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Artists In Residence

As part of Tribeca PAC's hallmark Artists in Residence program, talented artists working in music, dance, and theater create commanding new performances that premiere as part of the annual Work & Show Festival held each spring.

Artists-in-Residence Program at Tribeca PAC Applications for the 2009-2010 season are being accepted now! AIR Application Information and Guidelines TRIBECA PAC's Artists in Residence program is supported, in part, by JP Morgan Chase.
	Lynn Thomson	Lynn Thomson - America in Play Theater America-in-Play continues its mission to investigate America’s theatrical legacy in order to create new writing and performance. This year, our writers, composers and videographers are exploring the 1848 hit comedy, A Glance at New York by Benjamin A. Baker. We present two original pieces, still untitled, that integrate an adaptation of the older play with a variety of new writing, an expansion of the text to address the bewilderments and rewards of life in our city—and America. Come to both evenings! Before each show we offer exhibits and installations: Come early to this display of America’s weird and wonderful theatrical past. Lynn M. Thomson is a dramaturge, stage director, and teacher. Currently a tenured associate professor at Brooklyn College, she teaches for the Program in Interactive Media Arts [PIMA] and the Department of Theatre. This summer, she taught collaboration at the Gulbenkian Institute in Portugal, as part of a PIMA team. She was the dramaturge on Rent. Other work includes resident director at New Dramatists; Associate Artistic Director at Philadelphia Theatre Company; guest artist at University of Evansville. She started America-in-Play in 2005 at TPAC, offering twenty workshops that have involved over thirty playwrights, composers and videographers, and nearly fifty actors and related artists, AIP has commissioned and presented sixteen ten-minute plays and three full-length pieces. She has been an Artist in Residence since 2004 and is very grateful for the enrichment in her life and work the program has given. AMERICA-IN-PLAY (AIP) aims to immerse playwrights in this legacy and strengthen their connection to this past as a source for contemporary American writing. The aim of their design is to initiate conversations between current writers and those of the past in order to enrich present writing through the grounding and inspiration from long-forgotten plays. America In Play is entering its third year of life. Last year, they experimented with a devised piece titled No Song, No Supper. www.AmericaInPlay.org America in Play in The New York Times
	A TRIBECA PAC AIR Work & Show presentation

	David Michael Friend Photo: Siobhan Harris Daniel José Older	David Michael Friend and Daniel José Older Music Theater and Puppetry City of Love and Disaster Just after the fall of slavery in New York, free Blacks took to the streets in an all out celebration of freedom. The events that followed, including the surge of the first all-Black Shakespearean theater company, the Manhattan race riots and the exodus of free people of color into Brooklyn, are chronicled in this new mutli media show. Featuring original choreography, poetry and shadow puppetry set to live music by Brooklyn Latin Soul group, BURUNDANGA, this will be a live historical document, created and conceived in collaboration with artists, historians, and young people from around New York. Daniel José Older has been combining his passion for social justice work with his gift for music and storytelling to create emotionally moving, artistically cutting-edge multimedia performance projects for the past 10 years. Daniel has collaborated with numerous dancers (including The Urban Bush Women and Inspirit Dance Company), filmmakers (most recently scoring an animated short titled Moonfishing, produced by Cheryl Henson) and puppeteers. Besides working nights as a New York City paramedic and days as a teaching artist, Daniel currently co-coordinates Reflect Connect Move, an anti-racist organizing team that uses movement building, creative arts and community dialogue workshops to end gender violence in Brooklyn. David Michael Friend has been a part of the puppet community since the mid-90s, helping to bring forth Drama of Works' Doctor Faustus, The Ballad of Phineas P. Gage, Curiouser and Curiouser and the Carnival of Samhain. He has also worked with Kevin Augustine, building and performing for Animal and the Czech-American Marionette Theater in their piece The Life and Times of Lee Harvey Oswald. Besides City of Love & Disaster, he is in the middle of creating EGO, a story of the rise and fall of an egotistical puppeteer. Beyond theater, Friend is an art director and illustrator for television and film. He is currently finishing up his latest film, Moonfishing, which is part of Heather Henson's Hand Made Puppet Dreams series.
	A TRIBECA PAC AIR Work & Show presentation

