ABOUT PUBLIC PROGRAMMING AT THE ARMORY Park Avenue Armory’s Public Programming series brings diverse artists and cultural thought-leaders together for discussion and performance around the important issues of our time viewed through an artistic lens. Launched in 2017, the series encompasses a variety of programs including large-scale community events; multiday symposia; intimate salons featuring performances, panels, and discussions; Artist Talks in relation to the Armory’s Drill Hall programming; and other creative interventions.
Notable Public Programming salons include: the Literature Salon hosted by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, whose participants included Lynn Nottage, Suzan Lori-Parks, and Jeremy O. Harris, a Spoken Word Salon cohosted with the Nuyorican Poets Cafe; a Film Salon featuring the works of immersive artist and film director Lynette Wallworth; “Museum as Sanctuary” led by installation artist and Artist-in-Residence Tania Bruguera, curated by Sonia Guiñansaca and CultureStrike, and featuring undocu-artists Julio Salgado and Emulsify; and a Dance Salon presented in partnership with Dance Theater of Harlem, including New York City Ballet’s Wendy Whelan and choreographer Francesca Harper, among others. Artist Talks have featured esteemed artists, scholars, and thought leaders, such as: architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron in conversation with Ai Wei Wei, moderated by Juilliard president Damian Woetzel; director Ariane Mnouchkine and Pulitzer Prizewinning playwright Tony Kushner in conversation with New Yorker editor David Remnick; director Ivo van Hove in conversation with James Nicola, Artistic Director of New York Theater Workshop; artist William Kentridge and his collaborators Philip Miller and Thuthuka Sibisi in conversation with Dr. Augustus Casely Hayford, Director of the Smithsonian, National Museum of African Art; Lehman Trilogy director Sam Mendez and adapter Ben Power in conversation with playwright Lynn Nottage; artist and composer Heiner Goebbels in conversation with composer, vocalist, and scholar Gelsey Bell; and choreographer Bill T. Jones in conversation with architect Elizabeth Diller and designer Peter Nigrini, moderated by vocalist and performance artist Helga Davis.
Highlights from the Public Programming series include: Carrie Mae Weems’ 2017 event The Shape of Things and 2021 convening and concert series Land of Broken Dreams, whose participants included Elizabeth Alexander, Theaster Gates, Elizabeth Diller, Nona Hendryx, Somi, and Spike Lee, among others; a daylong Lenape Pow Wow and Standing Ground Symposium held in the Wade Thompson Drill Hall, the first congregation of Lenape Elders on Manhattan Island since the 1700s; “A New Vision for Justice in America” conversation series in collaboration with Common Justice, exploring new coalitions, insights, and ways of understanding question of justice and injustice in relation moderated by FLEXN Evolution creators Reggie “Regg Roc” Gray and director Peter Sellars; Culture in a Changing America Symposia exploring the role of art, creativity, and imagination in the social and political issues in American society today; the 2019 Black Artists Retreat hosted by Theaster Gates, which included public talks and performances, private sessions for the 300 attending artists, and a roller skating rink; and 100 Years | 100 Women, a multiorganization commissioning project that invited 100 women artists and cultural creators to respond to women’s suffrage.
NEXT IN THE SERIES BLOOM september 10 SYMPOSIUM: ART AT WATER’S EDGE october 9
ART AND MUTUAL AID IN THESE TIMES 2022 SEASON SPONSORS featuring Fabian Almazan , Mary Birnbaum , mayfield brooks , Emily Bruner , Dorothy Carlos , Cassils , Wilson Castro , Josiah Davis , Zeinebou Dia , Victoria Fernandez , Asma Feyijinmi , Karen Finley , Caroline Garcia , Nancy K. Gomez , Reggie (Regg Roc) Gray , Che Gossett , Jack Halberstam , Sebastian Harris , Maria Herron , Jesús Hilario-Reyes , Larry Jackson , Qween Jean , Stephanie Mesquita , Jennifer Miller , Chris Myers , National Black Theatre , Linda May Han Oh , a.k. payne , Matt Peterson , Ethan Philbrick , Neil Tyrone Pritchard , Kavita Shah , Carmelita Tropicana , Ela Troyano , Anh Vo , Woodbine Collective , and Justin Wong
CONVERSATION SERIES:
ARMORY
Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street
Cover image: Sojourner Truth Intuitive Portrait by Karen Finley. monday, august 21, 2022 at 12:00pm, 2:30pm, & 5:00pm MAKING SPACE AT THE SKILLSHARE:
Support for Park Avenue Armory’s artistic season has been generously provided by the Charina Endowment Fund, the Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, the Howard Gilman Foundation, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, the Marc Haas Foundation, The Prospect Hill Foundation, The Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Foundation, the Leon Levy Foundation, the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, GRoW @ Annenberg, the Richenthal Foundation, and the Isak and Rose Weinman Foundation. Additional support has been provided by the Armory’s Artistic Council. Park Avenue Armory is deeply grateful for Senator Charles E. Schumer’s visionary leadership of the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program.
