IF I GIVE YOU MY SORROWS Premieres at Space 124 at Project Artaud

Flyaway Productions has announced the world premiere of IF I GIVE YOU MY SORROWS, an apparatus-based dance with an accompanying exhibition of visual art. Presented in partnership with Empowerment Avenue and the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), Flyaway's newest project advances the company's multi-year exploration of the experiences of people impacted by incarceration.

 

A total of 10 performances will take place at Space 124 inside Project Artaud from October 6 - 15, with 7:30 p.m. showtimes Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday. An additional performance at 9 p.m. will take place each Saturday during the run. Tickets are $0-$35 and will go on sale August 1 at flyawayproductions.com/upcoming.

 

Flyaway Artistic Director Jo Kreiter conceived If I Give You My Sorrows as an extension of The Decarceration Trilogy, which exposed the devastating effects of prison in the U.S. Her new project continues Flyaway's artist-as-activist work of prison systems change.

 

“If I Give You My Sorrows starts with a bed as a metaphor for what women experience in private,” said Kreiter. “In this historic moment repressing women's choice and women's bodies at the national level, we want to reframe women's beds as a place where our complexity and depth live – where our bodies rest, transform, grieve and repair. In what ways can a bed be an antidote? What secrets do we leave in our beds? What wounds do we bury there? How do our beds hold what is messy, tragic, grueling?”

 

“At its heart, the project explores the power of sleep and dreams –- and the right of women to have an interior life.”

 

With commissioned music by longtime Flyaway collaborators Carla Kihlstedt and Pamela Z, the stories of three activists are told through their own recorded voices and the performances of Laura Elaine Ellis, Sonsherée Giles, MaryStarr Hope, Jhia Jackson and Megan Lowe.

 

The three activists are Betty McKay, Lisa Strawn and Tomiekia Johnson. McKay is a formerly incarcerated woman and organizer for Essie Justice Group. Strawn is a formerly incarcerated activist who spent 25 years as a transgender woman living in men's prisons. While in prison, she wrote over 60 stories for publication and organized political action groups. Finally, Johnson works as a writer from her cell at Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla. In addition to her collaboration on a section of Flyaway's dance for this project, Johnson has co-curated the accompanying art exhibition featuring works on paper by currently incarcerated women.

 

Echoing a poem by Johnson in which she describes her bed as “the only door I can open,” the exhibition is titled The Only Door I Can Open: Women Exposing Prison Through Art and Poetry. Johnson curated the show in collaboration with Chantell Jeannette, who is also serving time at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla. Works by six artists and three poets are featured in the collection which will be on view in person at Space 124 as well as on MoAD's website as a digital exhibition.

 

In tandem with the exhibition, on Wednesday, October 4 at 6:30 p.m., MoAD will present a panel discussion about prison system change. Among the featured participants will be Robin Levi, co-editor of Inside This Place, Not of It: Narratives From Women's Prisons. She is a consultant working in the field of human rights and is the former human rights director at Justice Now. While a staff attorney at the Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, she documented sexual abuse of women in U.S. state prisons. Also confirmed is Rahsaan Thomas, formerly incarcerated at San Quentin. He is the founder and executive director of Empowerment Avenue and a producer on the award-winning podcast Ear Hustle. For more information visit flyawayproductions.com/upcoming.

 

The world premiere of I Give You My Sorrows is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, San Francisco Art Commission, Rainin Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Fleishhacker Foundation, Charlotte Maillard Shultz Fund for the Arts, LABA Bay and Flyaway's generous individual donors.

 

 

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