Martin E. Segal Centre Announces 2021 Prelude Festival Set For Next Week

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at the Graduate Center, CUNY will present its 2021 PRELUDE festival, "Prelude 2021: Start Making Sense!," virtually from October 25 to October 31. This fest is the annual flagship event of the Segal Center. Traditionally, it is dedicated to artists at the forefront of contemporary NYC theater, dance, interdisciplinary and mediatized performance and offers an array of short performances, readings, and screenings -- a survey of the current New York moment and the work being prepared for the next season and beyond, plus new commissions and panel discussions with artists, scholars, and performers.

This year, the Graduate Center at CUNY is still closed for public programs, so the fest is being presented online only for the second year. Works by 19 theater and performance companies will explore their artistic practice and critical discourse as part of this year's festival. Twelve are from NYC and seven are from across the USA. It is the first time since Prelude's inception that work from across the country will also be shown. The organizers feel it is important to show support in this difficult time to groundbreaking regional performance work, signaling that the metropolitan cultural supremacy of New York City is being challenged by experimental ensembles who have space, time, and close ties to the communities they work in. Artists from Austin, Cleveland, Detroit, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and San Francisco are being presented.

Inspired by Prelude curator Jay Wegman, the fest is employing a radically new format titled Chain Curating. The Segal Center chose three curators from New York. Each initial curator nominated just one artist and selected a fellow curator to do the same. This chain model produced twelve brilliant New York curators and twelve truly diverse New York artists/ensembles who have something to say. Companies from outside New York were curated by Jake Hooker.

All events are free and open to the public on the festival's digital platforms. The itemized schedule of performances follows below. Fourteen pre-recorded pieces will be available for anytime viewing during the week of Prelude on www.preludenyc.org and the Segal Center YouTube Channel from October 25 (Mon) to October 31 (Sun). Five live streamed performances happening on each weekday of the festival week across www.preludenyc.org and The Segal Center's long-standing digital collaborator www.howlround.com.

Alongside the 19 performed pieces, the HowlRound website will host daily Segal Talks with the Prelude 2021 artists and curators, Panel Discussions with contemporary creators on conversations spanning criticism, Indigenous art, the resounding effects of the Seventies and more, as well as the much awaited Franky Award Ceremony.

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