Brooklyn Arts Exchange & PAGEANT Present SICK SAD WORLD in April

Sick Sad World is an evening-length collaboration between poet and performance maker Iris McCloughan and choreographer Jessie Young co-presented by BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange and PAGEANT. Combining sensation-driven choreography with blurred fragments of speech, character, and plot, the work presents a world of mysterious signifying objects: A silk slip, a single high-heeled boot, a lone microphone on a spindly stand. Beginning as a pas de deux and ending as a folie à deux, Sick Sad World creates a foggy, constantly shifting landscape of movement and text.

PAGEANT is located at 70 Graham Ave. #3, Brooklyn, NY 11206. In person and livestream tickets will be available through PAGEANT's website soon. Unfortunately, the space is located in a third-floor walk-up and is not ADA accessible.

Iris McCloughan is a poet, performance maker, and dramaturg. Recent writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Tupelo Quarterly, American Poetry Review, and Prelude. They were the winner of the 2018 Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from American Poetry Review and were named a finalist in nonfiction for Best of the Net 2020. Their performance work has been seen in NYC at The Poetry Project, Movement Research, Ars Nova, CPR, and, most recently, Castelli Gallery, where they directed Joan Jonas and Eiko Otake's collaborative performance Drawing in Circles WHY?. Iris has collaborated with many other artists and writers, including Eiko Otake, Joan Jonas, Mike Lala, Alex Tatarsky, Doug Lecours, and Julie Mayo.

Jessie Young is a Brooklyn-based choreographer, performer and teacher originally from Port Angeles, Washington. In New York her work has been presented by PAGEANT, The Chocolate Factory, New York Live Arts (Fresh Tracks), Danspace (DraftWork), Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Center for Performance Research, Brooklyn Studios for Dance, AUNTS, Dixon Place, and The Floor on Atlantic. As a performer and collaborator, she has worked with Tere O'Connor, Beth Gill, Julie Mayo, Abby Z and the New Utility and Stephanie Acosta amongst others. Young is currently an Artist in Residence (AIR) at Brooklyn Arts Exchange (2021-23) and was a 2022 Center for Performance Research resident artist. She received her MFA from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and BFA from University of Utah, and is on faculty at the American Dance Festival.