pub, New Ohio Theater (rip), Dixon Place and Jack, to name a few. I hold a BFA in Acting from Brooklyn College. I'm a willful and proud Luddite; I promise you don't need AI, a huge basketball fan; Yes I love the W. I believe in taxing billionaires out of existence, a Free Palestine and I want Mayor Mamdani to FIX THE DAMN SUBWAYS! mariselagg.com
Katie Kay Chelena (performer/facilitator) is a theater artist, poet, and educator, originally from the mountains of North Carolina, based in Brooklyn, NY. She is an alumni member of the experimental theater collective the New York Neo-Futurists. Her plays, performances, and poems have stomped around HERE Arts Center, the Kraine Theater, the New Ohio, the Queens Museum, House of YES, Caveat, bars, forests, abandoned train yards, and more. In her educational work, she is the theater instructor at North Carolina Governor's School West, the creative writing teacher at Mighty Quills, and the facilitator of her biannual community writing workshop BAD POET. MA Arts Politics, NYU Tisch; BA Dramatic Art, UNC Chapel Hill.
HOPE INSTRUCTIONS is a participatory & rowdy step-by-step guide to radical optimism in the face of doom. If hope is a muscle, can we train it?
HOPE INSTRUCTIONS
Color Theory is a hybrid documentary short scripted with found text examining the perception of color throughout history of Western art and culture as a subtext for how we perceive race. The script is sourced from found articles and texts- primarily from David Batchelor’s books Colour and Chromophobia, which explores the fear of color and the glorification of white.
Color Theory
Jaime Sunwoo (director/writer) is a Korean American multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker from New York City. Her research-inspired work blends film, puppetry, animation, performance, and installation through hybrid storytelling. While every project explores different themes and aesthetic approaches, she consistently connects personal experiences to world history, strives for social change, and collaborates with experts in other fields such as chefs, scientists, and historians. She is currently developing Spoon-Fed, a sci-fi film. https://jamiesunwoo.com
Other Atlantas will eventually be a celebration of the marginalized who remain in spaces left behind, swallowed up, disappeared, decimated, used up, and ignored for the sake of some other entity’s idea of progress. When I get there, that's what it'll be. At the moment tho...
How do you survive the nadir? How do you survive the lowest of lows?
I think my great aunt told me in a song once, but I don't remember the words.
In this excerpt, Marcella reflects on the spiritual "How I Got Over" and asks, "How do we get over when the getting isn't yet over?"
This piece is about the joy that sustains us.
Other Atlantas: The Nadir
Marcella Murray (creator/performer) is a New York-based theater artist from Augusta, Georgia. She is a playwright, performer, collaborator, and puppeteer. Murray’s work is heavily inspired by the observed ways in which people tend to segregate and reconnect. Her work tends to focus on themes of identity within a community and (hopefully) forward momentum in the face of trauma. Her work has been seen at Performance Space NY, Abrons Arts Center, Mabou Mines, Dixon Place, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Chez Bushwick, Detroit Institute of Art, The Brick, French Institute; Alliance Française, The Loading Dock, La MaMa, UNC Chapel Hill/Carolina Center for Performing Arts, UW Madison, MCA Chicago, and BAM. Murray is a co-curator of the Object Movement Puppetry Residency and teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.
Introspective Hypnosis With a Live Audience
Ever wonder what happens in a private hypnosis session? Since 2020, Maria guides clients one-on-one into their subconscious mind to see past experiences with a new awareness and to release stuck energies in the body. This piece shows what can happen in a session with the use of one large face-body talking puppet costume, a client, and a two-headed bunraku styled puppet with a mop. Together, they will show what happens in an Introspective hypnosis session.
Maria Camia (creator/performer), a Brooklyn-based, Filipino-American Spiritual/Sci-Fi Introspective Hypnosis Visual/Theater Artist, has dedicated 13 ongoing years to creating Aricama, the land of practice play and healing in pursuit to make imagination useful in a traumatized society. She has performed original work for JACK, HEREarts, La MaMa Experimental Club, Kino Saito, Chicago International Puppet Festival, Dixon Place, and others. Maria received the PGOGNY BIPOC Scholarship, The Jim Henson Workshop and Production Grants for her full length shows NEW MONY! and THE HEALING SHIPMENT. Maria is also an Introspective Hypnosis Practitioner where she guides clients one-on-one through the subconscious to bring more empowerment into the body. www.maricama.com
Maria will be sharing a solo version of a duet she is developing with collaborator Lacina Coulibaly.
Currently based in Connecticut and teaching at Yale, Coulibaly is a dancer and maker from Burkina Faso in West Africa. After meeting years ago through Jawole Zollar's curation which included both artists, Coulibaly and Bauman are now exploring various masking traditions to explore bodily memory, touch as an extension of aliveness, and processes for keeping our humanity at the fore within systems that entice us towards numbness.
