The Flea Theater Announces Winter 2019-2020 Anchor Partners

The Flea Theater announces its winter 2019-2020 Anchor Partners, an initiative designed to support small independent theater, music and dance companies. This season, The Flea welcomes companies Tiffany Mills Company, Elisa Monte Dance, Notch Theatre Company, Gabrielle Revlock, The Bang Group and TOSOS.

"Dance returns to The Flea as well as emerging theater companies whose voices all need to be heard," says Producing Director, Carol Ostrow. "Come see what else is happening at The Flea!"

The Flea offers an eclectic array of theater and dance this winter, from Anna Karenina: a riff by Notch Theatre Company to The Bang Group's annual holiday hit Nut/Cracked. TOSOS is back in The Siggy with Leaving the Blues about singer/songwriter Alberta Hunter; Tiffany Mills Company returns to The Sam with Not then, not yet examining creation and destruction through dance; Elisa Monte Dance presents Emerged Nation in The Sam exploring a nation of immigration and diversity; and Gabrielle Revlock premieres Nuptial Blitz, an exploration of the choreography of wedding photography, and Sex Tape, an image of care and a positive representation of touch, in The Pete.

The Flea is committed to helping independent companies by offering affordable space augmented by a full range of artistic, technical, and producing support that goes far beyond that of a traditional "four walls" rental.

November 13 - 16:
Tiffany Mills Dance presents Not then, not yet
Choreographer Tiffany Mills' Not then, not yet (World Premiere), created in collaboration with Puerto Rican composer Angélica Negrón and French vocalist/composer Muriel Louveau, examines states of transition, drawing inspiration from the liminal space between endings and new beginnings. The artists' initial interest in liminality comes from Mary Shelley's life and early writing-specifically her examination of the threshold between creation and destruction, integration and isolation. Ruminating on what it means to be in between, the collaborators now look at portals and passageways through a 21st-century lens. Negrón's blend of electro-acoustics mixed with classical instrumentation and found sounds, Louveau's extreme vocal registers and neoclassical influences, and Mills's raw and unhinged movement create a kinetically charged world that speaks to the subconscious.

November 21-24:
Elisa Monte Dance presents Emerged Nation
Rea-Fisher will present the world premiere of Emerged Nation, an evening-length work comprised of three movements that each possess a unique message and emotional arc examining a nation in transformation. Inspired by the shifts in America's civil and social mores, the work delves into the complex emotional landscape created by immigration, cultural acclimation and diversity.

November 22 - December 20:
Notch Theatre Company presents Anna Karenina: a riff
Russians in track suits play melodicas to an original, folk-punk score in this fresh adaptation of Anna Karenina. Set in 1880s Russia and dripping with Eastern European ennui, our comedic reimagining of the classic tale moves at the speed of a runaway train as it examines the consequences of female rebellion and its echoes today.

December 19 - 21:
The Bang Group presents Nut/Cracked
Nut/Cracked - The Bang Group's beloved, witty response to The Nutcracker has delighted audiences for more than 15 years. Nut/Cracked takes its inspiration from all corners of the dance canon, from tap riffs to en pointe ballet, by way of bubble wrap, disco and Chinese take-out noodles. In Nut/Cracked, choreographer David Parker finds beauty in the ridiculous, waltzing us through many incarnations of Tchaikovsky's score, including versions by Duke Ellington and Glenn Miller, as well as the traditional orchestral suite. You'll never watch The Nutcracker in quite the same way again!

January 8 - 12:
Gabrielle Revlock presents Sex Tape + Nuptial Blitz
• SEX TAPE is the second project where Gabrielle Revlock has recreated a moment in her life but shifted the focus by removing the man. In 2016 she premiered, I replaced him with a lamp, a solo extracted from an accidental video recording of herself receiving verbal feedback from an older, established, male artist. For SEX TAPE, the found choreography between Revlock and a male lover, documented on video, has been reconstructed by Revlock and a longtime female friend. In the midst of the #metoo movement SEX TAPE physicalizes and brings into the public sphere an image of care and a positive representation of touch. As a supplement to the performance text exchanges between Revlock and potential suitors have been posted to Instagram (@gabriellerevlock).
• Nuptial Blitz (World Premiere) is an exploration of the choreography of wedding photography - how shape and tableau, and the use of space and touch convey emotion and story. For this interactive performance seven audience members will be invited to participate in the contemporary ritual that is wedding photography, posing alongside the artist as her partner. Participants will be selected at the beginning of the night and will receive a wedding photograph following the performance. Revlock remarks, "To dress up and take wedding photos with friends and acquaintances doesn't feel that odd because the practice itself is very much rooted in fantasy." This irreverent and playful project brings our attention to a growing cultural practice and democratizes the image of love.

January 18 - February 8:
TOSOS presents Leaving The Blues
Hop onto an imaginary train of memories with famed African-American blues and jazz singer and songwriter Alberta Hunter as she follows her long-dead friend, black comedian Bert Williams (Will), now her glad-handed guide and conductor. He has promised to stir up enough memories of her past successes, friends, and loves to encourage her return to the music she left some twenty years past in the late 1950s. Hunter's life story, rife with danger, uncertainty, heartbreak, and triumph lays bare the tension that our racial and sexual histories create inside all of us and the danger that history has been and can be to our ability to love.