“Mutual aid projects work to meet survival needs and build shared understanding about why people do not have what they need.”
3 Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street
The day begins with a roundtable discussion of art and mutual aid led by Prof. Jack Halberstam, Qween Jean, Chris Myers, and Che Gossett. After the roundtable and Q&A, someone will get a Golden Ticket (look in this program) to be the first person to be led upstairs to the Intuitive Studio to meet with your Intuitive Guide Karen Finley
. This is the world premiere of a roving disco dance tea party created by Karen Finley, and featuring a performance by the legendary Carmelita Tropicana and surprise guest. The Kitty Kaleidoscope Disco is a time capsule Covid vortex portal where we get to enter back into all the projects, plans, and dreams we had that may have been disrupted by the ongoing pandemic. So head upstairs and pick up some art supplies. Then come back down to enjoy a glass of bubbly, boogie down for the hour, and make a new art friend, collaborator, or theater buddy. Welcome, and welcome back to Park Avenue Armory, where all are welcome and creativity soars.
— Jack Halberstam, Unbuilding Gender
BY TAVIA NYONG’O, CURATOR OF PUBLIC PROGRAMMING AT PARK AVENUE ARMORY
. If you didn’t get a Golden Ticket, do not despair: Finley will be guiding participants in a series of performances for one throughout the afternoon. Elsewhere on the floor, a series of workshops, talks, salons, and performances will be happening (turn the page for the full details). Many of Artists-inResidence have generously opened their Company Rooms to showcase their work and the work of their collaborators. There will be fun activity and enlightenment for all ages. Get a peek behind the curtain into the creative process behind past, current, and future Armory shows. At 5pm, the open studios will conclude, and the audience will come downstairs to the Board of Officers Room (look for the velvet rope) to enter the Kitty Kaleidoscope Disco
— Dean Spade, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (And The Next)
“Audre Lorde’s epochal statement that ‘the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house’ is more important now than ever.
Mutual aid has long been a practice of self-organizing in response to immediate needs, and to give concrete form to people’s aspirations for a better life. In contrast to the model of patronage that has governed the arts since the fourteenth century, mutual aid societies began to form in the late eighteenth century as a means for pooling resources to retain independent decision-making authority within communities over time. The New York African Society for Mutual Relief, for example, was founded in 1808 and endured through World War II. An Artists’ Mutual Aid Society, first formed in the antebellum period to support artists and their families in crisis, is still in operation today. The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, concurrent with the ongoing struggle for racial justice and reproductive freedom, has brought home the centrality of mutual aid in a new way. In contrast to charity, mutual aid fosters solidarity among those most affected by a problem, and in so doing, models community in practice.
Skillshare brings artists, scholars, and activists together for an afternoon of talks, workshops, and activations that explore the range and vitality of mutual aid in the New York arts community today. Addressing the role of mutual aid in making culture in a changing America, today will also address the challenges mutual aid faces in addressing a cascading series of challenges.
I think that critical engagement with this sentiment in the past has emphasized the master’s tools, when perhaps we should all be thinking about dismantling the house.”