The performance will be accompanied by a post-showing community conversation.
Mask
Maria Bauman (co-choreographer) is a multi-disciplinary artist and community organizer from Jacksonville, FL now based in Brooklyn, NY. She’s been recognized with two Bessie Awards, an Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Fellowship, two Maggie Allessee National Choreographic Center awards/residencies. Bauman has been an Alvin Ailey Artist-in-Residence, a Mertz-Gilmore/NYFA dance award winner and Queer Art Exchange Network artist on behalf of BAAD!. The primary question guiding Bauman's artmaking and her life is "How can we BE Together, Better?”
Lacina Coulibaly (dramaturg & co-choreographer) is a prominent figure in the dance world, recognized for his work as a professional dancer, choreographer, and instructor. He blends traditional African dances with contemporary influences, creating captivating performances. In 1995, he co-founded the acclaimed Cie Kongo Bâ Teria dance company. His award-winning piece “Vin Nem” featured in the 2007 documentary “Movement (R)Evolution Africa,” garnered attention during extensive tours in Europe and the U.S., solidifying his artistic reputation. Lacina has collaborated with renowned international companies such as Salia ni Seydou, Faso Danse Theatre, and Urban Bush Women. His ability to integrate diverse styles is a hallmark of his work, further enhanced by partnerships with notable artists including Kota Yamakazi and Nora Chipaumire. Beyond performance, Lacina is committed to pedagogy and social initiatives, empowering aspiring dancers through various educational programs. As an associate artistic/pedagogical director for the Engagement Féminin project, he has significantly elevated female dancers in Africa. His expertise extends to teaching and directing dance projects at esteemed institutions such as Barnard College, Sarah Lawrence College, Florida University, Brown University, New School, Ankata, and CDC la Termitière. Additionally, Lacina developed Sigi-ni, an innovative analytical approach to African Dance, establishing him as a leading authority. His latest work, “Until the Lion Tells the Story…,” explores ancient African civilizations and underscores the significance of history in community building. It has received high praise, with The New York Times calling it “a riveting presence in quiet command of the space.” He currently teaches at Yale University, serves as associate artistic director at Yale Dance Lab, inspiring future generations of dancers.
Mixed-race, Seattle-based recording artist, Nobi (vocalist, soothsayer, & word architect) is a fearless creative and impressive lyricist whose heartfelt melodies combined with razor-sharp raps cultivate experiences that feel compelling and authentic. Hailing from a long line of educators and musicians, you can feel the passion embedded in the story-telling, subject matter and attention to detail Nobi showcases in his music. This unique combination of influences makes for highly dynamic music that has similarities with artists like 070 Shake, Linkin Park, and Coast Contra. Recognition for Nobi's work has shown up in a variety of ways, notably; song placements with the Seattle Seahawks, FX's Atlanta, and a spot on the 2020 Seattle Times Best albums list.
Nobi will be delivering a set centered around his album, IBAST. An album that functions as an emotional audio journal. Audiences can expect a genre-fluid journey of sounds and expressions and are invited to show up as they are.
The Things You Don't Talk About
AMYRA
An evening of improvisation, excavation, and embodied memory. Through music, poetry and spontaneous collaboration, we enter the archive of the body - tracing what has been silenced, inherited, survived, and transformed. This is not a performance fixed in certainty, but a living act of discovery: a space where memory becomes sound, where healing becomes communal, and where presence itself becomes part of the composition.
Amyra León is a vocalist, composer, and multidisciplinary artist from Harlem whose work moves across music, literature, and performance. Rooted in liberation, communal healing, and testimony, she treats the voice as both instrument and archive - shaping sound into memory, ritual, and release. She builds realms of discovery and confrontation through her improvisational practice, allowing the composed and the inevitable to waltz in real time. She has released two studio albums, Something Melancholy and WITNESS, and continues to expand her sonic world with a forthcoming album this year! León is the critically acclaimed author of Concrete Kids (Penguin Random House) and Freedom, We Sing (Flying Eye Books). Her work has been featured in a PBS American Masters documentary, which received an NAACP Award nomination. She also teaches in schools, detention centers, and universities, bringing her practice directly into spaces of learning, reflection, and repair. Amyra has performed internationally across the U.S. and Europe, including appearances with the Basel Sinfonietta, Oper am Rhein Orchestra, Gulbenkian Orchestra, as well as at Winter Jazzfest, Blue Note Jazz Club, and Ronnie Scott’s, and has collaborated with artists including KAMAUU, Yadam, Radamiz, Theo Croker, and Chief Adjuah. A MacDowell Fellow and Artist in Residence at The Vineyard Theatre, León continues to build work that honors the body as a site of knowledge, resilience, and infinite possibility.
