#Mlimas Tale

[sandrateitge]

Steffani Jemison & Justin Hicks (Mikrokosmos) Another time, this time, one time 24 Jun – 2 Jul 2022

CCA Berlin  – Center for Contemporary Arts

Formed in 2016 as the collaborative platform of composer Justin Hicks and artist Steffani Jemison, Mikrokosmos mines the history of Black music. This ongoing project has manifested in many forms: workshop, study session, concert, listening session, book, prompt, score. The exhibition at CCA Berlin presents two related compositions inspired by Gil Scott-Heron’s  ambitious songbook. Another time, this time, one time (Aaliyah, Barbara, Brandy, Chaka, David, Erykah, Gil, Lionel, Loleatta, Mariah, Marvin, Stevie) tracks a small group of melismatic* gestures across bodies and time; it is a search for the "mother run." Another time, this time, one time, the first Mikrokosmos LP, uses Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson’s “We Almost Lost Detroit” (1977) as the raw material for R&B songwriting. Like a game in which new words are formed from existing letters, these live compositions and recompositions take the form of musical studies, samples, and improvisations. Jemison and Hicks reflect upon a wide range of subjects, including Scott-Heron’s biography, police violence in the United States, and the nuclear catastrophe that threatened the city of Detroit in 1966. *Melisma (Greek: lit. 'song'; from melos, 'song, melody') is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic. An informal term for melisma is a vocal run.

Justin Hicks is a multidisciplinary artist and performer who uses music and sound to investigate themes of presence, identity, and value. His work has been featured at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Performance Space New York, The Public Theater, JACK, National Black Theatre, The Bushwick Starr, MoMA, Dixon Place, festival Steirischer Herbst (Graz, Austria), Western Front Society (Vancouver, BC), MASS MoCA, The Whitney Museum of American Art,  Nottingham Contemporary (Nottingham, UK), The Albertinum - SKD (Dresden, DE),  The Highline, and The John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts among others. Hicks has collaborated with notable visual artists, musicians, and theater-makers including Abigail DeVille, Charlotte Brathwaite, Kaneza Schaal, Meshell Ndegeocello, Cauleen Smith, Helga Davis, and Ayesha Jordan. He was the Drama Desk-nominated composer for Mlima’s Tale by Lynn Nottage (The Public Theater 2018 dir. Jo Bonney). His practice with artist Steffani Jemison, Mikrokosmos, has deployed commissioned performances and exhibitions internationally.  Hicks was a member of Kara Walker’s 6-8 Months Space and holds a culinary diploma from ICE in New York City.  He was born in Cincinnati, OH, and is based in the Bronx, NY.

Steffani Jemison was born in Berkeley, California and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions and special projects at JOAN Los Angeles (2022), Contemporary Art Center Cincinnati (2021), the Everson Museum (2021), the Stedelijk Museum (2019), Nottingham Contemporary (2018), Jeu de Paume and CAPC Bordeaux (both 2017), MoMA, New York (2015), RISD Museum, Providence (2015), and LAXART, Los Angeles (2013) among others. Her work has been included in numerous group exhibitions, including the Guggenheim Museum (2021), the Whitney Biennial, New York (2019), the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2019), and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2017). It is in numerous public collections, including the Guggenheim Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the San Jose Museum of Art, the Albright-Knox Museum, the Stedelijk Museum, and others. Jemison currently lives and works in Brooklyn and is an Associate Professor at Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts.

*Steffani Jemison & Justin Hicks' ​Another time, this time, one time is part of CCA Berlin's Stirring Up Trouble, a program unfolding until the end of June, and which aims to host, restage, and think alongside four distinct artistic positions that foreground acts of listening and their manifold potentialities. Through their practices, invited artists engage listening as a method of witnessing unseeable formations of violence (Lawrence Abu Hamdan); an invitation to inhabit tropical geographies otherwise (Kent Chan); an everyday practice of place-making and communitarian belonging (Black Obsidian Sound System); and a regenerative archival portal into shared inheritances and histories of struggle (Steffani Jemison and Justin Hicks). By tuning in to organized sounds, accidental leaks, and enforced silences, they conceive modes of aesthetic experience that challenge common perceptions of artmaking, and trace roadmaps to resonant imaginaries. Stirring Up Trouble is generously supported by the foundation Between Bridges. Co-conceived with Edwin Nasr.

