Leslie Cuyjet
For All Your Life
January 12 at 1pm and 5pm
Co-presented off-site with CPR – Center for Performance Research
For All Your Life is a performance event and social experiment that investigates the value of black life and black death. Centered around an ambitious serio-comical short film, For All Your Life is staged as a seminar, guided by an insurance sales woman, played by choreographer and artist Leslie Cuyjet. Part screening, part sales pitch, this solo performance offers a primer on the life insurance industry and its direct connection to slavery; unpacking the ways in which human beings grapple with the inevitable prospect of death and, more importantly, the ways in which
lives—especially those of people of color—are monetized.
The short film, shot in 2023 with award-winning Brooklyn director Daniele Sarti, serves as a primer on life insurance. The “pitch,” offers a unique investment opportunity—exclusive to audiences—while commenting on professional standards required to achieve legibility for black women within the setting of corporate theater. For All Your Life, the presentation and performance, delivers insight, humor, and drives its mission directly to audiences to choose life.
More information at forallyourlife.com.
Created and performed by Leslie Cuyjet
Co-director and Dramaturgy: Sean Donovan
Stage Management: Randi Rivera
Stage Design: Neal Wilkinson
Lighting design: Amanda K. Ringger
Video and sound design: Max Ludlow
Co-producers: Jennifer Castro Song and Sweat Variant
Film Credits
Director: Daniele Sarti.
Assistant Camera: Max Nemhauser and Joe Kickbush
Audio: Will Scott
Assistant Set Design: Joseph Wolfslau
Make up: Jane Serenska
Production Management: Tess Dworman
Editing: Daniele Sarti, Leslie Cuyjet, and Tim Donovan
Sound Mix: dayae choi.
Additional Performers: Tess Dworman, Jacque Betesh, Katrina Reed, and Jason Watt.
The 2023 premiere of For All Your Life was commissioned and presented by The Chocolate Factory Theater, with additional support from a NYSCA Support for Artists grant.
For All Your Life is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; was created in part, during a 2023-2024 Research Residency at Danspace Project; was supported by the Mertz Gilmore Last Stage Production Stipend; and developed in part during a residency at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York, NY.
Live Artery 2025 is made possible in part with generous support from the following contributors: Anonymous, Betsy Berne, Amy Cassello, Christine Dakin, Cathy Edwards, Rachel Mckinstry, Okwui Okpokwasili, and Kathy Westwater.
John Robinson, JE Commission
