Arts House to Present BRONX GOTHIC

Orchard Beach, Nathan's hot dogs and lucid dreaming are all part of the landscape in Okwui Okpokwasili's Bronx Gothic.

A solo creation at the intersection of theatre, dance and visual art installation, Bronx Gothic gives palpable force to the charged relationship between two girls on the verge of adolescence in 1980s outer-borough New York City - where Newport cigarettes are bought in singles at the corner bodega and sex-saturated notes are passed in class.

Created by New York-based writer, performer and choreographer Okpokwasili in collaboration with director and designer Peter Born, Bronx Gothic is a performance of psychic and physical collisions that threaten to break the body.

Okpokwasili explains that Bronx Gothic unfolds as a dark and powerful tale of sexual awakening, "It looks to communicate what is essential about a body in transformation, a universal experience that I can transmit through my brown body as I recall the breakthrough of pubescence and the humour, the love, the strangeness and even the terror that attends it."

Collecting a prestigious Bessie award during its New York run in 2014, this powerhouse work takes an unflinching look into the exquisite turbulence of one woman's memory, drawing inspiration from both Victorian-era novels and West African griot storytelling.

Okpokwasili collaborates with Born to create multidisciplinary projects that are raw, intimate experiences - their first New York production, pent-up: a revenge dance premiered at Performance Space 122 and received a 2010 New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award for Outstanding Production; and an immersive installation version was featured in the 2008 Prelude Festival.

Written & Performed by Okwui Okpokwasili Director/Scenic & Lighting Designer Peter Born Original Songs Okwui Okpokwasili Music Peter Born andOkwui Okpokwasili