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
4armoryonpark.org | @ParkAveArmory A NOTE BY JONATHAN MCCRORY
Many (not all) artists are deeply hurting, and yet charged to heal us in this normalized confusion/grief we find ourselves in as a civilization. They are being charged to hold us in the darkness and provoke the kindling flames that give us light. However, modern society has not figured out how to truly take care of the precious gift housed inside the vessels that choose to be artists. We teach them tokenism primarily instead, especially for BIPOC artists, and with that trend still pervasive, there will be another exodus on our hands. Why fight to be cared for when my life is literally on the line to do this service? Thus, the gift we need will vanish in its multitude.
I have been asked to express to you my practice: the ways I work with, build, and support artists. As a creative doula who has had the extreme fortune to work for 10 years as the Executive Artistic Director at National Black Theatre, in co-leadership with CEO Sade Lythcott, there is certainly a practice to share. There is an equation, an algorithm and pedagogy that has been honed and that drives the soul of the work we do at NBT, derived and influenced by many people, and primarily by Dr. Barbara Ann Teer, NBT’s Founder. Yet, all of that feels secondary to a word that is coursing through my heart in this moment. So this will be a meditation on what is on my heart and maybe both goals will be achieved through the sharing.
The system of care, self-care, and radical hospitality has been lost in an industry focused on metrics and western capitalism. I wonder if we can shift this narrative. I wonder if we can find ways to create equitable indigenous practices that are localized to the community, formed to create the work that allows for the next generation not to be burned by false lessons, yet rise as the phoenix society will need. Artists, I hope you know that there are champions working to reboot the system and create the much-needed oasis you deserve; not void of obstacles or challenges, yet centering the presence of CARE and LOVE.
Community, I hope you will stand in the path of righteous radical care and as you witness these works, you not only marvel at the finished product, but also understand that for this to be done is a testimony of resilience. And pray that it was done gently, without the artists having to stomach pain for us to be entertained. For, to get to this point means that people claimed, loved on and strategically poured themselves into this in order for imagination to be witnessed and shared.
I hope we never stop this practice, yet get better at it!! That we continue to unfurl into imagination embrace and allow this contagious ancient medicine be used as a component to our needed salve.
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, NATIONAL BLACK THEATRE
A world lacking imagination is a world suffering at its core. It’s a space where innovation, problem solving, evolution and even compassion suffer. It is through harnessing the power of imagination that these traits have led the revitalization of civilizations from a slow irreversible death. And a part of the magic of imagination is how we learn how to share it. How we learn how to find a bridge of understanding that allows for my heart to find yours. For my spirit to get unfurled from isolation and find its community. And after a systematic shutdown of the world we once knew, we could use as much unfurling as possible. This is what an artist does. It is what we marvel and celebrate, and even the reason why many of you are here. We are seeking to converge with a transformative force that helps us make sense of the world, the life we are participating in. Yet do we really appreciate the barriers these folx face to provide us this essential service? The way the artist is willing to stand in a gap, continuing to unfurl in courageous ways amidst two pandemics, war, death, and unsteady economic conditions (just to name a few). Against all of that as a backdrop, a group of people have found a way, through imagination, to connect us and let one’s heart be seen by another; a way to let our spirit have a shared IRL experience with another. Yet how do we not see the artist solely as a product within a factory to meet us with tools of amusement, escape, and wonder? How do we humanize the exchange?
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Kitty Kaleidoscope Disco Board of Officers Room
The day’s proceedings open with a performance by cellist Ethan Philbrick, followed by a roundtable discussion led by Columbia University Professor Jack Halberstam focused on the state of mutual aid and the arts communities in New York, the US, and globally. Participants include Racial Justice Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia Law School’s Initiative for a Just Society Che Gossett; costume designer and founder of Black Trans Liberation Qween Jean; and actor and founder of Anticapitalism for Artists Chris Myers.
SESSION ONE 12:00PM –Performance2:00PMandPlenary Discussion Veterans Room
SESSION TWO 2:30PM – 5:00PM Open Studios, Workshops, and Salons Second Floor Inspired by the tradition of artists helping artists, artists from across the Armory offer opportunities for those in attendance to explore dance, poetry, music, and more through open studios, workshops, and salons in the Armory's historic second-floor company rooms. Hosted by a range of Armory artists and partners, these activations hold space for artists and audiences to connect, collaborate, and rediscover what it means to create in community after such a long period of isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The day ends with the Kitty Kaleidoscope Disco, the world premiere of a roving disco dance tea party created by Karen Finley, featuring performances by the legendary Carmelita Tropicana, DJ Jesús Hilario-Reyes, and more.
