KANEZA SCHAAL: TOWARDS A NEW COLLECTIVITY Announced at The Performing Garage

The Performing Garage has announced Kaneza Schaal: Towards A New Collectivity, a partnership with theater maker Kaneza Schaal. She will invite a group of artists to develop work at The Performing Garage with the long-term goal of building a new creative ecosystem. The first group of five artists, who are invited to work at The Performing Garage from July 1 to August 7, 2021, are Ian Askew, Kenita Miller, Clarissa Marie Ligon, Kamal Nassif, and Cheyanne Williams.

This partnership, with two-year lead support from the Jerome Foundation, is designed to support a new generation of independent artists to explore their practices and create community outside an institutional paradigm. The artists will receive a stipend and full use of The Performing Garage. They will define the context and scope of their own work in the Garage's theater, whether it be initial experimentation, developing a work, performing a completed piece, or simply taking refuge.

The Performing Garage has been run by and for artists for over 50 years. It has been a major incubator for artistic innovation and offers artists the autonomy necessary to change the way theater is made and who gets to do it.

Schaal says, "One thing more true of theater than any other art form is we cannot do it alone. We create from collectivity and give unto collectivity. In addition to creating pieces, investing in the collectivities through which I practice theater is an essential part of my practice. This venture with The Performing Garage is an investment in the ecosystems of thought, generosity, and care, through which I make art."

Cynthia Hedstrom, producer at The Wooster Group, says, "As stewards of The Performing Garage since the 1970s, The Wooster Group is thrilled to have a new community of artists defining the artistic activity in the theater. We have learned that artists need a space that can flexibly adapt to their needs and time without the pressure to present work on an arbitrary schedule. The Performing Garage provides a place where artists can center themselves in their individual practices."

This summer's artists plan to work on the following projects. Ian Askew will continue their explorations of Black Punk in their project SLAMDANCE. Clarissa Marie Ligon will expand her generative practice as a burlesque dancer and director. Kenita Miller will focus on a new self-generated original performance and film based on the life of Eartha Kitt. Kamal Nassif will exhibit ALA EADHA, an installation based on Hammam salon culture, as a place of restorative care centering queer Arab youth. And Cheyanne Williams will expand her transdisciplinary
theater practice as a designer and technical director by collaborating on all of these projects.

https://theperforminggarage.org/