RAKIA SEABORN:
A RUIN
May 13 - 15, 2022
Following a catastrophic climate disaster, three Black women are tasked with rewriting America. Inspired by Giselle's madness, classical mythology, and breakup albums, dance artist Rakia Seaborn crafts a surrealist wasteland by inverting and decaying 1970’s Eastern European ballet mined from Youtube, ancient relics, and personal travel diaries. Through embodying, writing and speaking incantations for survival, what emerges is an entirely new way of speaking/feeling/dancing American. With eyes simultaneously fixed on American history, the present desolation, and a potentially utopian future wrapped in softness & safety, will this triumvirate rebuild....or nah?
Performed by Rakia Seaborn, Stacy Lynn Smith and Pia Monique Murray
Location: 20 Putnam Ave in Brooklyn. C or G train to Clinton-Washington. Shuttle to Franklin Ave
Performance Dates & Times
Friday, May 13, 2022 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, May 14, 2022 at 7:30 p.m
Sunday, May 15, 2022 at 3:00 p.m
Tickets
$20.00 General Admission available here
About the Artist
Rakia Seaborn (choreographer/performer) is a native of Detroit, a writer, choreographer and performer whose work has appeared at Dixon Place, La Mama E.T.C., The Tank, AUNTS, chashama, JACK and Brooklyn Studios for Dance. Seaborn has worked with Kathy Westwater, Dianne McIntyre, Rashaun Mitchell, Jodi Melnick, and Meta-Phys Ed. She graduated from Oberlin College in 2007, earning a Bachelors of Art in Dance with a concentration in Choreography, and in 2014, she gained an MFA in Dance from Sarah Lawrence College. Seaborn is a 2018 Mertz Gilmore Late Stage Creative Stipend recipient.
Austin Guerrazzi (composer) is a graduate from New York University with a Bachelor of Music. As a freelance composer and audio engineer, he has worked on film and dance projects over the past 4 years. Past collaborators have included RAKIA!, Kendra Ross, Rovaco Dance Company, Ben Marques, and Nicholas Grubbs. Currently, he is recording a solo project and building a library of found sound.
Stacy Lynn Smith (Performer) is a neurodivergent, biracial/Black dancer/performance artist with specialized experience in butoh, contemporary dance and experimental theater, creating work through a unique lens of “other”. Smith enjoys collaborating as performer/improviser, director and choreographer across disciplines and genres with an array of talented artists including: rhythmanalyst, DeForrest Brown Jr., vocal/performance artist, Anna Homler, choreographer/founder of New Dance Alliance, Karen Bernard, experimental theater company, Saints of an Unnamed Country, surfer/fashion designer, Thaddeus O’Neil and director/filmmaker, Josephine Decker. Member of Jill Sigman’s artist/activist cohort, Body Politic. Recently, Smith has danced for Kathy Westwater, collaborated on “Revision Suite”, in response to the hidden “Slave Galleries” of St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church and developed first iterations of solo series, “Crybaby”. Principal butoh dancer/company teacher with Vangeline Theater from 2008-2017. Main muse/collaborator of writer/director Michael Freeman from 2010-2016. Venues: MoMA PS1, 92nd Street Y, Princeton University, New York Live Arts, Danspace, Gibney, Art Basel Miami, Brooklyn Museum, Milk Studios, Dance Mission Theater (CA), Centre Culturel Bertin Poiree (FR) and more. Selected by Eva Yaa Asantewaa as part of the curatorial board producing Black Womxn Summit at Gibney in Spring 2020.
Pia Monique Murray (Performer) is a NYC native, majored in African American studies and dance at Oberlin College and was influenced by multidisciplinary performance art while attending the Trinity/LaMama Performing Arts Program. Pia is known as a jack of all trades in the dance industry, having been a choreographer, performer, teaching artist, public school dance teacher, stage manager, tour manager, company manager, arts administrator and, rehearsal assistant. Pia performs with Vado Diomande’s Kotchegna Dance Company and leads Pia Monique Murray Dance Collective (PMMDC), an interdisciplinary performance art group.
Health & Safety
In conjunction with the city ordinance, we are requiring all audience members to show proof of complete Covid-19 vaccination. Complete vaccination is defined as 14+ days following a final dose of the Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Moderna, or Astra-Zeneca vaccine. We will accept proof at the theater via the Excelsior Pass, the NYC Covid Safe Pass, a copy or photo of your CDC vaccination card, or a copy/ photo of an official immunization record from outside the US.
We will additionally require mask-wearing indoors for both our audience and staff members.
For your information, we have a new ERV fresh-air circulation system.
(Photo credit: Jeremy Allen-Arney)