Workshop Production Dates & Times
Thursday February 6th at 7:00pm
Friday February 7th at 7:00pm
Saturday February 8th at 3:00pm
Saturday February 8th at 7:00pm
Location
20 Putnam Avenue in Brooklyn, C or G train to Clinton-Washington. Accessible station at Franklin Avenue C/Shuttle train.
Modesto Flako Jimenez: ¡Harken!
Written, Performed, and Co-Created by Modesto Flako Jimenez
Directed,Visual Art, and Co-Created by Victor Morales
Projection Design and Technical 3D Artistry by Ker Chen
Lighting Designed by Megan Lang
Set Designed by Henry Petersen
Production Management by Sydnee Davis
Production Associate and Videography by Roberto Cohetero Flores
Stage Management by Kiara Brown
¡Harken! is a transfiguration of the flawed and fragmented pieces of history written about Juan Rodriguez – a mixed-race Atlantic Creole who arrived in 1613 from Santo Domingo as a fur trader for the Dutch. In ¡Harken!, Rodriguez’s ghost, wanting desperately to be a real person, asks ChatGPT to tell him more about his life. The AI responds with hallucinations; and distortions based on secondhand accounts written by colonizers and accepted as “history.” Using generative AI, audience prompts, face-swapping, and image generation, ¡Harken! Audiences help Rodriguez re-write his story by ‘feeding’ the AI new information generating new images and landscapes.
Join creators and theater makers Flako Jimenez and Victor Morales for showings and conversation as they navigate the storytelling of Rodriquez amidst the layers of versions of the story while applying the new tools of technology. Does that lead to the excavation of a lost truth or a return to a myth?
About the Artists
Modesto “Flako” Jimenez is a Dominican-born, Bushwick-raised, multi-hyphenate artist. As a poet, playwright, educator, actor, producer, and director, his work exists in and explores the intersections of identity, language, mediums, cultures, and communities found in his personal life and beyond. Jimenez’s recent work includes Taxilandia, a site-specific performance in a moving taxi that received a Critic’s Pick from Time Out New York and The New York Times and was recently recognized with an Obie Special Citation Award. Jimenez is the founder of ¡Oye! Group, a nonprofit that serves as an incubator for artists, both native and immigrant to New York City. Jimenez is addressing gun violence as a Public Artist in Residence at NYC Health + Hospitals as part of the NYC Dept. of Cultural Affairs’ PAIR program in 2023. Jimenez has been selected as a Princeton Hodder Fellow for 2023-2024. In 2021, Jimenez received a Jerome Foundation Fellowship and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts award in performing arts and theater. Jimenez received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2024. Currently, Jimenez is working on Mercedes, a multi-disciplinary art experience exploring the relationships between matriarchy and ancestors, familial bonds and inherited trauma, and how our own identity can impact our mental health.
Victor Morales is a Multidisciplinary Artist whose work includes theater direction, video design, animation, text, sound design, and digital puppetry. He has collaborated with international artists such as Chris Kondek (Berlin), Joseph Silovsky (NYC), Flako Jimenez (NYC), and Wolfgang Mitterer (Austria) among others. Since 2003, Victor has been obsessed with the art of video game software tech and his work is an exploration of video game engines as simulation environments, where "digital" death and physics are transformed into dramatic and comedic real-time performance. Lately, he has been poking into the world of AI-generated media. Victor teaches technology applied to arts and animation at NYU and Montclair University. In 2019 his multidisciplinary project Esperpento was selected to be part of Sundance 2019 New Frontiers, also in 2019 the installation of Esperpento was awarded “Best Immersive and Time Based Art” at the B3 Biennial awards at the Buchmesse in Frankfurt, Germany.
Ker Chen is a multimedia artist who signals through creating virtual worlds and producing live experiences. Ker explores myths, fortune-telling, and AI algorithms to capture data points from the future and validate the present. Concerned with the simulation of sensations by endogenous chemicals, Ker strives to find elements of control within the invisible and chaotic aspects of existence, looking inward to the body, outward to the surrounding environment, and beyond to the external world.
Megan Lang has designed lighting at BAM, La Mama, Abrons Arts Center, EST, Under St. Mark's, the Wild Project, Dixon Place, 59E59, JACK, and Atlantic Stage 2, among others. Recent designs include Help Me Draw Your Feelings (Brick Aux, dir. William Burke+Bryn Herdrich), Now Go and Act Accordingly (Target Margin Theater, dir. David Herskovits), and annually the Ubumuntu Arts Festival in Rwanda. Assistant/associate special effects work on Broadway includes Sting's The Last Ship, Paradise Square, and Beetlejuice. meganlangld.com
Henry Pedersen is an environmental scenic designer and fabricator based in NYC. Most recently, he designed Flako’s Mercedes, Pt. 1 at BAM. Henry is excited to explore this next production with him. Henry also contributes to events at David Stark Design & Production and as a prop stylist on campaign photoshoots. Previous credits include Bacardi Bar installation for the 2024 VMAs, Power Play in the Park with ASU & Phoenix Children’s Hospital. He also designed multiple productions at the University of Michigan, where he earned his B.F.A. in Theatre Design & Production.
Sydnee Davis (She/They) was born in Houston, TX and received her BA at Hendrix College (Conway, AR). She is excited to join ¡Harken! and help present this show to audiences. SM/APM Credits include: Spring Awakening (Epic Players), For Colored Girls (The Booth), Into The Woods (Epic Players), Prince Charming, You’re Late (Tiger Bear Productions), 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Epic Players), Twelfth Night (Match:Lit), She talks to Beethoven (DramaLeague), Verbatim (Peach and Frog), Wizard of Oz, Kid Frankenstein (Vital Theatre), The Wiz, Da Kink In My Hair, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Eighth Day of the Week (The Ensemble Theatre), The Flick, We’re Gonna Die, Evocation, Church (HorseHead Theatre), In Darfur, Small Jokes about Monsters, This Is Modern Art, The Redemption Series, Gambrels of the Sky, Ten
Ways on a Gun (The Landing Theatre).
Roberto Cohetero Flores is a Brooklyn native with a passion for film and media production. Growing up in the Borough Park neighborhood, his childhood fascination with thrillers, horror, and action films sparked his lifelong interest in the arts. After graduating from Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School in 2021, Roberto initially pursued an Animation major at Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) but later switched to Video Arts & Technology, where he thrived. His dedication to filmmaking earned him two Best Cinematography awards at the CUNY Film Festival and the BMCC Film Festival. Additionally, Roberto’s involvement with ¡OYE! Group, a non-profit arts organization, allowed him to contribute to their efforts supporting Latinx seniors and youth in Brooklyn through arts festivals, workshops, and music events. His work on the ¡Oyeme! Music tours, the Avant-Garde Festival at JACK, and Mercedes Pt. 1 production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music deepened his appreciation for the power of art in bringing communities together. Through these experiences, Roberto has developed a diverse skill set in production, event coordination, and community-focused media work.
Kiara Brown is a stage manager and theatre advocate for DEIA+ from Joliet, IL, but passionately residing in Harlem. Recent stage management credits include the Pocket Park Kids, Reconstructing But the Devil Might Still Be Inside, Life and Trust, Dwellers, Goddess at the Lucky Lady Motel, How to Dance in Ohio, Swing State, Headspace, Fish in a Tree, and others. Kiara also works very closely with the Harriet Tubman Effect Institute and New York Live Arts. Kiara is grateful to have joined this wonderful team of artists!