Baryshnikov Arts Center Premieres Mariana Valencia's BROWNOUT and Holland Andrews' MUSEUM OF CALM

Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) presents the next installments of its 2021 digital spring season. brownout, a solo created, directed and performed by choreographer and performer Mariana Valencia, premieres on Monday, March 1 at 5pm ET and is available to view until Monday, March 15 at 5pm ET at BACNYC.org.

Filmed at locations in upstate New York, Valencia's new work uses a series of movement and sound scores to play with narrative, abstraction, and inference. Generating a visual essay through the "stage" of the camera, brownout shifts the frame from one lens to the next with a focus on loss and lack.

"By definition, a brownout is 'an electrical demand that exceeds the available supply of power,' says Valencia. "A brownout is similar to other words used to describe shifts in electricity, visibility, or perception such as 'whiteout,' 'greyout,' and 'blackout,' and in this work, we explore them all."

A live-streamed conversation with Mariana Valencia and curator Ali Rosa-Salas will be held on Wednesday, March 10 at 8pm ET. Free registration for the live Zoom conversation is available beginning March 1 at 5pm ET at BACNYC.org.

Museum of Calm, a solo by extended-technique vocalist, performer, and composer Holland Andrews, premieres on Monday, March 15 at 5pm ET and is available through Monday, March 29 at 5pm ET at BACNYC.org. The digital music performance generates interior worlds to offer strategies for navigating through chaos, accessing freedom within fantasy, and sustaining the energy required to survive in a reforming society. The new vocal and electronic music score conjures this realm to convey a total reset from chosen realities and identities, pointing towards a realignment with something that gives craved expansion within a world full of circumstances beyond one's control.

Filmed in November 2020 at BAC's John Cage & Merce Cunningham Studio with the natural light of late autumn serving as a backdrop, the piece is equal parts vocal music composition, meditation, and performance art video designed to trigger a cathartic emotional experience.

"By using my own emotional reality as a map to connect to the world, that understanding leads me to the simple desire for offering a reprieve," says Andrews. "An opportunity to stare our wounds in the eye and give them permission to bleed while saying, 'I love you, I love you, I love you.' We cannot truly face our demons while laying in a bed of poppies, and we cannot heal without evidence of hope."

A live-streamed conversation with Holland Andrews and performer Morgan Bassichis is held on Wednesday, March 24 at 8pm ET. Free registration for the live Zoom conversation will be available beginning March 15 at 5pm ET at BACNYC.org.

Additional upcoming premieres include: Justin Hicks' Use Your Head for More (February 15 - March 1); Stefanie Batten Band's Kolonial (May 3 - 17); Tei Blow's The Sprezzaturameron (May 17 - 31); and Kyle Marshall's STELLAR (June 7 - 21). Currently available to view until February 15 is Bijayini Satpathy's Vibhanga. Each premiere is available for two weeks at BACNYC.org. A future schedule of live-streamed conversations with the artists to discuss their projects and creative processes will be announced.