SESSION THREE 5:00PM – 6:00PM
5 Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street
Composer-vocalist Kavita Shah revisits her work “Folk Songs of Naboréa” in conversation with opera director Mary Birnbaum
Company C: Karen Finley: Intuitive Guide / Intuitive Studio
Company A: Maria Herron and Matt Peterson of Woodbine Collective: Surviving the Disaster Woodbine Collective organizers Maria Herron and Matt Peterson moderate a discussion on experiments with neighborhood selforganization, mutual aid, and coalition building in Ridgewood and Bushwick addressing crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Company K: Carmelita Tropicana and Ela Troyano: “Sister Acts,” On Collaboration
A masterclass on collaboration with Armory Artist-in-Residence Carmelita Tropicana and her sister, interdisciplinary filmmaker Ela Troyano, followed by a Q&A.
Company D: Kavita Shah
Company E: Cassils and Kristen Cabildo Visual art performance warrior Cassils and martial arts instructor and coach Kristen Cabildo lead trauma-informed self-defense workshops for trans, nonbinary, Queer people and folx who identify as women, with teaching assistant Caroline Garcia
Company H: National Black Theatre: Josiah Davis and a. k. payne National Black Theatre showcases an excerpt of a new play called Amani by a. k. payne directed by NBT Soul Directing Resident Josiah Davis The play will have its world premiere in February 2023 as a co-production with Rattlestick.
Company F: Reggie (Regg Roc) Gray Armory Artist-in-Residence and flexn pioneer Reggie (Regg Roc) Gray hosts a dance rehearsal and dance off.
Company M: Ethan Philbrick: Mutual Aid Among Animals: A Live Taping Cellist Ethan Philbrick leads a participatory reading of an excerpt from Peter Kropotkin’s early 20th century writing on mutual aid and aminals with collaborators mayfield brooks, Dorothy Carlos, Jennifer Miller, Justin Wong, and Anh Vo E W
Company I: Fabian Almazan and Linda May Han Oh Jazz pianist Fabian Almazan and bassist and composer Linda May Han Oh offer musical performances and share their work with Biophilia Records, a record label that promotes environmental awareness.
This active/participatory creative workshop invites participants to experience first-hand the creative process-driven, multidisciplinary, intergenerational pedagogical approach that is at the center of all Armory Arts Education initiatives by exploring the artistry of Carrie Mae Weems.
Company G & L: Park Avenue Armory Teaching Artists and Youth Corps
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CompanyCCompanyDCompanyECompanyFCompanyGCompanyI CompanyM CompanyACompanyLCompanyK CompanyH
In one-on-one sessions of Intuitive Guidance, participants receive words and images from legendary artist Karen Finley to unlock their creative spirit. Participants can also choose to take repair to the adjoining Intuitive Studio, with a mandate to collaborate.
OPEN STUDIOS, WORKSHOPS, & SALONS N
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7 Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street
CASSILS
Transgender artist Cassils makes their own body the material and protagonist of their performances, contemplating the history(s) of LGBTQI+ violence, representation, struggle, and survival and using performance as social sculpture: Drawing from the idea that bodies are formed in relation to forces of power and social expectations, Cassils’ work investigates historical contexts to examine the present moment. Recent solo exhibitions: HOME Manchester; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, TX; Perth Institute for Contemporary Arts; Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, NYC; Institute for Contemporary Art, AU; Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts; School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston; Bemis Center, Omaha; MU Eindhoven, Netherlands. They are the recipient of a 2020 Fleck Residency from the Banff Center for the Arts, a Princeton Lewis Artist Fellowship finalist (2020), a Villa Bellagio Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship (2019), a United States Artist Fellowship (2018), a Guggenheim Fellowship and a COLA Grant (2017) and a Creative Capital Award (2015). They have received the inaugural ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art, California Community Foundation Grant, MOTHA (Museum of Transgender Hirstory) award, and numerous Visual Artist Fellowships from the Canada Council of the Arts. Their work has been featured in New York Times, Boston Globe, Artforum, Hyperallergic, Wired, TheGuardian, TDR, Performance Research, Art Journal and was the subject of the monograph Cassils, and their new catalog Solutions, is published by the Station Museum (2020). Cassils’ work was recently acquired by the Victoria Albert Museum, London; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; and Leslie Lohman Museum.