Workshops
The HOPE INSTRUCTIONS Zine Project is a collection of one-page zines on themes of punk optimism, queer fortitude, and messages to your teenage self. Swing by to make a zine and add it to the library.
The HOPE INSTRUCTIONS Zine Project
Katie Kay Chelena (facilitator) is a theater artist, poet, and educator, originally from the mountains of North Carolina, based in Brooklyn, NY. She is an alumni member of the experimental theater collective the New York Neo-Futurists. Her plays, performances, and poems have stomped around HERE Arts Center, the Kraine Theater, the New Ohio, the Queens Museum, House of YES, Caveat, bars, forests, abandoned train yards, and more. In her educational work, she is the theater instructor at North Carolina Governor's School West, the creative writing teacher at Mighty Quills, and the facilitator of her biannual community writing workshop BAD POET. MA Arts Politics, NYU Tisch; BA Dramatic Art, UNC Chapel Hill.
Heart and Breath: collective feeling practice
"It is said that we live in the 'information' and 'data' age.
What are we seeking when we seek information, data? We are seeking to become conscious of something. We are seeking to become [more] conscious of how things are connected, related. We are seeking to know something, to experience it, to feel it — Feeling is the access to consciousness, knowledge, information.
We are seeking to feel.
We need to take time to feel, we need space to feel. This can also be described as healing. A key component of healing, is the process of feeling in order to integrate experience(s) into our consciousness. A lot of this information and data seems to be part of the noise that is keeping us from the ancestral practice of spending time listening to and feeling the elements — both outside and within.
We will look to plants as a portal of connection to the elements outside us which give life, as we look to the body as the portal for connection with the elements within us giving life. We will look at how these dualities - inside / outside … self / other … opening / closing … holding / letting go — exist intimately within us. In an embodied sense, we will connect with the breath and the heart at the crossroads between these dualities, between the duality of mind and body. To see what we feel, and feel what we see."
Sebastián Pérez of Herban Cura, LMT (he / they) is an interdisciplinary bodywork/movement therapist and mathematics professor. Sebastián combines experience as a traditional hatha yoga teacher, licensed massage therapist, qi gong practitioner, energy worker, and lifelong musician, singer, athlete, dancer.
Energy Hygiene Fun Sticker Workshop with Guided Meditation
As an Introspective Hypnosis Practitioner since 2020, Maria sees the pattern of limiting programming placed in childhood creating disturbance later in life. Join her in this creative sticker workshop to imagine a new internal program to override old habits and mentalities. In this workshop, Maria will lead a guided meditation to feel the current energies in our bodies and later, all will imagine what energies they wish to install in their bodies to live a more fun life. Participants will create and leave with a sticker to remind them of their new program whenever they see it. Feel it, then become it!
Maria Camia (creator), a Brooklyn-based, Filipino-American Spiritual/Sci-Fi Introspective Hypnosis Visual/Theater Artist, has dedicated 13 ongoing years to creating Aricama, the land of practice play and healing in pursuit to make imagination useful in a traumatized society. She has performed original work for JACK, HEREarts, La MaMa Experimental Club, Kino Saito, Chicago International Puppet Festival, Dixon Place, and others. Maria received the PGOGNY BIPOC Scholarship, The Jim Henson Workshop and Production Grants for her full length shows NEW MONY! and THE HEALING SHIPMENT. Maria is also an Introspective Hypnosis Practitioner where she guides clients one-on-one through the subconscious to bring more empowerment into the body. www.maricama.com
The Party
Remolacha is a Brooklyn-based, Cuban-American creative and activist, born and raised in Miami. Through her vinyl/musical selections, she guides listeners through soundscapes rooted in culture, resistance, and release.
DJ and musician, Spurge deejays in a dialectical fashion - weaving opposing elements together to construct a singular, narrative experience - honoring the practice of storytelling through selection in tandem with the sport-like aspects of DJing. His style of mixing audaciously blends genre - jumping from dancehall to rock, techno, electro, disco, house, to dub, hip hop, ambient...all in service of the story of the set.
Selena Surreal is the serpent siren of the Sideshow. She is a Brooklyn born and based Drag Apparition, performance artist, producer, MC, Movie Lover, and the co-founder & mother of the Black Cherry Sideshow, the first all BIPOC, all Trans Circus Sideshow troupe in the history of the world, Black Cherry is monthly at Purgatory. She also co-produces monthly Movie watch parties and Seasonal conceptual drag shows with The Esoterrorists and Revision, Purgatory’s biweekly experimental open stage.
