Nine Artists Selected for JACK Artist Residencies

Brooklyn performance and civic space JACK has announced the nine artists selected for residencies at JACK, running March through August 2021. Chosen from an open call that drew 169 submissions, the artists include theater-makers Carolina Đỗ, Kedian Keohan, Drew Drake and Jadele McPherson, designers Itohan Edoloyi and Tuçe Yasak, composers Jaime Lozano and Sugar Vendil, and dance artist Nora Alami. These residencies are intended to give artists an opportunity to deepen their craft, explore, experiment, and develop new work. Each artist will receive two weeks in the space with full access to JACK's technical equipment, as well as a $500 stipend.

Jordana De La Cruz, Co-Director of JACK: "Throughout this pandemic, there has been an overwhelming call for safe spaces where artists can gather to create without pressure. These two-week residencies serve that very purpose. Over the next five months, JACK will be a respite for artists from pets, partners, and roommates, where the sole requirement is to experiment and play without worrying about preparing a culminating presentation. We were so moved by the wide range of applicants who proposed timely artistic work that aligns with JACK's mission and values. To narrow the applicant pool down to nine artists was a challenge, but we're thrilled to support and engage with these particular creators and their collaborators. Our resident artists reflect a wide variety of creative impulses, perspectives, and artistic forms, and we're so glad to be able to offer them some (literal) room to grow."

MORE INFO ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Nora Alami

In collaboration with choreographer Jadd Tank and sound designer Wes Braver.

Nora Alami is a Moroccan-American dance artist. Her choreography has been presented at the International Center of Photography, Center for Performance Research, New York Live Arts, Gibney, Colorado College, and Movement Research at Judson Church. Recent awards include the New York Live Arts Fresh Tracks Choreographic Residency, Alliance for Artist Communities' Diversity + Leadership Fellowship, and Miguel Gutierrez's Landing 2.0 Cohort. She has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, River to River Festival, Invisible Dog, Mabou Mines, and toured internationally with Jadd Tank for the Focus on Mediterranean Choreography platform in Castiglioncello and Spoleto, Italy. Nora deconstructs and integrates historically disparate dance forms. She builds performative contexts that investigate the embodied experience of our chosen and inherited identities. In flux between fluidity, tension, awkwardness, and discomfort, Nora presents evocations that are dramaturgical, conceptual, iterative, and in ritual. Her tools: radical acts of permission-giving and intentional displacement of cultural vantage points.

Alami: "In my residency, I will focus on the technical and performative aspects of 3rd Body: A Play about the Other. This is a performance told through dance, navigating the experience of being Arab, as told by Arabs, who were told about their Arabism by Non-Arabs and Arabs alike. Part satire, part radical realism, 3rd Body employs abstraction, exposes inquiry, and shares personal anecdotes to construct a series of dance simulations that reveal intimate and absurd truths."

Carolina Đỗ

Carolina Đỗ is an actor, playwright, producer, and community organizer. As a first generation Viet born in America, the child of refugees and descendant of freedom fighters, she believes strongly in the power of weaving new and de-colonizing narratives into the fabric of American culture. Her work centers around transgenerational healing, diasporic longings, and collective storytelling. She is a founding Artistic Leader of The Sống Collective whose mission is to nurture a community of artists whose work explores questions of identity, race, intersectionality, immigration, and the refugee experience. She has worked on Broadway with Second Stage and serves as a producer on Queens: The Series, which is "redefining Asian American culture." As a playwright, she has incubated her work with the Naked Angels' Issue Project Lab and Piper Theater. Her play, My Mother's Daughter, was a 2019 Space On Ryder Farm Semifinalist and 2020 BRICLAB Finalist. Learn more at www.carolinado.com

Đỗ: "My residency will focus on how one holds space in the midst of grief. What are the questions and obstacles that arise with remembering? Do my ancestors know I exist? What are they trying to tell me? Will we ever figure it out?"

Drew Drake

In Collaboration with the Co-Founders of Black Greek Poets Collective: Lyrical Faith, Ciera Jevae, Kwynology, Rashid White, Darius Parker and Jeffrey "Big Homey" Banks.

Drew Drake is an Actor, Poet, Teaching Artist and Professor from Huntsville Alabama, with a focus on creating art that facilitates healthy dialogue for people of color. 2020 Credits include: National "Coors Seltzer '' Commercial, the Independent film Privilege, and TJ Loves Sally 4 Ever at JACK (New York Times Critic's Pick). Drew is currently teaching with Urban Word NYC (Poetry and Literary Arts Empowerment), Life Jacket Theatre's Storytelling Project, Illuminart (Arts and Theatre for students), Rehabilitation through the Arts (Arts Empowerment in NY State Prisons), Taconic Women's Correctional Facility and New York University. Learn more at www.thedrewdrake.com

BLACK GREEK POETS © is an international poetry network of college-educated creatives with a focus on members of historically-Black greek fraternities and sororities within the National Pan-Hellenic Council (The Divine 9). They seek to use their platform as a means to bridge poetry and the power of community engagement by commanding social change and facilitating the artistic homebase where letters make words.