KRISTEN CABILDO
FABIAN ALMAZAN
JOSIAH DAVIS Josiah Davis (he/him) is a multi-disciplinary artist from Dallas. A director, choreographer, designer, and actor, his work intersects expressive movement, live music, emerging technology, and ritual to breathe new life to physical storytelling. Asking, is it possible to create space for people to be in sync when we are pulled apart by invisible systems? He is a graduate from the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television and Brown/Trinity MFA Directing, a company member of Theatre Lumina, a NYTW 2050 fellow, National Black Theatre Soul Directing Resident, Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellow, and Associate Artistic Director of On The Verge Theatre Festival in Santa Barbara.
ARMORY ARTS EDUCATION
MEET THE PARTICIPANTS
Arts Education at Park Avenue Armory immerses students from New York City public schools in the creative process of world-class artists and fosters students’ own creative instincts. The program has three main components: (1) Production-based Programming, in which students experience works of music, theater, dance and visual art, and participate in workshops with Teaching Artists; (2) School Partnership Initiative, in which deeper relationships with schools are created through customized residencies; and (3) the Armory Youth Corps, a paid and closely mentored internship program for students ages 16-25+ with nearly 100 participants annually. Today’s workshop is facilitated by Armory Arts Education teaching artists, assistants, and Youth Corps members Asma Feyijinmi, Emily Bruner, Larry Jackson, Nancy K. Gomez, Neil Tyrone Pritchard, Victoria Fernandez, Sebastian Harris, Stephanie Mesquita, Wilson Castro, and Zeinebou Dia.
Kristen Cabildo has been training in the martial arts for 20 years. She is a Filipino Martial Arts and Jeet Kune Do instructor under the legendary Guro Dan Inosanto, close friend and training partner of the late Bruce Lee. Cabildo also has extensive experience in boxing, Muay Thai kickboxing, and Brazilian JiuJitsu. Additionally, Cabildo is a trauma-informed social worker, personal trainer, and intuitive coach. She believes that our bodies hold our personal and collective histories, but through an intentional embodied practice, we can retell our stories based on healing and transformation. She teaches at Unlimited Martial Arts Academy in New York City.
Cuban American pianist-composer Fabian Almazan has developed a personal voice through the electric manipulation of the acoustic piano in live and studio settings. He has toured his music extensively as well as accompanied artists such as Linda May Han Oh, Terence Blanchard, Gretchen Parlato, John Hollenbeck, Mark Guiliana, Dave Douglass, Avishai Cohen and Ambrose Akinmusire among others. Almazan can be heard in the films Harriet, Chi-Raq, Red Tails, and Miracle at St. Anna. Awards include two Grammy nominations, the SWR New Jazz Meeting commission, the Copland Fund, the Jerome Fund for Emerging Composers Award, the Jazz Gallery Residency, Rockerfeller Brothers Residency, Cintas Foundation Award in Composition, and the Sundance Composers’ Lab. Almazan is the founder and director of Biophilia Records, fusing meaningful and imaginative music with a common interest in having a positive impact on the environment and communities. BM in Jazz Piano, Manhattan School of Music; orchestral composition studies under Giampaolo Bracali.
Che Gossett is a Black nonbinary femme writer and critical theorist specializing in queer/trans studies, aesthetic theory, abolitionist thought, and Black study. Education includes: a PhD in Women’s and Gender Studies from Rutgers University, New Brunswick; MAT in Social Studies from Brown University; MA in History from University of Pennsylvania; and BA in African American Studies from Morehouse College. Awards include the 2019-2020 Helena Rubenstein Fellow in the Whitney Independent Study Program and a Ruth Stephan Fellowship from Yale’s Beinecke Library, summer 2022. Gossett will serve as Visiting Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Animal Law and Policy Program in fall 2022 and at Oxford University’s Centre for Life-Writing at Wolfson College and the Rothermere American Institute, as well as the Centre for Visual Culture at the University of Cambridge in spring 2023.