DJ Gay Panic is DJ (duh) & writer for places like PAPER, Pitchfork, and his newsletter The Deviant Dispatch. He works at the venue Elsewhere promoting music of all kinds, and DJs “teddy bear bangers.” Alongside the poet/performance artist Candystore, he throws the party SLOP Salon at the Parkside Lounge. He’s a member of the drag + nightlife collective The Nobodies, and has opened for groups such as The Millionaires, Blusher, and 2charm.
Sunday
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May 24
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Sunday ✱ May 24 ✱
Upstairs Performances
Borrowed Ground is a narrative song cycle that weaves Appalachian cultural identity with its Irish folkloric roots through a modern lens. Inspired by the changeling myth, the cycle follows a young Appalachian girl who is seduced by an illusory world of wealth, only to discover it is a faerie glamour an enchanted trap spun from ancient forces. As she navigates this otherworldly deception, the song cycle explores generational memory, cultural displacement, and the tension between homegrown hardship and external illusions of success.
Blending traditional Appalachian instrumentation with modal elements from Irish ballads and contemporary composition, this project aims to reclaim and reinterpret faerie folklore as a living cultural undercurrent still relevant in modern Appalachia.
Good Folk
Hilarie Rose Spangler (vocals/acoustic guitar) is an Appalachian artist, art therapist in training, and musician whose work bridges folklore, music, and healing. Rooted in communal storytelling, she reimagines traditional narratives through a trauma-informed lens, addressing classism, generational poverty, and the rural-urban divide. Her practice centers accessibility, challenging barriers within cultural spaces often marked by elitism, while cultivating artistic experiences that invite belonging and resilience. Through song cycles, collaborative artmaking, and community engagement, she seeks to transform inherited stories of loss and survival into spaces of dialogue and possibility, weaving together art, therapy, and music as tools for reclamation and connection
Rachel Smith (bass/vocals)
Avinoam Attun (electric guitar) is a guitarist, composer and arranger. His instrument is his ears, when he holds a guitar in his hands, sometimes he plays piano and at times he creates with pen and paper. His work spans composing for orchestras, arranging for jazz and pop ensembles, and performing with folk rock singers. He leads his own large ensemble and string quartet, combining electric guitar with a variety of musical influences.
Simón Gómez Villegas (piano/vocals) is a multi-instrumentalist songwriter and performer from Bogotá, Colombia.Blending musical theatre with indie-electro-folk-pop-rock (take your pick) and Americana Shakespeare, Simón makes art that transforms the mundane into magic. They have performed all around the country--from a dinner theater in Alaska to the oldest Equity house in Appalachia, from skit shows in rural New York middle schools to senior singalongs in NYC with Sing for Hope. Simón is a 2025-2026 Petri Artist at The TEAM Plays, where they developing THE FACE OF GOD: a docu-musical on the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and its survivors efforts to rebuild after federal warning systems failed. They are currently on the case in Galveston, Texas as part of their residency with The TEAM. Past credits include LIFE FORCE (Mercury Store, The TEAM), THIRD SEX (Ars Nova ANT Fest 24’), COME SEE YOUR FUTURE (Musical Theater Factory) and REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES (American Repertory Theatre, Music Observer). Simón is a Lyricist at the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Writing Workshop and a member of the UNTITLED Musical Writers Group.
Sienna Sears (vocals) is a Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and actress. Raised in a theater, Sienna grew up surrounded by creativity- acting, painting and composing from an early age. This spirit continues to shape her work today. Sienna earned her BFA in Musical Theater from Seton Hill University, trained at Freeman Studios and HB Studio and is currently studying acting with Deborah Hedwall. Sienna plays guitar and piano and leads her own folk band, drawing inspiration from a variety of influences. She has recorded three albums and is preparing to release her debut solo album.
We Are Different From Butterflies is a puppet performance piece dissecting the cultural phenomenon of comparing the queer/trans coming out journey to the life cycle of a butterfly. Breaking down the similarities and differences between the human experience and that of insects, this piece follows a human-butterfly hybrid creature as it yearns to break free from the flesh that binds it.
We Are Different From Butterflies
William PK Carter (creator & puppeteer) is a quilter and puppet artist based in Central Valley, New York. She bridges the puppet and fine art worlds by fabricating wondrous creatures that exist at the intersection of queerness and blackness. She received her Bachelor of Science in Studio Art from Skidmore College in 2023, and is the recipient of Skidmore College’s President’s Racial Justice Award, the John P. Heins Award: Outstanding Senior Thesis Exhibition, and a Jim Henson Foundation Workshop Grant. She is a current resident artist at LaMama Experimental Theatre Club and is developing a long-form puppetry piece entitled “Beautiful Without Consequence.”