	Michael Yates Crowley Photo: Jeff Vari Michael Rau	Michael Yates Crowley and Michael Rau Theater Rag Fur Blood Bone: The Epic of Gilgamesh Rag Fur Blood Bone: The Epic of Gilgamesh is written by Michael Yates Crowley and directed by Michael Rau. A retelling of the Gilgamesh epic, set in New York City and narrated by animals. Ishtar is a spoiled, celebrity goddess and the evil Bull of Heaven is played by former police commissioner Bernard Kerik. The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest literary works, but this story from Uruk (ancient Iraq) is particularly relevant now: it's a story of war, corrupt politicians and gay love. It also features a live band, battle scenes and a cast of over twenty actors, singers, and musicians. Michael Yates Crowley is a 2008 Fellow in Playwriting from the New York Foundation for the Arts. As co-founder of Wolf 359, his work has been performed in Germany, Chicago and New York City, and filmed by HBO. He twice received the Seymour Brick Memorial Prize in Playwriting from Columbia University, where he studied English and Astrophysics. For the last three years he has been the curator of Hearth Gods, a reading series in the East Village. Michael Rau's New York credits include: The Ted Haggard Monologues (New York Magazine Critic's Pick) and The Italian Songbook, at the NYU Steinhardt School of Music. His productions have been remounted in Germany, Greece, and Montreal. He has directed readings of new plays at New York Theater Workshop, Primary Stages and Lincoln Center. He has served as an assistant for Les Waters at A.R.T., Anne Bogart at Glimmerglass Opera, and Robert Woodruff at San Francisco Opera. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University and Columbia University's School of the Arts.
	A TRIBECA PAC AIR Work & Show presentation

		dre.dance (Andrew Palermo and Taye Diggs) Dance beyond.words beyond.words dives into the world of autism with both wonder and sympathy. With movement that combines dre.dance's propulsive choreography and interpretive actions gleaned from 'typical spectrum behavior,' artistic directors Palermo and Diggs passionately attempt to give voice to these 'multi-sensory' individuals. Inspired by first-person accounts of people on 'the spectrum,' beyond.words challenges common misconceptions that the 'afflicted' want and need to be cured, and hopes to shed light on the beauty and spirit of these 'inherently gentle, exquisitely sensitive' (Stillman) beings. Founded in 2004 by childhood friends Andrew Palermo and Taye Diggs, dre.dance has presented four full-length New York seasons as well as performances at the New York City Festival of Dance, Dance New Amsterdam's 'In the Company of Men' festival, Tribeca PAC's 'Work and Show' festival, the Usdan Concert Series, the Ugandan Arts Benefit at John Jay College, and a well-noticed solo for Desmond Richardson of Complexions Contemporary Ballet. This is dre.dance's third year as an Artist in Residence at Tribeca Performing Arts Center.
	A TRIBECA PAC AIR Work & Show presentation

	Ellis Wood	Ellis Wood Dance Bricolage The Dictionary definition of Bricolage: A construction made of whatever materials are at hand; something created from a variety of available things. Wood’s new work, Bricolage, will explore all avenues of creating a dance work with what is at hand. As a forty four year old choreographer and mother of three, Wood’s newfound body, mind and spirit, and dancers are what are available to create a merging of strikingly personal, and at times, possessed solos. Ellis Wood choreographs, teaches and does residencies at universities and festivals both nationally and abroad. Wood is a 2007 recipient of Building Up Infrastructure Levels for Dance (BUILD), a program of New York Foundation for the Arts and she received a 2002 NYFA Fellowship in Choreography. The Company has received numerous grants and sponsorship over the years. Ellis Wood is honored to be in her eighth year at Tribeca Performing Arts Center. Wood has danced in the companies of Stephen Petronio, Dan Wagoner, and Bay Area Repertory Dance, and with her parents, Marni and David Wood, who both danced with Martha Graham.
	A TRIBECA PAC AIR Work & Show presentation