[kevintumbles]

Theatre Review: ‘Mlima’s Tale’ at 1st Stage

Lynn Nottage’s, “Mlima’s Tale” is a beautiful play about the journey of an elephant, Mlima, whose tusks are removed after being illegally poached by hunters in the country of Kenya. It is a story that calls attention to animal rights laws and the black-market trade by giving personification to an elephant that haunts anyone who […] See original article at: https://mdtheatreguide.com/2022/09/theatre-review-mlimas-tale-at-1st-stage/

#MD Theater Guide

[public-digiturgy]

Mlima’s Tale

During Public Forum’s THE COST OF IVORY conversation, Mlima’s Tale playwright Lynn Nottage told us about how she discovered the plight of the African elephant -- and it begins with Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow.

#lynn nottage #the cost of ivory #mlimas tale #digiturgy #kathryn bigelow #elephants #poachers

[winstonthequant]

Lap Chi Chu (Mlima’s Tale) wins Outstanding Lighting Design. Award was presented by Be More Chill’s Will Roland and The Prom’s Caitlin Kinnunen.

#will roland #caitlin kinnunen #lap chi chu #mlima's tale #lortel awards

[jcams88]

Last preset done! Happy Closing to Mlima’s Tale 🐘 . . . {68/365} #theatre #dresser #backstage #costumes #behindthescenes #photoaday https://www.instagram.com/p/B30R-X_p7l7/?igshid=gtz6ukg2zxll

#theatre #dresser #backstage #costumes #behindthescenes #photoaday

[blackonbroadway]

Columbia Live Stage and The Michael Jackson Estate have now confirmed a pre-Broadway world premiere engagement for the previously announced new bio-musical based on the life and career of the late music icon Michael Jackson. The title of the show has also been revealed - Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough - named after Jackson's #1 hit, which was released on July 28, 1979.

The world premiere of Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough will be staged at Chicago's James M. Nederlander Theatre (formerly the Oriental Theatre) from October 29 through to December 1, 2019, before an expected Broadway premiere in 2020.

The bio-musical features a book by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage, who made her Broadway debut in 2017 with Sweat. Her numerous off-Broadway credits include Intimate Apparel, Ruined, Mlima's Tale, and By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, among others.

Tony Award winner Christopher Wheeldon is set to direct and choreograph the production.

#michael jackson #black broadway #broadway #Lynn Nottage #don't stop 'til you get enough broadway #Broadway Musical #musicals #dont stop til you get enough

[fyeahpippa]

Phillipa Soo and Steven Pasquale attend the opening night of Mlima's Tale at The Public Theatre, April 15th 2018 [x]

#phillipa soo #steven pasquale #phillipasooedit #musicaltheatreedit #hamiltonedit #hamiltoncastedit #broadwayedit #* #edits

[broadwaycom]

31 Must-See Shows from the Upcoming Season

F E B R U A R Y 

1. AMY AND THE ORPHANS

2. THE LOW ROAD

3. ADMISSIONS

4. ESCAPE TO MARGARITAVILLE

5. FROZEN

6. ANGELS IN AMERICA

7. THREE TALL WOMEN

8. CAROUSEL

M A R C H

9. LOBBY HERO

10. BOBBIE CLEARLY

11. MEAN GIRLS

12. THE STONE WITCH

13. MY FAIR LADY

14. HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD

15. MISS YOU LIKE HELL

16. ROCKTOPIA

17. THE ICEMAN COMETH

18. CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD

19. MLIMA'S TALE

20. SUMMER: THE DONNA SUMMER MUSICAL

21. TRAVESTIES

A P R I L

22. SAINT JOAN

24. TRANSFERS 25. PARADISE BLUE

26. THE BOYS IN THE BAND

M A Y 27. OUR LADY OF 121ST STREET 28. THE BEAST IN THE JUNGLE

29. DAN CODY'S YACHT

30. SUGAR IN OUR WOUNDS

31. SKINTIGHT

#Broadway #Off-Broadway #New York

[regenaxe]