Thalya David (puppeteer)
Mercies of a Butterfly is a one act dance theater work, performed and created by Johnnie Cruise Mercer. A movement allegory about resilience, the work follows a recently born spirit as it contends with the weight of change. With Mercer’s meta-physical history at its root, the work spills out as a testimony on both flying through and weathering the storm! Mercer is excited to share a revamped excerpt of the ever-evolving solo for the Ouchie Festival. In this excerpt he leans into his body, hoping to lose himself in Purgatory's club setting! Mercies of a Butterfly is one 'working' in The Good News Suite, a set of choreographies honoring maker Johnnie Cruise Mercer’s upbringing in the Black Baptist church. Inspired by Bible scriptures orally passed down to Mercer from his childhood, the works are each intentionally crafted to guide communities through the grief of today while leading them towards the sensations/tools/the state of letting go.
“A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” (Mark 4:37-40)
The frame of Mercies of a Butterfly premiered as a part of Go East Collective’s OUT FRONT Festival 2026.The work has been in development for the past two years through the Movement Research Artist-in-Residence Program. The program is funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the Davis/Dauray Family Fund, and the Harkness Foundation for Dance. The work was furthered while in residence at Queenborough Community College as a Cuny Dance Initiative 2025/2026 Artists in Residence. The work gained production support through The Church at Sag Harbor as a part of their first annual Churchennial. The work is further produced and financially supported by TheREDprojectNYC (@redprojectnyc).
Mercies of a Butterfly (excerpt)
Johnnie Cruise Mercer (creator/performer), a 2022 Dance Magazine Harkness Promise Award Recipient, and a 2021 Princess Grace Award Recipient (Choreography), is a queer-black think-maker; a choreographer, an educator, and producer based in Brooklyn, New York. A native of Richmond, VA, Johnnie holds a BFA in Dance and Choreography from Virginia Commonwealth University. Johnnie’s choreographic work has been seen and/or shared by 92Y Harkness Dance Center, The Dixon Place, Danspace Project Inc, The Fusebox Festival, BAAD!, Abrons Arts Center, La Mama Experimental Theater, The Clarice Performing Arts Center’s The BlackLight Summit, and at The American Dance Festival. Most recently, Johnnie has had the honor of being a 2019-2021 Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, a 2020-2021 Ping Chong and Company Creative Fellow, a 2020-2021 AIR through New Dance Alliance’s Black Artists Space to Create Residency, and a 2022 Artist in Residence at Center for Performance Research. Johnnie is currently a NYSCA supported 2024-2026 AIR at Movement Research, a 2024-2026 Pioneers Go East Fellow, and a 2025/2026 Cuny Dance Initiative Artists in Residence at Queenborough Community College. Learn more about upcoming projects Johnnie’s cooking up with his production company TRPNYC: www.theredprojectnyc.org or at IG @redprojectnyc or @johnniecruisemercer.
Justin Johnson (aka Young Denzel) (music producer) is a music producer and AI engineer creating original scores for artists and TheRedProjectNYC. For over a decade, he’s shaped movement-ready soundscapes—melodic, textural, and built through close collaboration with performers. His practice blends composition with creative technology, using code and immersive environments to sculpt atmosphere and narrative. Trained as an engineer (B.Eng., VCU) with experience at Apple, MassMutual, and as a lead data scientist at Pinger, he brings care, clarity, and dependable craft to every project.
Pierre Wright (Pierre Rashad) (wardrobe design) attended Virginia Commonwealth University where he majored in fashion design. He is a wardrobe stylist, fashion designer and sewist.
This solo, entitled Inventory with Talking, continues the development of Inventory, a solo in silence that I made this spring from discarded scraps from seven dances from the last fourteen years. In this new version, I am attaching this montage of movement to series of personal stories from the last fourteen years of my life, with a particular eye toward narratives that telescope from personal to collective moments of falling apart.
Inventory with Talking (premiere)
Samuel Hanson (choreographer) has performed in the work of Hilary Carrier, Isabel Lewis, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Mina Nishimura, Yve Laris Cohen, Yvonne Meier, Simone Forti, Alexandra Pirici and Alexandra Barbier. His interests include improvisation, dance criticism and print media, experimental presenting and curation, dance on film and video, and public education. In his new role teaching at Dance at Illinois, he is excited to be working on creating an online departmental journal and expanding K-12 teaching curricula.
Farah Barqawi is a Palestinian poet, writer, performer, educator, feminist community organizer, and a full spectrum birth doula. She works across multiple genres and mediums. Her poetry and prose have appeared in multiple languages, both online and in print, most recently in the New Ohio Review and in Mizna 26.1 Kindred issue. Farah holds a master’s degree in public policy from University of Chicago (2011) and an MFA in creative nonfiction writing from New York University (2024), where she also taught creative writing to undergraduates. She co-founded two prominent feminist initiatives in the Arabic-speaking world: Wiki Gender and The Uprising of Women in the Arab World.
A text-based performance about the experience of daughterhood as a Palestinian in exile.
