Cross Over
Created & Composed by JUSTIN HICKS
September 16-26, 2021
Remarkable theater artist and composer Justin Hicks shares a song cycle drawn from memories of Baptist church services and R&B club performances with a series of mantras, tantrums, spoken texts and responsive readings that embrace a convergence of the sacred and secular. Like the theatrical work of his band The HawtPlates (Waterboy and the Mighty World - Under the Radar Festival 2020), CROSS OVER promises majestic musicality within a mesmerizing environment.
Creator & Composer: Justin Hicks
Art Direction: Breck Omar Brunson
Lighting Design: Hao Bai
Location: 20 Putnam Ave in Brooklyn. C or G train to Clinton-Washington. Shuttle to Franklin Ave
Performance Dates & Times
Thursday, Sept. 16: 7:30 pm (preview)
Friday, Sept. 17: 7:30 pm (preview)
Saturday, Sept. 18: 7:30 pm (opening)
Thursday, Sept. 23: 7:30 pm
Friday, Sept. 24: 2:30 pm and 7:30 pm
Saturday, Sept. 25: 7:30 pm
Sunday, Sept. 26: 3:00 pm
Tickets
$20.00 General Admission. Tickets available HERE.
“This collection of songs is inspired by a conversation I had 10 years ago with my father - after he stopped preaching - in which he said that he would have reached more people or “done better” with art than with religion. It made me think about what it means to live a life compelled by inner conviction yet guided by an external power. The songs speak on perception, generational tension, limitation, acceptance, aspiration, and obligation.”
Justin Hicks is a multidisciplinary artist and performer who uses music and sound to investigate themes of presence, identity, and value. His work has been featured at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Performance Space New York, The Public Theater, JACK, National Black Theatre, The Bushwick Starr, MoMA, Dixon Place, festival Steirischer Herbst (Graz, Austria), Western Front Society (Vancouver, BC), MASS MoCA, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Nottingham Contemporary (Nottingham, UK), The Albertinum - SKD (Dresden, DE), The Highline, and The John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts among others.
Hicks has collaborated with notable visual artists, musicians, and theater-makers including Abigail DeVille, Charlotte Brathwaite, Kaneza Schaal, Meshell Ndegeocello, Cauleen Smith, Helga Davis, and Ayesha Jordan. He was the Drama Desk-nominated composer for Mlima’s Tale by Lynn Nottage (The Public Theater 2018 dir. Jo Bonney). His practice with artist Steffani Jemison, Mikrokosmos, has deployed commissioned performances and exhibitions internationally. Hicks was a member of Kara Walker’s 6-8 Months Space and holds a culinary diploma from ICE in New York City. He was born in Cincinnati, OH, and is based in the Bronx, NY.
Breck Omar Brunson (Art Direction) was born to a cosmetologist mother and insurance salesman father just south of Philadelphia in Chester Pennsylvania in 1975. Although born in the northeast he spent most of his young summers with extended family in the south. The contrast of lifestyles has influenced Breck to question his surroundings and his place comparatively within them. Through simple suggestive gestures, he finds ways to include his audience in his artwork by giving them just enough to engage while simultaneously provoking consideration of their own place in his created environments and objects. He makes original works as well as uses or manipulates found objects to narrate his presented encounters. He feels that art is happening with and without us at all times and we simply need to isolate any given moment to see the depth and hear the conversation. Breck is also a designer specializing in smaller furniture pieces and decor. He pursues this element of his creativity with the same simplicity and deductive nature. He is in various music outfits as a writer, vocalist, and producer. Breck currently lives in Philadelphia.
Hao Bai (Lighting Design) works as a designer & tech in lights, sound & projection. Hao is a resident audio/visual designer at La Mama. Recent credits: Lighting Design: Waterboy and the Mighty World (The HawtPlates); The Tempest (The Gallery Players); Go Forth (Stanford Live, CA); Asian Zombie Moms (LaMama); Shasta Geaux Pop (CAC, Cincinnati); Run! It’s getting ugly (JACK); YNCAST (JACK); Projection Design: Eternal Now (ACC, South Korea), Electronic City (New Stage Theatre); M.Beth (14 Street Y); Animal Magnetism (WuZhen Festival, China), Virgo Star (Ars Nova). Projection & Sound Design: CowboysCowgirls (JACK); American Mill #2 (A.R.T/New York Theatres).Sound Design: Don Quixote Takes New York (Loco7); The Violin (59E59), Gemini Stars/Scorpio Stars (Pioneers Go East Collective), Virgo Cowboy (BAAD!). JACK's programming is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, City Council Majority Leader Laurie Cumbo, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, The New York Community Trust, Howard Gilman Foundation, The Lozen Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation New York Theater Program in partnership with Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, The Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, the DuBose and Dorothy Heyward Foundation, The Lida Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, The Bains Family Foundation, and Ridgewood Savings Bank, in addition to many generous individuals.