	Edisa Weeks	Edisa Weeks Dance Elephant Dreams During the last four years of his life, Joseph Merrick (The Elephant Man) lived in a secluded room at White Chapel Hospital. His main connection to the outside world was his imagination and occasional visitors. In Elephant Dreams, a dance theater work by Edisa Weeks/DELIRIOUS Dances, Merrick escapes the harshness and solitude of his life by entering the world of Dumbo the Flying Elephant. In this world Merrick is Dumbo, and relives Dumbo's turmoil and triumphs. Five dancers and three actors animate Merrick's world by portraying various characters, including Dumbo's mother, Timothy the mouse, the crows, Ross the Freak Show manager, Dr. Treves and Mrs. Kendal. Edisa Weeks is the director and choreographer for DELIRIOUS Dances, which merges theater with dance to explore the beauty and complexity of life. Her work has been performed in a variety of venues including swimming pools, storefront windows, senior centers and various living rooms, as well as at Chashama Theater, Emory University, Jacob's Pillow, Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum, The Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts, The National Black Arts Festival, and Summerstages Dance Festival, among others. DELIRIOUS recently performed in living rooms in Berlin, Germany, as part of Haus der Kulturen der Welts’ 50th anniversary celebration. Weeks teaches at Princeton University, is an artist in residence at Tribeca Performing Arts Center, and received a Brooklyn Arts Council Grant to bring her work LIAISONS to senior centers throughout Brooklyn. Edisa is interested in creating intimate environments for experiencing and interacting with contemporary dance.
	A TRIBECA PAC AIR Work & Show presentation



	Compani Javedani	Sahar Javedani Ghazal for Isfahan summons the incomparable writings of Hafiz, Rumi, Saadi, Ferdowsi, Sanai, and Nezami to create a theatrical feast for the senses. For many years, Sahar Javedani has been investigating the relevance of classical Persian poetry and music and its transcendent power in contemporary art. This work is a series of choreographed recipes saturated in rich complex movement, blending folkloric and contemporary vocabularies inspired by Persian calligraphy. The music of the Lian Ensemble, a Los Angeles-based classical Persian group of composers and musicians, will be commissioned. The visual design of the work, including set and costume design, will be influenced by the paintings of Mahmoud Farshchian. Compani Javedani promotes curiosity, compassion, and mutual understanding through multidisciplinary dance theater works. Their educational programs focus on integrating the arts to enhance the academic curriculum. They are devoted to cultivating an empowered, intelligent and socially responsible community uniting all generations, cultures, races, and religions. Sahar Javedani on MySpace
	A TRIBECA PAC 2008/09 Artist in Residence

	Christal Brown	Christal Brown's INSPIRIT Dance Dreams and Visions will test the states of sleep and wakefulness by creating moving tapestries teetering on the precipice of fantasy and reality. To infuse this movement-scape with an intangible sense of foundation, Brown will employ the use of projection and an original sound score created by Zimbabwean composer Fahari Malianga. Christal Browntoured nationally with Chuck Davis' African-American Dance Ensemble and internationally with Andrea E. Woods/Souloworks. She performed with Gesel Mason Performance in Takoma Park, MD, and spent three seasons as a principal performer for the Urban Bush Women. Brown is the Founding Artistic Director of INSPIRIT, a performance ensemble and educational conglomerate dedicated to bringing female choreographers together to collaborate and show new work, expanding the views of women of all ages, and being a constant source of inspiration to its audience and members. INSPIRIT has shown work at Aaron Davis Hall, St. Marks Church, Joyce Soho, The Lincoln Theater of Washington, DC, and other venues across the country.
	A TRIBECA PAC 2008/09 Artist in Residence
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