Mlima’s Tale

Saint Louis’s Own Raja – An Asian Elephant Anne, Joanie and I returned to live theater for the first time in about a year-and-a-half, with the showing of Mlima’s Tale, at The Rep. We made a night of it, with dinner and a show. There were a lot of oddities about this performance, some of them Covid induced, some from the relative novelty of the experience. The venue was not at the Rep’s usual…

View On WordPress

#The Rep

[moulinrougefanfanfans]

•Congratulations to Sahr and the company of Mlima’s Tale on an excellent run at the Public (@publictheaterny)! Happy Closing! We are eagerly awaiting your portrayal of Toulouse-Lautrec in Boston!• . . 📸: @sahrngaujah . . Get your tickets for Moulin Rouge this summer in Boston NOW! 🔗: http://www.emersoncolonialtheatre.com/calendar/moulin-rouge-the-musical/ . . #moulinrouge #moulinrougemusical #moulinrougebroadway #boston #emersoncolonialtheatre #emersoncolonial #alextimbers #sonyatayeh #bazluhrmann #SpectacularSpectacular #becausewecancancan #elephantlovemedley #yoursong #comewhatmay #MoulinRougeFanFanFans #MRFanFanFans #AaronTveit #KarenOlivo #RobynHurder #DannyBurstein #TamMutu #SahrNgaujah #RickyRojas #MlimasTale #PublicTheater #publictheaterny

#elephantlovemedley #emersoncolonial #spectacularspectacular #comewhatmay #mlimastale #moulinrouge #aarontveit #rickyrojas #tammutu #moulinrougebroadway #yoursong #sonyatayeh #sahrngaujah #publictheaterny #dannyburstein #emersoncolonialtheatre #moulinrougefanfanfans #robynhurder #bazluhrmann #becausewecancancan #alextimbers #boston #mrfanfanfans #karenolivo #publictheater #moulinrougemusical

[jennmundia]

This summer, I had the pleasure of composing music for the Lynn Nottage’s play, “Mlima’s Tale” at @profiletheatre in Portland, Oregon. Alongside the incredible sound design from @eebalish, who brought me on to this project, I was able to enter a space I never have before. Because the play is primarily set in Kenya and I was in lockdown in North Carolina while composing, I commissioned my family to assist with pronunciations and was even able to interject traditional songs into the work. I rehearsed actors on Zoom, engineering remotely and we got it done together! I couldn’t have told you I would have done this at the top of the year but I’m glad I did. Thank you for the opportunity and congrats to the team. Link in bio for ways to listen to this audio drama. https://www.instagram.com/p/CGYQiU8jl95/?igshid=q3jtsassi2ue

[pearlistrippin]

Mlima's Tale by Lynn Nottage🐘 Theatre... It resuscitates my soul. Y'all done Chicago proud! Chicago is theatre's Mecca🦚 #JerrellLHenderson's adaptation of #LynnNottage 's, #MlimasTale was brilliantly executed by a richly diverse cast of Chicago's very own @DavidGoodloe ("Mlima (or more precisely, his ghost) is played to riveting effect by David Goodloe, an actor of immense physical grace and charisma whose exquisite performance is award-worthy." WTTW) #LewonJohns #MichaelTurrentine #BenChang #SarahLo #CollinMcShane #ChristopherThomasPow whose masterful dialectical executions took you across the world without leaving your seat. Wow...💫 Such a timely and poignant reminder of why this discipline and craft captivated my Storytelling proclivities at such a young tender age. Long before I understood the pervasive resistance that claims many o'passions and dreams.⚘ Theatre is vital to Humanity's evolution. To culture. To posterity. Bringing all into a sacred collective of feeling. Listening and active presence.👏🏿 Break the routine!😀 Go see, Mlima's Tale... For you. For culture. For exposure. For expansion. For the sanity. And do something different. Thank you, my dear friend, @thereeldavidgoodloe and all for this exhale🙏🏾 http://griffintheatre.com/mlimas-tale/ #Theatre #Chicago #ChicagoTheatre #PerformingArts #Actors #Actresses #GriffinTheatre #RavenTheatre #MidwestPremiere Photo Credit: (at Raven Theatre) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9I49zKpI0X/?igshid=1cwf0qccxc9ox

#jerrelllhenderson #lynnnottage #mlimastale #lewonjohns #michaelturrentine #benchang #sarahlo #collinmcshane #christopherthomaspow #theatre #chicago #chicagotheatre #performingarts #actors #actresses #griffintheatre #raventheatre #midwestpremiere

[public-digiturgy]

Mlima’s Tale

A brand new short piece of speculative fiction, published by the fine folks at Lightspeed Magazine - one that tells the story of a woman, of a birth, and of elephants. We won’t give anything more away... but suffice it to say, this one feels like a neat companion to the ghost story that Lynn has put onstage.

