A Mind On The Edge- Homage To Sarah Kane
"They will love me for that which destroys me...
Every compliment takes a piece of my soul
An expressionist nag
Stalling between two fools
They know nothing -
I have always walked free"- Sarah Kane, 4.48 Psychosis
An homage evening dedicated to playwright Sarah Kane with works by diverse performance artists across theater, dance and opera.
Participating artists:
Mia Schachter, Michael Freeman, Stacy Lynn Smith, Siw Laurent and Ashlie Lauren
Details/Bios:
Stacy Lynn Smith is a performance artist specializing in Butoh dance and experimental theater. She has been a principal dancer with Butoh company Vangeline Theater since 2008. She enjoys collaborating with a variety of artists, most notably Michael Freeman, who has featured her in a number of his experimental works and most recently, she has had the pleasure of directing him. Favorite performances include: Oracle and Enigma, directed by Katsura Kan, Centre Tenri, Paris, France; Harbor, film directed by Steven Vega, Robert Wilson's Watermill Center/Art Basel Miami; Vanity Fair Italia feature, Vangeline Theater/Issue 31; Plans, written/directed by Michael Freeman; Footsteps on the...., a reperformance of Karen Bernard's 1993 solo work.
Ashlie Lauren Smith is a classically trained vocalist, performance artist and member of the Guided Imagery Opera. Siw Laurent is a French-Norwegian actress and interdisciplinary performer at InMoArCo.
Their work is dedicated to serve humanity and incorporate intuitive consciousness into the art of performing.
Michael Freeman graduated in 2014 with a BA in Cultural Studies from SUNY Empire State College. He is the recipient of the Richard Porter Leach Fellowship and also received funding from the Dramatists Guild and the PEN Writers Guild. His play 'Plans' was published by the Secret Theater and has written two screenplays: "The Muffin Man" and "Holding the Roses of Jesus" for which he twice received the Nicholas Pekearo Award for Creative Writing. Michael began dancing with the Chautauqua Ballet under the direction of Jean-Pierre Bonnefous. In the 1990s, he was a scholarship student at the Martha Graham School and with renowned composition teacher Bessie Schonberg. Michael specializes in Lecoq-based clown work. He has studied Native American clown (Pochinko) technique at the Canada's Theatre Resource Centre under the direction of Sue Morrison since 2002. His performances and choreography have been seen at the Joyce Theater Soho, The Hell and Tiny Theater Festivals at the Brick, HERE Arts Center FUSE Festival, BAAD in the Bronx, Dixon Place HOT Festival, Mulberry Theater New Steps Series, Ralph Lee’s Metawee Theater Company, The Box, The Duplex, Toronto Festival of Clowns, Toronto 24hour Butoh Festival, Wilmington Delaware Fringe Festival, From the Hip Horror Festival, Secret Theater, Flea Theater, Dance Theatre Etcetera, Wendy Perron Company, Movement Research, Pink Inc. and in films and commercials.
Mia Schachter is a playwright, director, performer and potter living and working in Brooklyn. She recently had a play performed at Glasshouse called Pancakes and assistant directed Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep under Elena Heyman, Tanya Marquardt’s show for a Mabou Mines residency. Directing credits include The Last Prestidigitation of Christ at the Greenhouse space, two pieces for the Jack and Julie Project at HB Studio, and her own play Making Strangers which debuted last year at The Living Gallery in Bushwick. Mia studies at HB Studio and at The PIT. She continues to work in various production positions in the theater and on television.
She will be performing with Tanya Marquardt and Ryan William Downey
Ryan William Downey is an actor, playwright, and musician. He serves as Associate Artistic Director of Title:Point, resident theatre company of The Silent Barn. Recent appearances include Jeff Stark's The Dreary Coast, Psychic Reading Co's Miss Chthonic Star Dream Pageant, The Mind King by Richard Foreman, as well as Biter (Every Time I Turn Around), Never Odd or Even, and Everything of Any Value, all of which he co-wrote. He is also a member of drug-punk band Chat Logs and provides voices for Pokemon film and television series.
Tanya Marquardt is a Canadian writer and performer living in Brooklyn, New York. Selected performing credits include: The Show Must Go On (Jerome Bell / PuSh Festival), a site specific show in IKEA called The Swedish Plays (radix theatre), this cage is a rickety bridge with collaborator Jesse Zubot (the Longest Night Festival), Antigone Undone (Leaky Heaven Circus), Canadians Are Mean (Melanie Jones/BAX) and Stray (Brooklyn Arts Exchange). As the Co-Artistic Director of Proximity Arts from 2008-2010 Tanya produced, performed, wrote and co-directed Transmission, which took place in once illegal poker space, and Mal de Mer, a dance about seasickness that took place atop a custom built moving ‘ship-stage’ at sunset. Tanya’s work has been supported by the DTRC, BC Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, American Association of University Women, and the Hertog Fellowship. Her work has been presented at Dixon Place, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, the PuSh Performing Arts Festival, the Vancouver International Dance Festival, Dancing on the Edge, VIVO Media Arts, and NeXtFest. She got her BFA in Theatre at Simon Fraser University, a Certificate of Dance at MainDance, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Hunter College. Currently she is writing Stray, a memoir of her time as a teenage runaway, creating Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep, a chamber work about her life as a sleep-talker, and is in the studio with Bluemouth Inc. working on a show about the Chomsky/Foucault debate Late Nite.