Brooklyn Arts Exchange Announces IONA FLIES AWAY

On summer's sweltering days, a young Iona heads to the beach on a family outing with Daddy, Brother, Mama and Uncle - who always shows up. Even though the sandy shores and the seagulls swirling satiate Iona's lonely soul, she is already aware that her skin color and gender might have marked her. While younger Brother can 'do no wrong', Iona's path is unclear. Her Daddy is a respite but Mama is mostly unforgiving, especially toward Iona as she comes of age. After one argument with Mama too many, a teenaged Iona chooses to find her own way into the next chapters of her sometimes crude and luckily serendipitous journey. Told with song and story through the voices of her 'conscious/unconscious' Iona Flies Away is about a young black girl who grows into a woman. She is seeking love and significance because in life, hopefully, that's what happens.

Iona Files Away is a storytelling/music project in progress.
For more information, visit events.bax.org/iona-flies-away About the Artist

Tanisha Christie is an interdisciplinary performing artist and filmmaker. She has performed, produced, directed and taught in traditional and non-traditional spaces in the U.S. and Panama. A member of Actors Equity she holds a BFA Theatre (Arizona State University), an MA-Media Studies (The New School) and has an LMSW in Clinical Practice (Hunter College). She was a 2015 Target Margin Institute Fellow, a 2018 residence artist with the Second Ward Foundation in Hudson, NY and has recently become the Artist in Residence with Spaceworks. She was a 2017 MAP grantee sponsored by BAX for bathtub a performance installation tackling state sanctioned violence, collective grief and intimacy; the next iteration to be seen in Hudson in June and July of 2018. She is producing Brave Girls a documentary about young women in India. Nope, she doesn't sleep. www.tanishachristie.com

Founded in 1991, BAX | Brooklyn Arts Exchange, is a community based performing arts center dedicated to developing artists of all ages, from children to professionals. The organization offers community access to arts and culture, supporting the creation of new work by emerging artists, engaging diverse audiences and providing arts education to youth and families. BAX has intentionally constructed an environment where children study and professional artists create under the same roof. Students are mentored by professional directors and choreographers. The organization's distinct focus on developmental process makes it a nurturing incubator for experimental dance and theater artists and is an important advocate for under-represented voices in the New York City performing arts community.

BAX Artist In Residence program began in 1993, with two artists - Reggie Wilson and George Emilio Sanchez - both lived near BAX's first location in the Gowanus and rehearsed there extensively. Their regular presence at BAX led to conversations about their needs as artists, and how BAX could more fully meet those needs. Within a year through their input, BAX identified a need for space, a desire for opportunities to investigate specific aesthetic and cultural concerns, and an interest in curating work by other artists to build community and extend their own artistic practice. With these two artists, we established what would become BAX's Artist In Residence program (BAX AIR). BAX enjoys long lasting and sustained relationships with many former resident artists who continue to develop ideas and programs that become part of the organization.

BAX | Brooklyn Arts Exchange, an organization with a core commitment to social justice, welcomes students, families, faculty and artists. In keeping with BAX's mission to encourage artistic risk-taking and stimulate dialogue among diverse constituencies we intentionally and purposefully support the voices of under-represented individuals and groups of all origins, ages, abilities, races, sexual orientations, genders, and varied immigration status. All our constituents join an organization whose staff and Board are actively engaged in challenging the manifestations of whiteness, able-bodiedness and privilege as part of our ongoing anti-racist efforts and our other anti-oppression, pro-inclusion work.

BAX has a proud history and commitment to developing cohorts that are reflective of our mission and core commitments. In our curation and residencies, we take into account our field's history of racism and discrimination, and take active steps to undo the effects of that history. We believe that this commitment enriches the AIR experience for all members and audiences.

BAX | Brooklyn Arts Exchange receives generous funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, Council Member Brad Lander, Jody and John Arnhold, Bank United, Bay and Paul Foundations, Copper Beech Foundation, Corcoran Cares, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Robert & Mercedes Eichholz Foundation, Eileen Fisher Inc., Fund for the City of New York, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, Houlihan Lokey Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the Jerome Robbins Foundation, the Scott Klein Team at Douglas Elliman Real Estate, M&T Charitable Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, Park Slope Civic Council, the Pritchard Family Foundation, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, the Scherman Foundation, Sterling National Bank, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and the Beth M. Uffner Arts Fund (New York Community Trust). Digital photos available upon request.

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