Brooklyn-born dancer and choreographer Reggie (Regg Roc) Gray is the pioneer of the hybrid dance genre Flexn: a combination of various styles from the local scene such as bone breaking, gliding, get-low, connecting, hat tricks, punchlines, and pauzin, an animated and cinematic flex style Gray revolutionized. Drawing on the Jamaican street styles of Brooklyn like bruk up and dancehall, the style was named after the regional TV program Flex N Brooklyn. Gray has won several top dance titles, danced for television shows such as America’s Best Dance Crew, and in music videos for Wayne Wonder, Sean Paul, Nicki Minaj, and others. Gray has performed with his award-winning dance crew RingMasters and his new dance company The D.R.E.A.M. RING (Dance Rules Everything Around Me). He has choreographed FLEXN and FLEXN Evolution at Park Avenue Armory, which toured to the Brisbane, Marseille, Napoli Teatro, and Jacob’s Pillow festivals, as well as Princeton and Dartmouth. Other works with his crew include: choreographic contributions to Public Works; The Odyssey at New York’s Public Theater; a residency at National Sawdust; and Flex Ave. commissioned by CAMI music and The Dream Ring Inc. Gray spends his time choreographing productions that speak to social justice topics, organizing showcase battles and performances for the street dance community, and developing his upcoming dance production and documentary Infinite
JACK HALBERSTAM Jack Halberstam is Professor of Gender Studies and English at Columbia University. Halberstam is the author of seven books including: Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters (Duke UP, 1995), Female Masculinity (Duke UP, 1998), In A Queer Time and Place (NYU Press, 2005), The Queer Art of Failure (Duke UP, 2011), Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal (Beacon Press, 2012), and a short book titled Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variance (University of California Press). Halberstam’s latest book, out in 2020, from Duke UP is titled Wild Things: The Disorder of Desire. Places Journal awarded Halberstam its Arcus/Places Prize in 2018 for innovative public scholarship on the relationship between gender, sexuality, and the built environment. Halberstam is now finishing a second volume on wildness titled: The Wild Beyond: Music, Architecture and Anarchy.
8armoryonpark.org | @ParkAveArmory
REGGIE (REGG ROC) GRAY
CHE GOSSETT
MARIA HERRON Maria Herron has been a part of Woodbine Collective since 2017, from which she organizes both tertiary community projects as well as investigates modes of daily communal living via their weekly dinners, weight lifting gym, and co-working space. Herron is Founder and Co-Director of Mil Mundos Books, a bilingual bookstore in Bushwick curating to celebrate Black, Latinx, and Indigenous heritage, as well as Co-Founder of Mil Mundos en Común, a nonprofit supporting access to essential goods, literature, and digital literacy in Bushwick. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Herron worked with other organizers to start Bushwick Ayuda Mutua, a mutual aid network providing food, essential goods, and social services via coalition model. Herron works full time as a camera technician.
KAREN FINLEY Karen Finley works in many mediums, including installation, video, performance, public art, visual art, entertainment, television and film, memorials, music, and literature. She has presented at world-wide venues, such as Paris’ Bobino, London’s ICA, and Lincoln Center. Her work is in collections such as the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Pompidou. Books: 25th anniversary edition of Shock Treatment (City Lights 2015); Reality Shows (Feminist Press 2011); and George and Martha (Verso, 2008); and five others. Recent work includes Artist Anonymous (Museum of Art and Design, 2014); Written in Sand; Open Heart (Camp Gusen, Austria); Broken Negative; and Sext ME if You Can (New Museum). Awards/grants: Guggenheim, NYSCA, and NEA fellowships; Richard J Massey Foundation Arts and Humanities award (2015). MFA, San Francisco Art Institute. Finley was previously commissioned for the Armory’s 2020 100 Years | 100 Women project.