#mlimas tale #mlimastale #lightspeed magazine #fiction #digiturgy #timothy mudie #speculative fiction #short stories

[howglorygoes-to-the-library]

Mlima’s Tale ()

by Lynn Nottage

#fiction #plays

[theatredirectors]

Lauren Hlubny

Hometown?

I’m originally from a small town in South Jersey called Shamong.

Where are you now?

I live in Brooklyn, NY

What's your current project?

I’m currently working on Thoughts & Prayers — a dance-theatre-concerto—which for us means a dance-heavy, music-driven theatre piece. It presents my thoughts on the American way of dealing with calamity - be it an act of man or a natural disaster.  This work is about many things, but the most compelling for me is the focus on how to fight complacency and engage in the world in a way that makes a difference. Thoughts & Prayers is about the different ways we can react to catastrophe. Through music, dialogue, and dance, we explore human reactions, such as numbness, mourning, guilt, laughter, and more which keep us stuck in cycles of disaster, until there reaches a point where something changes, someone listens. We take the audience on a journey from letting things happen and feeling trapped and hopeless, to taking whatever agency they can. This piece is tragic, funny even at moments, but overall it is about hope. Tragedy may happen, but we have the power to do something about it. It is our goal that the audience leaves with the tools necessary to take that next step towards action. Please join us September 19-29 (tech is in less than two weeks!) at TADA! Theatre in Manhattan.

Why and how did you get into theatre?

My first exposure to theatre was sneaking into my living room way past my bedtime and catching the ending of the movie version of Evita featuring Madonna. From then on, I was hooked on movie musicals, borrowing them in bulk from the local library and devouring them learning everything I could. When I got to high school, and they didn’t have a theatre teacher, I went around getting students to sign a petition so that the school would hire one (and they did!). I was really lucky to go to Florida State University for theatre and cultural anthropology, and it was there that I studied under some of the premier specialists of Jerzy Grotowski and Vsevolod Meyerhold in the United States, both trailblazers in experimental physical theatre, and that’s what kept me in this field years later. It’s really incredible that almost the entirety of the creative team for Thoughts & Prayers studied at some point in time at FSU, whether it be for their undergrad or doctorate, and every collaborator on the team has had the capacity to tour the world, speaking at conferences, performing music, presenting work, and engaging with the best of the best around about town here in NYC too, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alvin Ailey, NY Deaf Theatre, Joe’s Pub, and countless other top-notch places.

What is your directing dream project?

My directing dream project is one which is capable of paying everyone involved the amount they deserve while not compromising our desire to innovate in the space between circus, theatre, dance, and music or our values of focusing on work which is conscious of the political climate in which it is created. When I started to devote myself to being a director, I started a list of projects, and they range in scope, some are huge circus-style pieces (yes, complete with stilts) which I want to stage in public arenas in Paris and make them free to anyone who would like to come, while some are smaller--like staging a classical story on a sailboat sailed by dancers. I’ve always been fond of taking well-known stories and completely upending them,  finding a way to make the work accessible without sacrificing the desire for positive change. I don’t have my sights set on staging any canon works, I’m more invigorated by the idea of continuing to make something completely new--and to challenge myself in ways that make my craft harder and harder. The audience arrangement is one example of how I’ve been able to do this and staging Thoughts & Prayers in tennis court style seating was incredibly challenging. How can I keep developing my research and the research of theatre practitioners before me while pushing myself to take risks that are  almost insurmountable?

What kind of theatre excites you?