Role Reversal (provisional title)
IV Castellanos is an Abstract Performance Artist and Sculptor. They are a mx Indigenous Bolivian-American and are a Third Gendered Three Spirit person. They are based in New York State split between Lenapehoking NYC and Haudenosaunee lands in the Catskills. They have a life project of land rematriation for activists and artists of color called Build And Reworld Now alongside Emily Johnson of the Yu'pik Nation.
Leche Hervida en Vivo is an ongoing abstract performance with low tech, sculptural wearables, a living set, and a physically direct and embodied choreography. A self-sufficient piece coming out of activist livelihoods.
Leche Hervida En Vivo
This performance piece would be a work of theater with the body, objects, and music, exploring constant change and life itself, with or without options!
Esta muestra en escena es un trabajo de teatro con cuerpo, objetos, musica. explorando el constante cambio y la vida misma con o sin Opciones!
Oruga!
Erika Marland, a multidisciplinary Salvadoran artist based in NYC, has worked as a director, actress, and teacher with companies and theaters in El Salvador, the United States, and Canadá!
Erika Marland, artista multidisciplinaria Salvadoreña/e residente NYC, ha trabajado como directora, actris y maestra con compañias y teatros en El Salvador, Estados unidos y Canadá!
Back From Exile is a poetry performance with musical backing, exploring themes of exile, returning from exile, and reconciliation.
Eliel Lucero: Back From Exile
Eliel Lucero is an poet, writer and DJ. They were baptized in funk at age 14 and never washed off that stank.
Proyecto Poética Performática (multi-medium)
Proyecto Poética Performática is a multidisciplinary performance work that brings together music, poetry, and movement in a collaborative gathering of artists who tell the stories of our communities—their struggles, resilience, and ancestral memory—while confronting social and political injustices through art. Like modern-day minstrels, we use performance as a living archive, a public testimony, and a call to conscience.
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Proyecto Poética Performática es un proyecto escénico multidisciplinario que reúne música, poesía y movimiento en un encuentro colaborativo de artistas que narran las historias de nuestras comunidades —sus luchas, resiliencia y memoria ancestral— a la vez que denuncian las injusticias sociales y políticas a través del arte. Como juglares modernos, utilizamos la performance como un archivo vivo, un testimonio público y un llamado a la conciencia.
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Jorge Luis Berríos (performer) is a Puerto Rican–born artist based in New York City, Jorge Luis Berrios is a poet, theater artist, and cultural organizer. His poetry is rooted in performance and collaboration, using the arts as a tool for community building and collective reflection. As a resident artist at El Puente (July 2022–June 2024), Jorge produced Encuentros, a series of community-centered events exploring healing, social justice, and environmental awareness. This process culminated in the publication of Encuentros, an interdisciplinary poetry book that serves as both an archive and extension of the live performances. In theater, Jorge works as an actor, writer, teacher, and director, with notable projects including En El Ojo de la Aguja and Breathe. With over two decades of experience and international work, he is dedicated to creating artistic spaces where collaboration, storytelling, and community engagement inspire transformation.
Mario Cancel-Bigay (performer) is a singer-songwriter, Puerto Rican cuatro player, translator and ethnomusicologist born in Puerto Rico in 1982. After graduating from the public school Libre de Música in 2001, he earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Modern Languages (Portuguese and French) from the University of Puerto Rico in 2005, a Master´s degree from the Interdisciplinary Draper Program at New York University in 2014, and a Doctorate in Ethnomusicology from Columbia University in 2021. His topics of interest revolve around Puerto Rican nueva canción, chanson québécoise, and other discourses of musical resistance during the 1960s and 70s. Currently, Mario is a Clinical Assistant Professor in Liberal Studies at New York University, where he teaches undergraduate courses on Latin American and Caribbean cultures as well as contemporary global philosophy. As a singer-songwriter and expert on the Puerto Rican cuatro, Mario plays regularly in different NYC venues such as Shrine, Silvana, Peoples’ Voice Café, The Peoples’ Forum, Recirculation and La Casa de la Herencia Cultural Puertorriqueña, either on his own or with Casa Mantequilla. Above all, Mario is the proud father of a brilliant Puerto Rican-Haitian girl named Gabriela.
Efrén Olson-Sánchez (performer) is a Mexican physical actor, movement artist, and artivist based in New York City. He began his artistic practice as a teenager in Mexico City and has presented his work internationally across North America, Latin America, Europe, and the Caribbean. A graduate of the LACC Theatre Academy, his work positions movement and dance as tools for social reflection, resistance, and collective transformation. Rooted in embodied activism, his practice integrates physical theatre and devising, Lecoq-based training, Biomechanics, Suzuki and Viewpoints, Butoh Dance, Dance-Theatre, Contact Improv, and a wide range of exploratory dance and movement techniques.