9 Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street
CHRIS MYERS Chris Myers is a New York born and based actor, writer, and educator. He is an alumnus of Harlem School for the Arts, LaGuardia High School, and The Juilliard School. As an actor, he has worked on Broadway and Off-Broadway at venues including The Public, Lincoln Center, Roundabout, Second Stage, and MCC. On screen, he has appeared in shows for Netflix, Amazon, CBS, FOX, and VH1, among others. He won an Obie Award for his performance in Branden JacobsJenkins An Octoroon. As a writer, he has self-produced two short films and a pilot, GUAP, a comedy about gentrification. As an educator, organizer, and founding member of Anticapitalism for Artists, he received the 2021 Segal Center Award for Civic Engagement in the Arts.
JESÚS HILARIO-REYES
LINDA MAY HAN OH
Based in New York City, Linda May Han Oh is a bassist and composer who has performed and recorded with artists such as Pat Metheny, Kenny Barron, Joe Lovano, Dave Douglas, Terri Lyne Carrington, Steve Wilson, Geri Allen, and Vijay Iyer. She has had five releases as a leader which have received critical acclaim. Her most recent release, Aventurine, is a double quartet album, featuring string quartet and vocal group Invenio.
National Black Theatre (NBT), the nation’s first revenuegenerating Black arts complex, was founded in 1968 by the late visionary artist and entrepreneur Dr. Barbara Ann Teer. A champion for Black entrepreneurship and community building, NBT is the longest-running Black theater in NYC founded and consistently operated by a Black woman in the nation. Since its inception, NBT has been at the forefront of a broader movement of engaging the arts for social change, economic growth, and transformation in innovative ways that build community through the institution’s programs. NBT is a leading institution engaged in intentional creative place-making by leveraging the power of theater arts with Black culture and creativity. Throughout its rich history, NBT has maintained a strong commitment to creating a space in which new and underrepresented voices can be brought to the forefront to provide unique and diverse perspectives on the myriad critical issues of equity and social justice that affect our nation today. During the past 50 years, NBT has produced over 300 original works, toured globally, and launched international extensions, like the National Black Theatre of Sweden.
QWEEN JEAN Qween Jean is a New York-based stage and film costume designer. She is Founder of Black Trans Liberation, an organization providing access and employment resources for the TGNC community. Qween has committed her voice to advocating for marginalized communities, specifically Black trans people. Her passion is creating access for unsung heroes and people who are often overlooked. She feels their stories are valuable and deserve recognition. Qween is thrilled to be apart of Black No More! The New Group: The Fever, I Need Space, Waiting For Godot, and One In Two. Credits include: Macbeth in Stride, Our Dear Dead Drug Lord, Siblings Play, Amen Corner, Rags Parkland, Good Grief, Othello, Wig Out! Mary Antionette, Little Shop of Horrors, and the highly acclaimed What to Send Up, When it Goes Down by Aleshea Harris. MFA Design, NYU Tisch.
NATIONAL BLACK THEATRE
Oh previously appear at the Armory in Carrie Mae Weems December 2021 gathering Land of Broken Dreams, as part of the artist’s Drill Hall exhibition The Shape of Things a.k. payne a.k. payne (she/they) is a playwright and theatermaker with roots in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her plays love on and engage the interdependencies of Black pasts, presents, and futures to find/remember language that might move us towards our collective liberation(s). They hold a BA in English and AfricanAmerican Studies from Yale College and are currently pursuing an MFA in playwriting from the Yale School of Drama. Their work has been finalist for the L. Arnold Weissberger New Play Award, semifinalist for the O'Neill National Playwriting Conference and winner of the David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award. Her plays have been workshopped with Manhattan Theater Club’s “Groundworks Lab” and Roundabout Theater Company. In all their work they strive to create abundant space for Black folks’ freedom dreams, in community.
Currently based in Brooklyn, New York, Jesús Hilario-Reyes (born 1996, San Juan, Puerto Rico) is an interdisciplinary artist with a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts Studio from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Recently a recipient of the Drawing a Blank Artist Grant, Leslie Lohman Fellowship, Lighthouse Works Fellowship (2022) and Bemis Center Residency (2022) program. Jesús Hilario-Reyes has exhibited/screened both nationally and internationally, most notably at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Black Star Film Festival, and Mana Contemporary. While situating their practice at the crossroads of sonic performance, land installation, and expanded cinema, their iterative works examine carnival and rave culture throughout the West to take on a necessary satirical approach to undermine the systems at play.