Drake: "Our residency will focus on the burdens that current artivists face in this current triple pandemic, offering us a chance to fuse spoken word and performance to tackle topics such as institutionalized racism in academia, the grief and the joy we often simultaneously hold, and the resiliency and sheer power that exist within our communities. We will speak to social ills that spread throughout the country, bringing west coast & east coast perspectives to the table to ignite the movement of liberation."

Itohan Edoloyi

In collaboration with mixed media artist Nichole Washington and ART-IVIST, performer, choreographer, educator, and playwright nicHi douglas.

Itohan Edoloyi is a Brooklyn-born lighting designer who has worked and toured around Europe and North America. She has worked as a lighting designer and associate designer on multiple shows varying from experimental theater to events as well as tours, Off-Broadway and Broadway shows. Itohan is also currently the resident Lighting Design Coordinator for The Shed's Open Call Series, working with various artists and designers around NYC. Itohan Edoloyi was the 2018 recipient of the Gilbert V. Hemsley Lighting Internship and an MFA graduate from Brooklyn College.

Edoloyi: "My residency will focus on our collective/individual experience of a spatial environment, the importance of which lies not in drawing one conclusion but in honoring the multitude of experiences created by a collective. Displayed through the mediums of light, visual arts, and movement, this residency calls to an awareness of self and form."

Kedian Keohan

In collaboration with performers Cecilia Lynn-Jacobs, Antonio Irizarry, Amanda Houser, Ian Edlund, Kirsten Harvey, and Abby Adler.

Kedian Keohan is a director, performer, and producer of live performance. They have collaborated with artists Erin Markey, Ann Marie Dorr & Paul Ketchum, minor theater, Geoff Sobelle, Andrew Schneider, Dance Heginbotham, and Alice Gosti. Currently: Kedian is a member of the 2019-2021 Soho Rep Writer / Director Lab and performs the role of Major in minor theater's Marie It's Time (HERE Arts Center). Recent directing work: A Bone to Pick (Brunch Theatre), Venus in Gemini (Exponential Festival), *Chef's Kiss* (FEAST/Your Uncle Richard), and Fantasy (No Theme Festival). Recent assisting work: minor theater's Pathetic (Abrons Art Center) and Andrew Butler's Rags Parkland Sings Songs of the Future (Ars Nova). Kedian is a proud trans gnc alumnus of Dan Fishback's NEEDING IT class at BAX. Kedian is a New Georges affiliated artist.

Keohan: "In our residency, we will be developing the visual and sonic landscape of our new work Panic Encyclopedia. Collectively, we will search for antidotes to the ways in which panic is purposely inflicted upon us by the State. We will continue to crystalize our creative process and develop an accessible workshop model for artists of all ages. Our small ensemble is rooted in theatrical intensity, collective humanity, and a love of play."

Jaime Lozano

In collaboration with director, developer and educator Rachel M. Stevens (Director/Book Writer) and Mexican actress, singer, writer and director Florencia Cuenca (Co-lyricist).

Jaime Lozano is a musical theatre composer who has been heralded as the "next big thing" on Broadway by Hamilton's Lin-Manuel Miranda. Jaime is one of the five artists selected for the 2020-2021 Joe's Pub Working Group residency and one of the artists selected as part of The Civilians R&D Group 2020-2021. Selected works: Tlatelolco (Mexican Premiere), Myths (Mexican Premiere), The Yellow Brick Road (Off-Broadway & National Tour), Carmen La Cubana (European Tour), Children of Salt (NYMF 2016 "Best of Fest" Production), A Never-Ending Line (Comédie Nation in Paris, France & Off-Broadway), Savage (UAB at Birmingham), Present Perfect (Live & In Color). Albums: Tlatelolco, R.Evolución Latina's Dare to Go Beyond, Doreen Montalvo's American Soul/Latin Heart, A Never-Ending Line, Jaime Lozano and the Familia: Songs by an Immigrant with liner notes by Lin-Manuel Miranda; these last three released by Broadway Records. Currently working on: Songs by an Immigrant Vol. 2, Broadway in Spanglish and Desaparecidas. BFA: Music & Composition, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León; MFA: NYU/Tisch, Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program (Full Tuition Scholarship); part of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. Proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America, AFM Local 802, BMI and GRAMMY and Latin GRAMMY voting member.

