May 5, 2017
2017 Estrogenius Festival is a Celebration of Female Voices
READ TIME: 7 MIN.
From May 6-28 at The Kraine Theatre, FRIGID New York @ Horse Trade in association with Manhattan Theatre Source will present the 2017 EstroGenius Festival, a multimedia and multi-genre performance festival showcasing dynamic, diverse female voices from a variety of disciplines.
This year's EstroGenius Festival is curated by artists Maura Nguyen Donohue and Melissa Riker and will feature full-length developmental play readings, dances by LMnO3, Estro's SPILL series with new and in-progress works from emerging and mid-career choreographers, studio workshops of dance by Women in Motion, a visual art exhibit, short plays, and a special performance from Girl Be Heard of their newest show, Blurred Lines. All of these segments together support women's invention and development as artists.
Saturday, May 6 at 7 p.m.
Created by Jessica Nicoll & Laura K. Nicoll
Jessica Nicoll collaborates with Laura K. Nicoll, extending their on-going experiments with the specifics of the spaces and shapes in which they find themselves. Though they may (or may not) address their aunt-niece relationship directly in this new work, these two dancer/choreographers can't help but build on what they have been perceiving about each other and their surroundings since they met in 1983.
Created by Nadia Tykulsker in collaboration with Tara Sheena
a seed of a thing continues Nadia Tykulsker's use of creation as a forum to bring a community of artists together to emphasize collaboration while tackling intimate, familiar and emotional subjects and social constructs.
Tuesday, May 9 & Thursday, May 11 at 7 p.m.
Created by Nia Love
g1(host):lostatsea, tethers me to 'do the thing', alongside of the gaze and 'Kitchen-like' conversations that move in, through,and around inarticulation while setting and resetting the action in 'part'(s) that alliance with the search for historical otherness in underwaterness.
Friday, May 12 at 7p .m.
Created by Aretha Aoki
A collaboration with digital and sound artist Ryan MacDonald, New wades through the mud and mystery of family history and explores the relationship between language, translation, silencing, and violence/war as it persists in the body. New longs for a capacious body, one that can channel all the conflicting voices of family, lineage, and memory-in an effort to hold even the difficult, ugly, and paradoxical. Can the body and the space of performance contain all of it?
Created by Jessica Nicoll & Barry Oreck
In Primo Tempore, Nicoll+Oreck Dance Theater presents a duet that appears to be a clerical ritual, but morphs into an unfolding dance of seduction. Gregorian chants swirl in and out of sync as the dancers-dressed in red choir robes-veer between being pious and lewd, grounded and untethered, powerful and weak. They seem to grope for higher meaning but find only themselves, alternating between revealing and concealing what goes on under their robes.
Saturday, May 13 at 7 p.m.
Created by Aretha Aoki
A collaboration with digital and sound artist Ryan MacDonald, New wades through the mud and mystery of family history and explores the relationship between language, translation, silencing, and violence/war as it persists in the body. New longs for a capacious body, one that can channel all the conflicting voices of family, lineage, and memory-in an effort to hold even the difficult, ugly, and paradoxical. Can the body and the space of performance contain all of it?
Created by Courtney J. Cook
PoolPITT explores the depth and complexities of Blackness, all the while indulging in the nostalgia of my memories as they manifest in my body and voice; a purge and sharing of my Black Woman self and my stories. Exposing the good and bad, gems and poisons, through this sacred art form that has always been known as space of liberation for Black folk.
Sunday, May 14 at 2 p.m.
Created by Aretha Aoki
A collaboration with digital and sound artist Ryan MacDonald, New wades through the mud and mystery of family history and explores the relationship between language, translation, silencing, and violence/war as it persists in the body. New longs for a capacious body, one that can channel all the conflicting voices of family, lineage, and memory -- in an effort to hold even the difficult, ugly, and paradoxical. Can the body and the space of performance contain all of it?
Created by Courtney J. Cook
PoolPITT explores the depth and complexities of Blackness, all the while indulging in the nostalgia of my memories as they manifest in my body and voice; a purge and sharing of my Black Woman self and my stories. Exposing the good and bad, gems and poisons, through this sacred art form that has always been known as space of liberation for Black folk.
