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BRIClab Public Programs / BRICxHOME /

Behind-the-Scenes Process for Desire: A Sankofa Dream

Go behind the scenes of Maria Bauman-Morales’s latest work. She will be joined by Okwui Okpokwasili (FRI) and Roger Q. Mason (THU) for an in-depth conversation.

Date

THU-FRI, SEP 24-25, 2020 | 7:30 PM
ZOOM

 

Cost

FREE w/ RSVP

Location

Virtual Event

Angie Pittman. Design: Fernando Maneca.

Join us for Behind-the-Scenes Process for Desire: A Sankofa Dream, a two-day conversation series with creator Maria Bauman-MoralesRoger Q. Mason (THU, SEP 24), and Okwui Okpokwasili (FRI, SEP 25 with live transcription from ALL HANDS IN MOTION).

Rather than rehearsing set choreography, the MBDance team is engaged in text-based, sensation-based, and movement-based technologies that will help them meet the moment of performance-ritual in real time. And, they're sharing behind-the-scenes glimpses into their process! Tune in for footage of those practices and for a public conversation between Bauman-Morales, Okpokwasili, and Mason about themes from the process and the emerging artwork Desire: A Sankofa Dream (DESIRE)

DESIRE is a multi-disciplinary, non-proscenium and site-responsive artwork centered on imagination and consent as mechanisms of Black Queer survival which must be practiced rigorously. Bauman-Morales is working with collaborators Angie Pittman and Courtney Cook, focusing on three major themes: agency in the time of fascism, Black queer desire, and humans sharing site-responsive digital commons.

Creator/Director: Maria Bauman-Morales
Dramaturge: Sharon Bridgforth


ABOUT THE DISCUSSION PARTNERS
Roger Q. Mason
is a Black, Filipinx, plus-sized, gender non-conforming, queer artist of color. They create work that affirms and gives voice to the silenced through the ritual of performance. Maria and Roger are new to each other and they are delighted to have this public discussion about process, Black Queer desire, and intimacy. 

Okwui Okpokwasili is a performer, choreographer, and writer creating multidisciplinary performance pieces that seek to shape and amplify the shared psychic space the audience and performer inhabit, and, through centering the African/African American feminine, to illuminate universal human conditions. She and Maria met when they collaborated as co-facilitators for 651 ARTS' 2016 Home in the Time of Brooklyn think-tank and art-making cohort of Black artists. We're thrilled that Maria and Okwui will be in public conversation as part of the BRIClab sharing! 


ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Maria Bauman-Morales is a “Bessie” award winning multi-disciplinary artist and community organizer based in Brooklyn, NY. She is 2020 Columbia College Dance Center Practitioner-in-Residence, 2019 Gibney Dance in Process residency award winner, 2018-20 UBW Choreographic Center Fellow, 2017-19 Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange and was the 2017 Community Action Artist in Residence at Gibney. In 2009 she founded MBDance which recently premiered (re)Source to sold-out audiences, co-commissioned by the Chocolate Factory Theater and BAAD!. She creates bold and intimate artworks for MBDance, via dream-mapping and nuanced, powerful physicality. Centering non-linear stories, bodies and musings of queer people of color, she draws on her studies of English literature, capoeira, improvisation, dancing in nightclubs and concert dance classes to emphasize ancestors, imagination, and Spirit while embodying inter- dependence.

Sharon Bridgforth is a Doris Duke Performing Artist and writer who creates ritual/jazz theatre. She has received support from Creative Capital, MAP Fund, and the National Performance Network.  She has been in-residence at: Thousand Currents; allgo, A Texas Statewide QPOC Organization; Brown University’s MFA Playwriting Program; University of Iowa’s MFA Playwrights Program; The Performing Blackness Series at the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies at UT Austin; The Theatre School at DePaul University; and The Department of Performance Studies at Northwestern University. Widely published, Sharon is a New Dramatists alumnae, and has served as a dramaturg for the Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Initiative’s Choreographic Fellowship Program. Sharon is host of the "Who Yo People Is" podcast series, is a 2020-2023 Playwrights' Center Core Member, and is dramaturge for Maria Bauman-Morales's, Desire: A Sankofa Dream.

Courtney J. Cook (she/her/hers) is a Virginia Native now residing in Brooklyn, NY. She began her formal movement and vocal development at family reunions and her home church. She is a graduate of the Virginia Governor’s School of the Arts and holds a B.F.A in Dance and Choreography from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is now a company member, Co-Rehearsal Director, and BOLD facilitator with Urban Bush Women, a company member with MBDance, and featured artist with Marguerite Hemmings (we free). She is honored to be a recipient of the 2018 “Bessie” Award for Outstanding Performance for her work with all three of these organizations. As a creator, she has had the privilege of performing her solo work, “PoolPITT”, as a featured artist in ModArts Dance Collective’s Collective Thread ‘17,  the Estrogenious Festival ‘17, curated by Maura Donohue, and BDAC’s Creative Emancipation Collaboration, curated by Ebony Noelle Golden. She has had the privilege to be in collaboration with interdisciplinary artists Tendayi Kuumba and Greg Purnell  (FLUXX Collective 2018-2019) exploring movement, sound, theater, and visual art.

Angie Pittman (she/her) is a New York based Bessie award-winning dance artist. Her choreographic work has been performed at The Kitchen, Gibney Dance, BAAD!, Movement Research at Judson Church, Triskelion Arts, STooPS, The Domestic Performance Agency, The KnockDown Center, The Invisible Dog, and Danspace Project. Angie has had the pleasure of dancing in work by MBDance, Ralph Lemon, Tere O’Connor, Cynthia Oliver, Anna Sperber, Donna Uchizono Company, Jennifer Monson, Kim Brandt, Tess Dworman, Antonio Ramos and many others. Angie has also been able to create collaboratively with Jasmine Hearn, Jonathan Gonzalez, Athena Kokoronis, and Anita Mullin. She holds a MFA in Dance and Choreography with a graduate minor in African American Studies, and is a M’Singha Wuti certified teacher of the Umfundalai technique. Angie’s work resides in a space that investigates how the body moves through ballad, groove, sparkle, spirit, spirituals, ancestry, vulnerability, and power.

Lauren Olivia Ruffin is a co-founder of Crux with 20 years of experience in policy, marketing, fundraising, and strategic planning. She is a frequent speaker on best practices in leveraging immersive storytelling to combat racial and economic injustice. In addition to her work with Crux, she serves as co-CEO for Fractured Atlas, the nation's largest association of artists and creators. She is also the founder of Artist Campaign School, an educational program that has trained more than 70 artists to run for political office. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a degree in Political Science and obtained a J.D. from the Howard University School of Law. Lauren has served on the governing board of Black Girls Code and on the advisory boards of ArtUp and Black Girl Ventures.


HOW TO WATCH

THU, SEPT 24

Join on Zoom:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87895845750?pwd=SjVDNXloZnNFaW5sMFkrZFdLdzRvZz09

Meeting ID: 878 9584 5750
Passcode: 978031

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BRIClab is a multi-disciplinary residency program created to advance opportunities for visual artists, performers, and media makers.

This newly reimagined program offers emerging and mid-career artists essential resources, mentorships, and opportunities to share their work. The residency aims to build a stronger and more diverse artistic community in Brooklyn by supporting long term growth and fostering relationships across disciplines.

The program's four tracks are Contemporary ArtFilm + TVPerforming Arts, and Video Art. Each track offers unique resources designed to meet the needs of varied artistic practices. Residents receive additional financial support, mentorship, skills-based learning opportunities, and documentation of their work. In-progress public programs (virtual and later live) will take place from September 2020 through June of 2021.