The kind of theatre that excites me is aware of the theatre researchers that came before and also conscious of the world in which it is made—the type of theatre that provides a call to action without sacrificing the desire to present the highest caliber of skill in its performers. I’m excited by theatre which pushes people just outside of their comfort zones, performers included. Examples of shows that take risks like this include Fairview, Indecent, and Mlima’s Tale, shows that take risks with their visuals and their audiences, and do not shy away from the decision to make something new and meaningful in the current climate. I am moved by theatre which considers the range of accessibility that their audience has to the content. I am thrilled by theatre which entices its audience away from complacency and vaults them into a conversation, keeping them buzzing weeks, months, even years after with the memories and the call to action embedded in the piece. Embedded in this work, we are challenging the audience to observe one another, and be on both sides of the discussion.

What do you want to change about theatre today?

A big difficulty for theatre-makers today is finding outside-the-box ways to survive. Taking big risks to make work you believe in is difficult when you have to put food on the table, but risks are what make history—and make truly compelling work. It is the responsibility of theatre to make change happen in the world and not to recycle stories that glorify problems (like mistreatment of women), to provide a safe space (especially for makers from less represented communities) to question society and inspire change. In order to make this sort of theatre commercially accessible, producers and benefactors need to put money into it and people need to stop stigmatizing humans who wish to become artists. In my own practice, I only work on shows that deliver a message of equality and positive social change to their audiences. I endeavor to be inclusive in my casting. I do not condone aimless violence on stage—as violence is violence no matter the setting. I am committed to ensuring that my performers and collaborators feel safe to be vulnerable in our rehearsal and performance spaces. I find ways to compensate my teams any way I can, whether it be by honing skills they are interested in acquiring or tirelessly raising money so that everyone on the team gets paid. I don’t compromise when it comes to my values. I like to recall a meeting I had with an acclaimed neurosurgeon in Lublin, Poland, where he told me he actually admired what I do more than I could even know. When I asked him why, he said, “What I do saves lives, what you do gives people a reason to live.”

What is your opinion on getting a directing MFA?

It’s a prudent move if you wish to teach at the university level.

Who are your theatrical heroes?

Pina Bausch. Crystal Pite. Yes, they’re both in the dance community, but for me, they are trailblazers in the performing arts, past and present, and it’s difficult to find historical role models in the dance-theatre field who are not men identifying. These two women have an incredible capability to create movement vocabularies which not only captivate me but take me places narratively that I cannot get out of my memory. The specificity in their work is not only physical but the emotional throughline, the hopelessness and the joy, the dark and the bright all wrapped into one moment--they make me want to keep working harder to find that place in my narratives. I find myself holding my breath when I see their works, and when the curtain falls I’m saddened that the experience has ended.

Any advice for directors just starting out?

Practice. Hone your craft. Take weird gigs. Respect your performers. You never know where an opportunity will come from. Before I was a director, I was a performer and a stage electrician. My devotion towards learning those two crafts, and the ins and outs of how they could inter-play on stage gave me the skills to create the images on stage I see only in my dreams, and in a safe, respectful, and resourceful way. Taking on strange challenges, like directing a circus-theatre show in a backyard in Maine for a community, that included gathering arborists to make sure the tree is safe enough for a trapeze to be strung up (and there are pictures of me stringing up a thirty-foot sheet to a tree limb so I could backlight a trapeze artist). My biggest advice would be to work with collaborators that you believe in—surround yourself with people who are willing to put the work in, and are not willing to compromise their values, and you will always feel fulfilled.

Plugs?

Join us for Thoughts & Prayers and for various post-show panel discussions led by social justice and arts organizations, September 19-29. Since the show is in tennis court-style seating (audience on both sides of the stage), plan to come at least twice to catch all of the action! 

https://thoughtsandprayerstheshow.brownpapertickets.com/.

#Lauren Hlubny #askadirector #theatre directors

[funnynewsheadlines]

Lynn Nottage Wants to Save the Elephants

Peter Canby writes on “Mlima’s Tale,” a haunting new play by Lynn Nottage that traces the path of a poached elephant’s tusks, as they are trafficked through a series of underground transactions. from Humor, Satire, and Cartoons https://ift.tt/2Jc0sWV from Blogger https://ift.tt/2F1Um94

#funny news #funny videos #funny news today #funny photos