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Jorge Luis Berríos es un artista puertorriqueño radicado en la ciudad de Nueva York. Es poeta, artista de teatro y organizador cultural. Su poesía se basa en la performance y la colaboración, utilizando las artes como herramienta para la construcción de comunidad y la reflexión colectiva. Como artista residente en El Puente (julio de 2022-junio de 2024), produjo Encuentros, una serie de eventos comunitarios que exploraban la sanación, la justicia social y la conciencia ambiental. Este proceso culminó con la publicación de Encuentros, un libro de poesía interdisciplinario que funciona como archivo y extensión de las presentaciones en vivo. En teatro, Jorge trabaja como actor, escritor, docente y director, con proyectos destacados como En El Ojo de la Aguja y Breathe. Con más de dos décadas de experiencia y trabajo internacional, se dedica a crear espacios artísticos donde la colaboración, la narración de historias y la participación comunitaria inspiren la transformación.
Mario Cancel-Bigay es un cantautor, intérprete de cuatro puertorriqueño, traductor y etnomusicólogo nacido en Puerto Rico en 1982. Tras graduarse de la escuela pública Libre de Música en 2001, obtuvo una licenciatura en Lenguas Modernas (portugués y francés) de la Universidad de Puerto Rico en 2005, una maestría del Programa Interdisciplinario Draper de la Universidad de Nueva York en 2014 y un doctorado en Etnomusicología de la Universidad de Columbia en 2021. Sus temas de interés giran en torno a la nueva canción puertorriqueña, la chanson québécoise y otros discursos de resistencia musical de las décadas de 1960 y 1970. Actualmente, Mario es profesor asistente clínico de Estudios Liberales en la Universidad de Nueva York, donde imparte cursos de pregrado sobre culturas latinoamericanas y caribeñas, así como filosofía global contemporánea. Como cantautor y experto en el cuatro puertorriqueño, Mario se presenta regularmente en diversos locales de Nueva York, como Shrine, Silvana, Peoples’ Voice Café, The Peoples’ Forum, Recirculation y La Casa de la Herencia Cultural Puertorriqueña, ya sea en solitario o con Casa Mantequilla. Sobre todo, Mario es el orgulloso padre de una brillante niña puertorriqueña-haitiana llamada Gabriela.
Efrén Olson-Sánchez es un actor físico, artista del movimiento y artivista mexicano radicado en la ciudad de Nueva York. Inició su trayectoria artística en su adolescencia en la Ciudad de México y ha presentado su trabajo internacionalmente en Norteamérica, Latinoamérica, Europa y el Caribe. Graduado del LACC Theater Academy, su obra concibe el movimiento y la danza como herramientas para la reflexión social, la resistencia y la transformación colectiva. Con raíces en el activismo corporal, su práctica integra teatro físico y creación colectiva, entrenamiento basado en Lecoq, biomecánica, Suzuki y Viewpoints, danza Butoh, danza-teatro, improvisación de contacto y una amplia gama de técnicas exploratorias de danza y movimiento."
Cynthia Blade Presents: The Healing Power Of The Breath
Cynthia Blade blends indigenous ancestral sounds with modern electronic elements to create an engaging ethereal soundscape that transports the audience into an immersive sound healing experience, through this journey a special message from her ancestors is shared, using various indigenous instruments from multiple tribes across the world she showcases these sounds to show how medicinal this music can be,
The audience is encouraged to engage and participate in unison breaking down the barriers of division while creating a safe space within her performance where everyone is invited to listen to the medicinal sounds given to her by her ancestors.
Cynthia Blade (multi-instrumentalist & producer) is a singer songwriter and a multi instrumentalist from Brooklyn who has used her talents to bring awareness and attention to her Ecuadorian heritage and culture, honoring and paying tribute to her Quechua and Inca lineage and traditions through the music she shares she has performed her pieces in various festivals and venues across New York City as well as for various indigenous communities her mission is to share the healing sounds gifted to her by her ancestors with anyone willing to take the time to listen.
Maya Keren is a songwriter, improviser, and educator from Philly living in Brooklyn. They play piano, guitar, and sing. They are interested in music as a practice of attention, touch, and deep listening that can reveal a more spiritually attuned way of living. They recently released their sophomore album, Slow Burn, in March of 2026.
Maya will perform a solo set spanning songs, improvisation, and performance.
