Virtual Artery: Kenyon Adams, Raja Feather Kelly I the feath3r theory, Colleen Thomas, Christopher Williams, Saul Williams

Due to the recent pandemic developments and impact of the new variant, all in-person Live Artery events have been moved to a presenter dedicated digital program or postponed to later this Spring. Please see our Virtual Artery events below.
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Virtual Artery features performances that recently premiered in our theater.

All video is available from its release through Jan 31.

Christopher Williams
NARCISSUS
Released Jan 13th

Narcissus is an original, evening-length ballet set to Nikolai Tcherepnin’s score “Narcisse et Echo” composed in 1911 for the Ballets Russes incorporating themes of the eponymous Greek myth on which it is based to re-envision the original ballet through a contemporary queer lens. The work, featuring costume and set designs by Andrew Jordan as well as lighting by Joe Levasseur, is performed by dancers Christiana Axelsen, Jack Blackmon, Ching-I Chang, Janet Charleston, Breckyn Dávila Drescher, Alan Good, Casey Hess, Shayla-Vie Jenkins, Justin Lynch, Jake Montanaro, Alexander Olivieri, Michael Parmelee, Logan Pedon, Caitlin Scranton, and Mac Twining, with New York City Ballet principal dancer Taylor Stanley & Cemiyon Barber in the title role.

Narcissus premiered in October 2021

Colleen Thomas
light & desire
Released Jan 14th

light & desire was created against the backdrop of increasing political radicalism worldwide preceding a global pandemic. Now transformed, Colleen Thomas with an international feminist cast of 5 collaborators meet audiences with shifted priorities and deep embodiment and articulation of their light and desire. The collective takes a personal and universal look at women artists and asks how women hold, embody and express power by creating their own form of radical expression during fascist times.

light & desire premiered in September 2021

Saul Williams & Friends
The Motherboard Suite
Released Jan 15th

The Motherboard Suite brings to life a suite of music by musician, poet, actor Saul Williams.  Directed by Bill T. Jones, this non-linear work is performed by Saul and his musical collaborator Aku Oracca-Tetteh and features the work of six choreographers – Maria Bauman, Kayla Farrish, Marjani Forté-Saunders, d. Sabela grimes, Jasmine Hearn, and Shamel Pitts. Each choreographer is invited into the world of Saul’s exploration at the intersection of technology and race, exploitation and mystical anarchy, where hackers are artists and activists. The performance takes place inside Jasmine Murrell’s installation.

The Motherboard Suite premiered during Live Ideas 2021 / Altered-Worlds: Black Utopia and The Age of Acceleration and has received three Bessies – Best Production and Best Performer for Grimes and Hearn.

Raja Feather Kelly | the feath3r theory
WEDNESDAY
Released Jan 16th

In this dance-theatre documentary, Live Arts 2019-2020 Randjelović/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist Raja Feather Kelly and the feath3r theory reimagine the film “Dog Day Afternoon” as a queer-fantasia where psychological realism meets pop soap opera.

Wednesday premiered in December 2021

Kenyon Adams
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
Released Jan 17th

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE is a participatory performance work that invites audiences to sit, kneel, and chant text from Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. The call and response structure of the piece appropriates an Episcopal church service, invoking the particular readers to whom King responded with the famous letter, following the public denunciation of the Freedom movement by religious leadership, including that of the Episcopal church. PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE has been performed in theaters, chapels, schools, and was selected for the 2020 Holland Festival. It represents the first installment in the artist’s ritual trilogy, WATCHNIGHT: WE ARE ALMOST TO OUR DESTINATION, currently in development.

This performance was part of Live Ideas 2018: Radical Vision and featuring Kenyon Adams, Padraic Costello, Vinson Fraley, Rebecca Hargrove, Cynthia Hopkins and Walker Jackson