WASTELANDIA World Premiere to be Presented at Creative Reuse Workshop

DELIRIOUS Dances, The Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art at Snug Harbor, and Creative Producer Lai-Lin Robinson will present the World Premiere of WASTELANDIA on Friday and Saturday, September 19, 20, 26 and 27 with Creative Reuse Workshop at 6pm, and performance at 7pm; and Sunday, September 21 and 28 at Creative Reuse Workshop at 2pm and performance at 3pm, in four gallery spaces at the Newhouse Center located in Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden on Staten Island, NY at 1000 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, NY 10301. Tickets: $20 students/seniors, $30 general, $50 supporters, $75 rockstars.

WASTELANDIA is a performance ritual constructed from recycled plastic that invites the audience to engage in a multi-layered visual and immersive experience. Through theater, dance, discussions, craft-making, and visual art, the audience is taken on an interactive journey that examines our dependency on fossil fuels and asks how we can be better stewards of the earth.

WASTELANDIA is a mash-up between a DIY Haunted house, Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, and a dance performance. The experience begins in The Greenroom, which is an interactive educational space where the audience can:

• Participate in creative reuse workshops such as making beads out of plastic straws or musical instruments out of discarded objects in collaboration with Materials for the Arts.
• Color in a chalk mural depicting images and quotes by seven remarkable Black and Hispanic women who are social justice and environmental activists in the Staten Island Community: Debbie Anne Paige, Dorcas Meyers, Heather Butts, Jasi (Jasmine) Robinson, Kelly Vilar, Lori Love, Petula Gay
• Listen and/or participate in a discussion on how we can responsibly divest from fossil fuels, viable alternatives to fossil fuel based plastics, as well as the health implications of microplastics accumulating in our brains and internal organs.

From The Greenroom, the audience traverses through an interactive tunnel of plastic (The Birth Canal); meets the spirit guardians and the trash behemoth (Spirit Room); and helps construct an installation (The Wasteland) out of plastic trash. The inhabitants of The Wasteland come together through Afro-Brazilian and Contemporary dance to forge a sense of community and empowerment; and to build The Wastelandia Gameshow, where two audience contestants are invited to answer multiple-choice questions about plastic consumption, recycling and alternatives. The Gameshow includes the presentation of a Green Award to the mural honorees.

WASTELANDIA began in 2015 during creative residencies at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art and Materials for the Arts. The premier in September 2025, will be the completion of a ten year journey. The project was initially titled 3 RITES Life and in 2024 the title was changed to WASTELANDIA to better reflect the intention of the rite. WASTELANDIA was also developed through creative residences at Chashama Space to Create; ChoreoQuest at RestorationART/The Billie Holiday Theatre; a remote pandemic residency with the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; as well as New York State Dance Force residencies at Topaz Arts and Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Additional residency support for 3 RITES Liberty and 3 RITES Happiness was provided by BRICLab; Dance in Process at Gibney Dance with funds provided by the Andrew Mellon Foundation; Mabou Mines SUITE/Space program; Maggie Allessee National Center for Choreography; Norte Maar @ Socrates Sculpture Park; and Performance Spaces for the 21st Century.