JACK LABs
ian askew: until other times
june 15th - june 17th

Fresh from JACK’s 2022 Radical Acts Festival music and theater artist Ian Askew for  their performance project Until Other Times. You are invited to attend a memorial service, a dream confessional, a slow dance at the end of the world. Until Other Times considers how human and non-human animals navigate the fabricated scarcity of colonial economies, rejecting imposed limitations on our memory, our environment, and our capacity to care for one another. Directed and performed by Ian Andrew Askew, featuring Kiara Benn, Jailyn Phillips-Wiley, and Sifiso Mabena.

Until Other Times is a part of JACK Labs, a series designed to incubate theatrical work with an opportunity for playwrights to advance their play past the "workshop" phase, but without the pressure of a multi-week run.

Location
20 Putnam Avenue in Brooklyn, C or G train to Clinton-Washington. Accessible station at Franklin Avenue C/Shuttle train.

Performance Dates & Times
Thursday, June 15th at 7:30pm
Friday, June 16th at 7:30 pm
Saturday, June 17th at 7:30 pm

About the Artists
Ian Andrew Askew is an artist working in music, theater, and performance. Their project SLAMDANCE began in 2019 and continued at The Performing Garage in 2021. SLAMDANCE TV was premiered online by The Kitchen in 2021. Recent projects include Frequency with Justin Allen and Yulan Grant at The Chocolate Factory, and Sorry John Henry the song has no end, developed in residency at Baryshnikov Arts Center, Mercury Store, and Wake Forest University. As a sound artist alongside Camila Ortiz, they have created scores for work by Christopher Myers, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Joie Lee, and Kamal Nassif. Ian co-sound designed and performs in KLII (Walker Art Center, REDCAT, The Public Theater). As an associate with opera directors Zack Winokur and Kaneza Schaal, Ian has presented work with Lincoln Center, The American Repertory Theater, The Metropolitan Museum, Detroit Opera, Spoleto USA Festival, LA Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, and Carolina Performing Arts.

Kiara Benn is a movement artist and arts administrator with a passion for creative direction. She has produced three choreographic pieces that explore the relationship between music, memory, and movement. Benn's interest in business and administrative foundations stems from her dance education, which taught her the importance of spreading creativity. She has worked with production companies, performance artists, and arts organizations, witnessing firsthand the transformative power of dance in museums, performance venues, commercial projects, and community hubs. Previously, Benn worked as a Project Manager at For Freedoms, an artist-led organization promoting civic engagement and advocating for artists as public leaders. She has also acted as Choreographer and Dancer in the opera production of Omar directed by Kaneza Schaal and now works as a Creative Associate on Kaneza's team.

Jailyn Phillips-Wiley (She/Her) is a Brooklyn-based movement artist who stands on movement being a vessel towards transcendency, a constant act of resistance, and a spiritual release that is vital to the human experience. A born and bred product of New Jersey, Jailyn has trained in an array of styles from ballet to West African dance, honing in on that knowledge to inform her creative expression today. While attending Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, Jailyn worked with Shannon Gillen/Vim Vigor Dance, Dawn Marie Bazemore, and Chein-Ying Wang/Paul O’Campo. In her senior year, she received Mason Gross Dance Department’s Majorie J. Turner award for outstanding choreography for her senior thesis, Chip Skylark. Jailyn finds deep joy in being in a creative process, geeking out on music, swimming, collage art, and spending quality time with people that mean the most to her. Happy to be here!

Sifiso Mabena is a Zimbabwean, NY based, multidisciplinary theatre maker who is a skilled actor, singer, puppeteer, educator, playwright and deviser. Her work often explores displacement in diasporic communities, history, identity and femininity. Credits: KLII (Walker Arts Center; Redcat; Under the Radar ’23), Mud/Drowning (Mabou Mines), Riddle of the Trilobites (Flint Rep; New Victory Theatre), Red Hills (En Garde Arts), The Sprezzaturameron (BAC), Shoot Don’t Talk (Labapalooza, St Ann’s Warehouse). International: Winter’s Tale (National Arts Festival, SA), The Comeback (HIFA, ZW). As a playwright, Sifiso has collaborated with The Royal Court Theatre and the British Council (ZW). Her work has been performed at the Harare International Festival of the Arts (Winner HIFADirect 2011), Intwasa Festival and the Chimanimani Festival. Recently, she premiered her show [sunflower] at Dixon Place (June 2022). Sifiso is a New Victory Labworks 2022/23 artist. www.fisopearlmabena.com  IG: @fisopearl

Cheyanne Williams (she/they) is a theater artist whose transdisciplinary practice seeks to expand traditional roles of making. Irreverent of predetermined roles of theater, she has acted in, technical directed, designed, and built shows. Recent collaborations include Associate Scenic Design for OMAR (La Opera, Carolina Performing Arts, Boston Lyric Opera); Technical Direction for Kaneza Schaal’s KLII (The Public’s Under The Radar Festival, Chelsea Factory, NYC; Redcat, Los Angeles; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis), CARTOGRAPHY (NYU Abu Dhabi; the Kennedy Center, DC), and JACK & (Brooklyn Academy of Music and New York Live Arts, NYC; On The Boards, Seattle; MCA, Chicago). Upcoming Scenic Design includes Until Other Times (JACK, 2023), and Highway 1 (LA Opera, 2024). Cheyanne is the resident Technical Director for Towards A New Collectivity, a yearly summer residency program hosted at The Performing Garage. BA: Wesleyan University, Theater.

Afriti Bankwalla likes dolls, minutia, and the real housewives. She has been sewing for 11 years.

Camila Ortiz is a songwriter, performer, and sound designer based in Brooklyn.  As a sound designer and composer, Ortiz has most recently contributed to scores for “EVERY VOICE” (2022) a virtual sound and sculpture exhibit for the LA Philharmonic, and Kaneza Schaal’s KLII (2023) for The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival. In her solo project, Otracami, she leans into storytelling and atmosphere, crafting spiraling narratives that emerge from marshes, dim bedrooms, and nighttime drives. The project builds on her catalog of earlier solo releases as Camila Ortiz, including Fall Apart (2015) and Carrot Flowers (2017), and also draws on the influence of her ongoing avante-pop collaboration with singer/composer Claire Dickson as Myrtle. Their debut single, “Shifted,” was featured by NPR All Songs Considered.