Maya Keren
Eleonore Weill
French vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Eleonore Weill is acclaimed for her soulful interpretations of Yiddish, East European and French traditional Musics. Hailing from a musical family in Southern France and now based in Brooklyn, Weill performs and records in a variety of ensembles, from klezmer to Romanian and Occitane folk musics. In addition to her acclaimed socially-conscious Yiddish music ensemble Tsibele, she performs internationally with Frank London, the Baroque Music Center of Versailles (C.M.B.V.), Joey Weisenberg and the Hadar ensemble, Midwood, , Orchestre National de Toulouse, Les Saqueboutiers, Miqueu Montanaro, and many others. She has additionally received commissions for composition and performed with theater companies such as Doppelskope, Bread and Puppets, Ensemble Oneiroi, and Great Small Works. She has performed for audiences on a diverse range of stages including Lincoln Center, the Palace of Versailles, the Hammerstein Ballroom, Symphony Space, the Brooklyn and Philadelphia Folk Festivals, as well as at leading international Yiddish festivals including Yiddish New York, the Ashkenaz Festival (Toronto), Kleztival (São Paulo), KlezKanada (Quebec) and Yidstock (Massachusetts). With performance degrees from France’s National Conservatories in Paris and Toulouse, Weill holds a Master’s in ethnomusicology from the Sorbonne and Columbia University. Performing on recorder, wooden flutes, piano, accordion and hurdy-gurdy, Weill’s music is informed by her conviction that traditional songs have great power to create social change.
Workshops
Nature as Luxury will invite participants to engage with several activities through which they examine their relationship to nature and the elements. Explorations may include meditation, responding to writing prompts, engaging in discussion and using natural materials to create a visual token to remind them of their discoveries from the workshop.
Nature as Luxury
Mack Huneke (facilitator) is an intuitive artist, astrologer, tarot reader and legacy crafter sleeping & dreaming in Brooklyn, NY. She is a co-founder of astrology collective and newsletter Funkoven and proudly stewards and coordinates happenings at Flower Cat NYC. Her vitality is merrily focused on guiding folks toward locating the thread that runs between themselves and the natural world and how each life cycle can be understood, appreciated and celebrated through this awareness.
Come with a feeling, leave with a movement. Drop in to Body Workshop to engage in discussion and practice around somatics, self-regulation, self-massage, and body autonomy. Chat with facilitators and participants, about what aches, pains, throbs, rages, sits, cowers, radiates from within us, and how we identify and move energies within our body.
5-Points Acu-Detox available via ear seeds.
Body Workshop, with ear acupressure
Alexis is a largely autodidactic bodyworker who pulls from multiple modalities, including Swedish and Thai massage, Tui Na, acupressure, and somatics. they believe self knowledge and body sovereignty are key to collective and individual liberation.
mayang (NADA certified) is a queer nonbinary diasporous siyoke from Tabuko, a part of the archipelago so-called philippines. they offer bodywork/massage rooted in hilot, their ancestral healing practice. they are also trained in the Acudetox 5-point protocol ear acupuncture and seeds.
Fest Staff!
E. Wray (curator & co-producer) is a performing artist, curator, urban farm worker, and astrologer from East Tennessee. They moved to NYC from the South in 2014. Their work is concerned with how the stories we tell (and the stories we don’t tell) shape our understandings of ourselves and the world we live in. And in shaping our understandings, also shape the world. Their artistic background is in Appalachian oral storytelling and ensemble-based experimental theater. As a curator, they seek to create warm, inclusive spaces that serve as community hubs for solidarity building, collaborative story-making, and envisioning a better future together. ewray.net
Maya Quetzali Gonzalez (co-producer) is a Texas-grown, Brooklyn-based artist. She recently choreographed Gooey’s Toxic Aquatic Adventure at the Bushwick Starr, and has developed, directed, and choreographed work at the NY Fringe, La MaMa, SheNYC, OOB Festival, The Tank, Judson Arts, and The Brick. She is an Associate Member of SDC, a board member of IndieSpace, and a 2026 Access. Movement. Play. (AMP) Residency Artist at Movement Research. As an associate/assistant, she has worked at Playwrights, Signature, MCC, Roundabout, and on Broadway. Maya has been a FORGE Fellow, a member of Roundabout Directors Group, and an artist at UCLA’s’ Dancing Disability Lab. BFA: NYU. mayaquetzali.com
Molly Litvin (production stage manager) is a New York based Stage Manager, Production Manager, Sound Designer and Educator. She is a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Theatre Production & Design, and a double major at Steinhardt in Educational Theatre. Molly loves balancing teaching middle and high school technical theatre during the day with stage managing and/or sound designing a show in the evening. Molly is so grateful for all the collaborators on this project!
Anna Pelavin (poster design) is a graphic designer and illustrator born and based in New York City. annapelavin.com
Yany Wu Feng (English-Spanish translation & interpretation) is a land and community cultivator, a transplant with roots from Venezuela and China, now settled in Turtle Island, specifically on the land of the Lenape people, aka NYC, living/working between Queens and Brooklyn.
Turner Andrasz (sound & light engineer)
Melannie Vásquez Lara (event staff)
Joan Hwang (event staff)