A Host Of People's NEITHER THERE NOR HERE Opens This Friday

Detroit theater company A Host of People (Sherrine Azab and Jake Hooker, Co-founders) premieres their new work Neither There, Nor Here with a performance run January 26-February 10, 2018 at Light Box in Detroit.

The show focuses on the experience of people with mixed or liminal identities of race, gender, culture and sexuality via personal stories, memories, family artifacts and our own lived experience. Join the binary-busting fun as we share our stories, songs and dances, and a live video photo album, all while the chefs are preparing dishes representing their complex identities.

Azab acts as host and "chef de cuisine" while the five other performers each weave together segments that delve into their personal identities. As the performers tell their stories, family photos are projected onto the set by Azab who controls a live-feed camera and each story spills into other more theatrical modes from dramatized reenactments, to strange dances, to a pop song sing-along. NTNH plays with the popular form of the televised cooking show, while deepening our ensemble's commitment to live and rich, multi-focal storytelling.

Neither There, Nor Here is conceived and directed by Azab and Hooker with performers Torri Lynn Ashford, Aja Salakastar Dier, Karilú Alarcón Forshee, Chris Jakob, Sam Moltmaker, and performer/stage manager Maddy Rager; designers Hooker, Chantel Gaidica, Billy Mark, Dorothy Melander-Dayton, and Renee Willoughby.

All performances will be at Light Box, 8641 Linwood St, Detroit, Michigan 48206. Shows are Friday-Sunday January 26-February 10, 2018.

Showtimes on Fridays & Saturdays are at 8pm, Sundays at 7pm.
There is an additional pay-what-you-will performance on Tuesday February 6, 2018 at 8pm.

Tickets are on sale and range from $5-$15.00 and available through our website www.ahostofpeople.org

Major support for this project was made possible by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation as part of our 2016 Knight Arts Challenge award for our "Other Hands" programming. Additional support by The Mental Insight Foundation, New England Foundation for the Arts, and Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.

In addition, Neither There, Nor Here received development support at Cleveland Public Theatre in their Test Flight program and later had special preview performances at N'Namdi Center for Contemporary Arts during Dlectricity 2017.

A Host of People is an interdisciplinary, multimedia theater company in Detroit, MI dedicated to the making of original works. The company is led by co-directors Sherrine Azab and Jake Hooker, whose work has been seen, together and separately, in New York (The Bushwick Starr, The Chocolate Factory, The Kitchen, HERE, Dixon Place, etc.), Chicago (Links Hall), New Orleans (Catapult), Berlin (Ida Nowhere, The Lyn-Lin), San Francisco (Intersection for the Arts), Cleveland (Cleveland Public Theater) and Detroit (The Jam Handy, N'Namdi Center for Contemporary Art, HomeBase, The Play House, ArtlabJ, The Sidewalk Festival For the Performing Arts). We create live art around a central question: How can we host more people into theatrical works that are complex and multifarious; work that situates itself betwixt and between; work that is poetic, visual, nonconformist, and expands the viewer's imagination, curiosity and spirit? A Host of People locates our work around the idea that "alternative" and "experimental" art-making is not the elitist practice it is so often made out to be, but an inherently populist one. We strive to offer work that gives the viewer agency in their interpretation, as we work to entertain. We invite our audience into our art as we would guests into our home, whether it is in a house, on the street, in a gallery or in a theater.

"Knight Foundation is a national foundation with strong local roots. We invest in journalism, in the arts, and in the success of cities where brothers John S. and James L. Knight once published newspapers. Our goal is to foster informed and engaged communities, which we believe are essential for a healthy democracy."

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