Mockumentary Project

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Mockumentary Project VISION RESIDENCY UNTITLED MOCKUMENTARY PROJECT MARCH 12 & 19 @ 7PM ET Directed by Vision Resident nicHi douglas Featuring DANE FIGUEROA EDIDI, MORTICIA GODIVA, N'YOMI STEWART & TAMARA MAURICE WILLIAMS UNTITLED MOCKUMENTARY PROJECT EPISODES 1 & 2: MARCH 12 @ 7PM ET EPISODES 3 & 4: MARCH 19 @ 7 PM ET THE TEAM Directed by Vision Resident nicHi douglas Written & Performed by DANE FIGUEROA EDIDI, MORTICIA GODIVA, N'YOMI STEWART & TAMARA MAURICE WILLIAMS Director of Photography ADELE OVERBEY Co-Composers TROY ANTHONY & GABBY HENDERSON Music TROY ANTHONY Sound TERESA-ESMERALDA SANCHEZ Gaffer MARLEY CHAPMAN Producer ASHTON MUÑIZ Assistant Director AVA ELIZABETH NOVAK Production Manager & Community Engagement MELISSA MOWRY Production Assistant/Key Grip GALEN POWELL Music for Episode 4 Features the Song "Because of Love" Music & Lyrics GABBY HENDERSON Singer GABBY HENDERSON THE ARTISTS WOULD LIKE TO THANK All of Our Trans Sistren & Kin The World Over - Past, Present & Afro-Future Ars Nova operates on the unceded land of the Lenape peoples on the island of Manhahtaan (Mannahatta) in Lenapehoking, the Lenape Homeland. We acknowledge the brutal history of this stolen land and the displacement and dispossession of its Indigenous people. We also acknowledge that after there were stolen lands, there were stolen people. We honor the generations of displaced and enslaved people that built, and continue to build, the country that we occupy today. We gathered together in virtual space to watch this performance. We encourage you to consider the legacies of colonization embedded within the technology and structures we use and to acknowledge its disproportionate impact on communities of color and Indigenous peoples worldwide. We invite you to join us in acknowledging all of this as well as our shared responsibility: to consider our way forward in reconciliation, decolonization, anti-racism and allyship. We commit ourselves to the daily practice of pursuing this work. ABOUT THE ARTISTS nicHi douglas (Director, Vision Resident) is a Brooklyn-based performer, choreographer, director, playwright and activist. She has performed all over New York and the country as a freelance actor/dancer in addition to performing nationally with The Dance Cartel and literacy-focused children’s theater company The Story Pirates. She currently teaches Movement & Choreography and Performance Symposium at NYU/Tisch – Playwrights Horizon Theater School studio. Recent stage credits: A Time Like This: Music for Change (Carnegie Hall, Stage Director), Runaways (City Center/Encores! Off-Center and The Delacorte/Public Theater, Associate Director & Associate Choreographer), Primer for a Failed Superpower (Roulette, Choreographer), BLACK GIRL MAGIC SHOW! (Ars Nova ANT Fest and JACK, Director/Choreographer/Playwright), they told us not to pray (Playwrights Horizons Downtown, Director & Choreographer) and Girl From the North Country (The Public Theater, Associate Choreographer). Upcoming: Last Stop on Market Street (Atlantic Theater Company, Choreographer) and where love lies fallow (The Shed, Director/Choreographer/Playwright). DANE FIGUEROA EDIDI (Writer, Loud Aunty) Dubbed the Ancient Jazz Priestess of Mother Africa, Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi is a Black Nigerian, Cuban, Indigenous, American performance artist, author, educator, speech writer, a Helen Hayes Award-winning playwright (Klytmnestra: An Epic Slam Poem (Helen Hayes Award 2020), For Black Trans Girls…, Ghost/Writer, The Diaz Family Talent Show, Quest of The Reed Marsh Daughter, The Dance of Memories), advocate, dramaturg, a two-time Helen Hayes Award-nominated choreographer (2016, 2018) and co-editor/co-director of the Black Trans Prayer Book. She is the curator and a co-producer of Long Wharf Theater’s Black Trans Women At The Center: An Evening of Short Plays. Her radio play, Quest of The Reed Marsh Daughter, can be heard on the Girl Tale’s Podcast, and her play The Diaz Family Talent Show can be read on the Play at Home website. She was featured as Patra in King Ester and acted as a story consultant for the series. She wrote episode nine (Refuge) of Round House Theater’s web series Homebound, and was one of the writers for Arena Stage’s short filmThe 51st State. MORTICIA ANTOINETTE GODIVA (Writer, Goddess G) is an actor, writer, producer and dancer. Some of her work includes Feeling Like An Orchid, a short film that she wrote, produced and starred in. The film tells a story of black love and dating within polyamorous relationship. Towards the end of summer 2020, Godiva wrapped filming for a murder mystery web seriesHotline . As an artist, Godiva often engages in work that may intersect with their identity. In January 2020, the Black Trans Travel fund welcomed Godiva as their Director of Client Services. N'YOMI STEWART (Writer, Collegiate Ki) (she/they) is an actress, dancer and writer finishing up her final year at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. She is very thankful to have been a part of this project and to have shared space with such beautiful and inspiring women. TAMARA MAURICE WILLIAMS (Writer, Working Girl) is an actress/dancer/writer hailing from New York City! Most recently she had a recurring role on hit tv show, Dispatches From Elsewhere, as a fierce, high energy Aerobics Instructor (AMC). Currently streaming on season 1 of Pose on Netflix. Her theatrical start was being featured as part of The New York Times critics’ pickStreet Children!, choreographed by Tamara. Tamara is a classically trained performer by way of Harlem School of The Arts, she is passionate about seeing change in her community and Globally; a former Human Rights Campaign youth ambassador, advocating for the basic human rights of Inner-city youth throughout the greater New York and Tri-State area for much of her younger life. Tamara co-starred alongside fellow cast-mates Carlie Guevara, Amanda and Ivana Black in the critically acclaimed, award-winning feature filmThe Garden Left Behind directed by Flavio Alves, written by John Rotondo, produced by Roy Wol; and she continues to reinvent the way we view Trans/Gender non-conforming Non Binary Performers. TROY ANTHONY (Co-Composer, Music) is a KY-born songwriter, theater-maker and activist based in NYC practicing Black queer joy. He has presented work at Joe’s Pub, 54 Below, Prospect Theater Company and the Musical Theater Factory (MTF). Commissions include The Public, Atlantic Theater Company, The Civilians and The Shed. Troy has been seen in the Public Theater’s Twelfth Night and As You Like It, as well as Prospect Theater Company’s Tamar of the River. He leads the Public Theater’s Public Works Community Choir and focuses on the intersection between art and social justice at the DreamYard Project. He serves on MTF’s board and was a part of their inaugural Makers cohort. GABBY HENDERSON (Co-Composer) is a Chicago-based musician, composer and sound designer. ASHTON MUÑIZ (Producer) (They/He) is a New York-based queer actor, performance artist, filmmaker and producer. Ashton’s goal through life and artistic work is to continue to instill joy into the world by embracing the realities of the present. Muñiz is a co-founder of Legacy: A Black Queer Production Collective, a production company focused on providing resources to artists systematically excluded from — and exploited by — media and the arts. Ashton has recently been seen in/collaborated on works around the globe at venues such as Centre National de la Danse, The Guggenheim, New York Theatre Workshop, The Art Institute of Chicago, St. Ann’s Warehouse, New Museum, The Park Ave Armory and more. Ashton attended actor/artist training programs at Ithaca College and Moscow Arts Theatre School. Follow along: @arshton | @legacy.bqpc AVA ELIZABETH NOVAK (Assistant Director) is a theater and filmmaker concerned with rituals of self-love, healing and joy. Recent works include A Plan Against Despair and 444 Fine Street as well as working on the animation for The Map Project (created by TaNia, Soho Rep) and Moonface (song by Nazareth Hassan). An organization they would like to highlight is the Trans Housing Coalition. Cashapp: $TransHousingCo ADELE OVERBEY (Director of Photography) (she/her) is a Brooklyn based videographer and editor who has worked in collaboration with New York Theater Workshop, The Musical Theater Factory and Big Red Penguin Productions. Adele's work has long focused on creating sustained partnerships with some of NYC’s boldest artists, especially those working towards social justice and representation. MELISSA MOWRY (Production Manager, Community Engagement) is an actor, director, theatermaker and teaching artist based in NYC and Virginia. Originally from Virginia Beach, Virginia, Melissa has a BA in Music Industry and Drama from Randolph-Macon College and her MFA in Directing from The Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University. In 2018, Melissa was accepted into the Stage Director and Choreographer Foundation's Observership Program, where she assisted Patricia McGregor on her Production of Lights Out: Nat King Cole at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. She has also worked with The Lower Eastside Shakespeare Company, The WP Theatre, The Tank, Women of Color Productions, The Secret Theatre, The Ume Group, New York Fringe Festival and The New Group in New York; Virginia Repertory Theatre and Cadence Theatre Company in Virginia and the Kattaikkuttu Sangam and Gurukulam in Tamil Nadu, India. melissamowry.com TERESA-ESMERALDA SANCHEZ (Sound) is a first-generation Dominican visual artist and award-winning independent documentary filmmaker, with nearly a decade of experience, thoughtfully curating vivid images, details, music and sound design. Her passion for visual storytelling has brought her to different parts of the world. Teresa-Esmeralda's directorial debut was featured in the American Documentary Film Festival. ABOUT THE VISION RESIDENCY Designed to foreground Ars Nova’s values through the creation of more equitable and power-sharing curatorial practices, the Vision Residency expands Ars Nova’s artistic vision by inviting seven artist-curators to populate our digital platform with their own work as well as work by artists they champion and admire.
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