María Fernanda Snellings Producer, Park Avenue Armory Jhanaë Bonnick, Grace Hill Stage Managers Mohamed Adesumbo, Oscar Montenegro, Silas Rodriguez Production Assistants
ETHAN PHILBRICK
10armoryonpark.org | @ParkAveArmory
MATT PETERSON Matt Peterson is an organizer at Woodbine Collective, an experimental space in Ridgewood, Queens. He directed the documentary features Scenes from a Revolt Sustained and Spaces of Exception, and co-edited the books In the Name of the People and The Mohawk Warrior Society. Since 2014 he has collaborated with Malek Rasamny on “The Native and the Refugee,” a multimedia documentary project on American Indian reservations and Palestinian refugee camps.
CARMELITA TROPICANA
Your Kunst is Your Waffen—Your Art is Your Weapon, attended the Sundance Institute’s screenwriting workshop with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and received awards from Creative Capital, the Ford Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Latino Public Broadcasting, Independent Television Service, New York State Council on the Arts, Rockefeller Media, and a United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship.
KAVITA SHAH Kavita Shah is an award-winning vocalist, composer, educator, polyglot, and lifelong New Yorker. Her projects blending modern jazz, new music, and world traditions include “Visions” (2014, co-produced by Lionel Loueke), the interdisciplinary “Folk Songs of Naboréa” (premiered at the Armory), “Interplay” in duet with bassist François Moutin (2018, nominated for France’s Victoires de la Musique for Jazz Album of the Year), “Cape Verdean Blues” (forthcoming 2022). She is currently working on a new album of original music written for her jazz quintet. Shah’s work has been supported by New Music America, Jerome Foundation, Chamber Music America, and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. She has performed and recorded with Sheila Jordan, Martial Solal, Miguel Zenón, Lionel Loueke, Billy Childs Quartet, and Miho Hazama’s m-unit, among others. BA in Latin American Studies, Harvard; MM in Jazz Voice, Manhattan School of Music. Shah speaks nine languages.
Ethan Philbrick is a cellist, writer, and artist. Recent projects include Choral Marx at NYU Skirball (2018), 10 Meditations in an Emergency at The Poetry Project and Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (2019/2020), March is for Marches with Morgan Bassichis at Triple Canopy (2019), Disordo Virtutum at Museum of Art and Design (2020), Slow Dances at The Kitchen Video Viewing Room (2020), and The Gay Divorcees at the One Archives at USC (2021). Philbrick’s writing has been published in academic journals such as ASAP/Journal, PAJ, Studies in Gender and Sexuality, TDR, and Women and Performance Philbrick holds a PhD in performance studies from New York University.
ELA TROYANO Ela Troyano is a writer, director, producer, and interdisciplinary artist. Her projects bring together different aesthetic histories and genres, from downtown New York avant-garde film and performance, to queer cinema, and Latinx film and video as well as commercial television. Troyano received the Teddy Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival for Carmelita Tropicana
PRODUCTION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Carmelita Tropicana is a writer, performer, educator who uses humor and fantasy to challenge cultural stereotypes and rewrite history. She has received awards/fellowships including: LatinX Artist Fellowship (2022), United States Artists Fellowship (2021), Guggenheim Fellowship (2017), Creative Capital Award (2016), and an Obie Award (1999). Her writing appears in I, Carmelita Tropicana, Performing Between Cultures (2000), a collection of scripts, short stories, and essays, and she was one of the editors on Memories of the Revolution: The First Ten Years of the Wow Café Theater (2015); her solo Milk of Amnesia will appear in the forthcoming A Handbook of LatinX Art.
WOODBINE COLLECTIVE Woodbine Collective is a volunteer-run experimental hub in Ridgewood, Queens for developing the practices, skills, and tools needed to build autonomy. The organization hosts workshops, lectures, discussions and serves as a meeting and organizing space.