Lozano: "I will spend my residency focused on the development of our new musical, Desaparecidas -- co-writing with the goal to complete the first draft of book and lyrics for two major sequences. We hope to work in collaboration with a few select actors in a devising process to develop content and the beginnings of movement vocabulary."

Jadele McPherson

In collaboration with producer and sound artist Charles Hart and special guest dancers/choreographers, musicians and actors based in Cuba, Miami and New York City.

Jadele McPherson is an artist and musician focused on the intersections of sound and healing, mutual aid, and performance. Jadele began her musical journey at a young age playing Violin and Oboe, and then as a vocalist rooted in Afro-Cuban sacred music, guided by akpón Naivis Angarica. She released her solo debut EP, Peace & Quiet, in 2019. Recent performance work includes the Freedom Now! by Karma Mayet Johnson, the Word, Rock & Sword concerts, curated by Toshi Reagon, Shake Loose: A Celebration of Sonia Sanchez at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; and the James Baldwin tribute Can I Get a Witness? at Harlem Stage, co-created by director Charlotte Brathwaite and bassist Meshell Ndegeocello, and No More Water/The Fire Next Time at Park Ave Armory (2018). Since December 2020 she has curated the Mind, Body & Soul: Afrofuturist Sacred Sounds series as a fellow working with the Seminar on Public Engagement and Collaborative Research at the CUNY Graduate Center.McPherson: "Given the historic and spiritual silences in the archival documentation about poet-actor Eusebia Cosme (1908-1976), our project will creatively engage the archive for diverse publics who are craving creative and ancestral voices whose work guides us collectively as we live through trying times. Through performance, we resituate Cosme's creative genius, which spans beyond poetry into musical compositions, full-length theatre performances in Spanish, and fascinating collaborations with artists and scholars such as Katherine Dunham and Langston Hughes."

Sugar Vendil

In collaboration with percussionist Sae Hashimoto, saxophonist and composer Darius Jones, writer, composer, and lyricist-librettist Janelle Lawrence and composer, multi-instrumentalist, and interdisciplinary artist Darian Donovan Thomas.

Sugar Vendil is a composer, pianist, and interdisciplinary artist based in Lenapehoking/Brooklyn, New York and is a second generation Filipinx American. Her artistic practice is strongly rooted in rigorous discipline as a musician and gradually expanded into performance that integrates music, movement, and unconventional approaches to the piano. Vendil was recently awarded an ACF | Create commission to write a work for Boston-based duo Box Not Found, and a 2019 Chamber Music America commission to write a new work for her ensemble, The Nouveau Classical Project, which she founded in 2008. She has also been awarded commissions from American Composers Forum; Chamber Music America; and ETHEL. In 2020, she danced in choreographer Emily Johnson's activation of Jeffrey Gibson's sculpture, "Because Once You Enter My House It Becomes Our House," at Socrates Sculpture Park. She premiered composer-saxophonist Darius Jones' LawNOrder (2017), and Being Caged in ICE (2018). Learn more at Sugarvendil.com

Vendil: "In my residency, I will be developing BĀS (working title), a composition illluminating the history of Asian and Black mutual support and addresses racial tensions. Performed by an Afro-Asian quartet, it aims to bolster Black and Asian solidarity in America."

Tuçe Yasak

Tuçe Yasak has collaborated with light across disciplines - dance, theater, performance, and installation - since she moved from Istanbul to New York in 2009. Her experience as an immigrant deeply informs her work which is shaped by an understanding of light as a form of existence, resilience and expression. In 2018 & 2019, Yasak received Bessie Awards for her work on Marjani Forte-Saunders' Memoirs of a... Unicorn, and Ni'Ja Whitson's Oba Qween Baba King Baba. Other recent designs include Hysteria by Raja Feather Kelly (New York Live Arts), This Bridge Called My Ass by Miguel Gutierrez (The Chocolate Factory), Skinfolk: An American Show, by Jillian Walker/directed by Mei Ann Teo (The Bushwick Starr), We're Gonna Die, by Young Jean Lee/directed by Raja Feather Kelly (Second Stage Theater), and Use Your Head More, by Justin Hicks (Baryshnikov Arts Center).

Yasak: "In my residency, I will focus on the development of my new work, WALL, a light-focused installation that explores and offers healing for women struggling with emotional abuse. Conceived as a built environment of light and a field of monolithic structures - WALL opens a poetic space for audiences and communities to engage difficult questions on immigration and the abuse of women."