Created by Lydia Mokdessi and Emie Hughes
glacier sister investigates modes of shared embodiment and spontaneous composition, and examines topics of spectatorship, agency, submission, kinship, and subtle leadership, while allowing for unplanned emergence of content. Emie Hughes and Lydia Mokdessi share a vocabulary of scores, dialogues, and rituals, and attempt to develop a practice of mutual decision-making as a method of training sensitivity to desire and mutual intuition. glacier sister models a radical form of deep togetherness. Created in collaboration with performer and musician Benjamin Wagner.
Wednesday, May 17 at 7 p.m.
Created by Pioneers Go East Collective
Written & Directed by Gian Marco Lo Forte, Choreographed by Maura Nguyen Donohue
American Mill No. 2 is an original docudrama with new musical arrangements by Kamala Sankaram of existing ballads and protest songs about Ella May Wiggins -- a textile mill worker, union organizer and folk singer who found herself at the forefront of the protest movement during the strike at the Loray mill in Gastonia, NC in 1929. American Mill No. 2 features a multi-talented cast of actors and musicians, with Kamala Sankaram, Brittane Rowe, & Anthony Napoletano.
Friday, May 19 at 7 p.m. & Saturday, May 20 at 7 p.m.
by LMNo3
More Like Your Mom, created by three women who are child-free by choice, is a multi-media dance theater rollercoaster, shape-shifting through ideas of what it means to be female today when old ideals still hold strong images in our collective conscious. Through games, interactions, and interruptions, LMnO3 (Deborah Lohse, Cori Marquis, and Donnell Oakley) encourages the audience to engage with the multitude of ways in which we identify as women by challenging notions of femininity and celebrating alternative ways of channeling the instinct to nurture.
Sunday, May 21 at 12:30 & 7 p.m.
Presented by Girl Be Heard
Blurred Lines draws attention to how we navigate and survive in a world where 1 in 5 college women are sexually assaulted, and challenges audiences to reflect on the roles we all play in a culture that promotes silence and blurs the lines of consent. Girl Be Heard is excited to bring their 2017 MainStage show Blurred Lines to the EstroGenius Festival. This show is reflection on and deconstruction of rape culture. Devised by eight performers over three months Blurred Lines originally premiered at HERE in February 2017.
Wednesday, May 24 at 6 p.m. & Thursday, May 25 at 7 p.m.
Kinesis Project Dance Theatre/ Studio 2x2 (44 E. 2nd St Floor, 5E)
Presented at Kinesis Project dance theatre's East Village studio 4 dance artists each night show work in development as a part of the EstroGenius In Development series.
Friday, May 26 at 7:30 p.m. & Saturday, May 27 at 2 p.m. & 7 p.m.
Curated by Deborah Long
An evening of 5 short plays celebrating dynamic roles for women.
Sunday, May 28 at 12 p.m.
The Audience Votes, we count, the winner of the Audience Choice Award will have one more show and the festival will bestow awards to the festival participants.
Sunday, May 28 at 2 p.m.
with Detective Logan and Brooklyn Dance Punk.
Founded at Manhattan Theatre Source in 2000 by Fiona Jones, EstroGenius is an annual celebration created largely in reaction to the many talented female artists in the downtown theatre scene without adequate opportunities to present their work. The festival is committed to showcasing art that explores deep and complex female characters and giving voice to women who aren't often heard in the theatre.
As one of the most inclusive festivals of its kind, EstroGenius also accepts submissions from any artist whose work features a strong female voice. Previous EstroGenius playwrights have included Liz Duffy Adams, Bekah Brunstetter, Sheila Callaghan, Wendy Caster, Kara Lee Corthron, Cheryl Davis, Quirara Alegria Hudes, George Hunka, Andrea Lepcio, Melissa Maxwell, T.D. Mitchell, Mac Rogers, Crystal Skillman, and Saviana Stanescu.
The 2017 Estrogenius Festival will be held May 6-28 at The Kraine Theater, 85 East 4th Street between 2nd Avenue and Bowery. Tickets are $25 at www.horseTRADE.info.
For more information, visit www.estrogenius.org or www.horseTRADE.info
