Chicago, IL- Links Hall presents the world premiere of Rivers See, written and composed by New Dramatists Playwright and author Sharon Bridgforth featuring Sonja Parks "Named one of the Seven Artists you Must See" by American Theater Magazine.
Set on a juking boat in the Mississippi Delta, River See conjures a world of blues women, queers, deviants and seers. Experienced through the heart of SEE, a young woman in training, River See is the prayer before the Great Migration to the North.
River See is an exploration in Theatrical Jazz, a distinctive art form with multiple manifestations of expression. In this performance installation, the audience is invited to participate in the world of the performance as it is being "composed" live. River See runs June 19 — 29 at Links Hall 3111 N. Western Ave. Tickets: $10 / students - $20/ general admission. Thursday June 19 Preview at 7pm/ June 20 -29 Fridays & Saturdays at 7pm/ Sundays at 3pm
River See past workshop experiments took place with artists and community members on 18 different occasions across the country in Boston ( The Theater Offensive ), Minneapolis ( Pillsbury House ), NYC ( New Dramatists ) Rhode Island ( Brown University ), Texas ( UT Austin ), and Chicago at The Dance Center at Columbia College of Chicago, DePaul University, P.O.W.OW at Jeffery Pub, Rockefeller Memorial Chapel at University of Chicago, South Side Community Arts Center, The Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts.
"...no ordinary theater experience" - Twin Cities Daily Planet
"River See" taps something primal in the same way that drumming can send people into frenzies or piercing bagpipes call out unknown sadness". - Star Tribune ( Minneapolis )
About the Composer
Sharon Bridgforth, is a resident playwright at New Dramatists. Bridgforth is the Spring 2014 Playwright in Residence in the University of Iowa's Playwrights Program. The piece that she is currently touring, River See, has received a 2012 MAP Fund Award and a 2012 National Performance Network Creation Fund Award. A touring artist since 1993, Bridgforth's, blood pudding, was produced in the 2010 New York SummerStage Festival. The 2010 — 2012 Visiting Multicultural Faculty member at The Theatre School at DePaul University, Bridgforth is the RedBone Press author of love conjure/blues and the Lambda Literary Award-winning the bull-jean stories.
Bridgforth is co-editor of Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic: Art, Activism, Academia, and the Austin Project, University of Texas Press. Bridgforth's performance script, delta dandi is published in solo/black/woman, Northwestern University Press, Eds. E. Patrick Johnson and Ramon Rivera-Servera. Bridgforth's work is taught at universities around the country. She is one of the subjects in Dr. Matt Richardson's The Queer Limit of Black Memory: Black Lesbian Literature and Irresolution,The Ohio State University Press, and in Dr. Omi Osun Joni L. Jones's forthcoming, Jazz Ase And The Power Of The Present Moment, The Ohio State Press. Website: http://sharonbridgforth.com/s/river-see/river-see-experiments/
About Lead Artist
Sonja Parks - SEE
An accomplished actor, Sonja has been a featured performer with many notable venues including: The Public Theatre, The Royal Shakespeare Company-London, The Kennedy Center, Playwrights' Horizon, & The Guthrie Theatre. She trained at UT-Austin, Dance Theater of Harlem & The National Black Theater under Dr. Barbara Ann Teer. She is an NEA & McKnight Artist Fellow; has extensive television, commercial and film credits; has served on several national arts panels; been a featured artist in Time Magazine and named one of "Seven Artists You Must See" by American Theatre Magazine. Currently, she teaches acting at the University of Minnesota.
Ni'Ja Whitson Adebanjo — Dancer ( Egun )
Ni'Ja is an interdisciplinary artist and writer whose work engages a nexus of postmodern and African diasporic performance practices. She is the recipient of a 2013 Movement Research Artist in Residency Award, commissioned to create a new interdisciplinary performance work, and a member of the Hemispheric Institute's Working Group in Dance. She has served as assistant choreographer to Dianne McIntyre for the Goodman Theater's production of Crowns, directed and written by Regina Taylor, and recently completed an international tour of her interdisciplinary solo work "root shock" including invitations in New York, Canada, and Chicago. Whitson has worked with a range of artists including Sharon Bridgforth, Guillermo Gomez Peña / La Pocha Nostra, April Berry, Allison Knowles, Darrell Jones, Dee Alexander, and Douglas Ewart.
Marie Casimir - Grand Marshall ( leads the Second Line )
Marie is a Haitian-American writer and performer interested in the straddling of multiple cultures, languages and responsibilities that exist within her body and yours. Her approach to storytelling expresses a deep connection to Afro-Caribbean roots. Her work has appeared at Dance Union and Links Hall. She participated in Sharon Bridgforth's Theatrical Jazz Institute in 2012.
Jasmine Elizabeth Johnson - Egun ( Dancer )
Jasmine is a Postdoctoral Fellow in African American Studies at Northwestern University. A Ford Foundation Diversity Fellow, she earned her Ph.D. in African Diaspora Studies at UC Berkeley. Johnson has performed internationally and was most recently an ensemble member with Muntu Dance Theater of Chicago. She is a founding member of The Collegium for African Diaspora Dance.
Omi Osun Joni L. Jones — Environment Designer
Omi is an artist/scholar and an Associate Professor of Performance Studies in the African and African Diaspora Studies Department at the University of Texas at Austin. Her performances include "sista docta"—a critique of the academy, and "Searching for Osun"—a performance ethnography around Yoruba identity. She is co-editor—with Sharon Bridgforth and Lisa Moore—of Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic: Art, Activism, Academia, and the Austin Project, and is completing Theatrical Jazz: Performance, Ase, and the Power of the Present Moment which is forthcoming from Ohio State University Press.
Elizabeth MacNally — Stage Manager
Elizabeth is thrilled to be part of River See company again. Elizabeth lives in Minneapolis, where she is the production manager for Pillsbury House Theatre. As production manager she has worked many productions including Daniel Alexander Jones'Jomama Jones, Tracey Scott Wilson's Buzzer, Marcus Gardley's the road weeps, the well runs dry and is looking forward to finishing Tarrell McCraney's Brother Sister trilogy this fall.
Mankwe Ndosi - Spirit Guide ( Singer )
Mankwe works the Twin Cities, Chicago and internationally as a musicmaker and cultural catalyst. She weaves performance genres including improvised music, acapella rhythm and harmonies, hip-hop, afro soul, dance, performance art, and sung prayer/ritual. She infuses creative practice into healing, sustainable economic development, education, and new village community building.
Nia Witherspoon - Spirit Guide ( Singer )
Nia is a multidisciplinary artist-scholar passionate about social justice and spiritual transformation. Nia received her PhD from Stanford, and currently teaches on race, gender, sexuality, and performance at Florida State University. Nia is a published author, and her work has been recognized by the Mellon Foundation, Theatre Bay Area, and the Downtown Urban Theatre Festival.
ABOUT Links Hall
Links Hall encourages artistic innovation and public engagement by maintaining a facility and providing flexible programming for the research, development and presentation of new work in the performing arts. Since 1978, Links ( a 501 ( c ) 3 ) has incubated performing artists through its residency programs, artist-curated festivals, cabaret and performance series, co-presentations with self-producing artists, low-cost space rentals, direct grants to artists, workshop programs, apprentice producer program, fiscal sponsorship program, and as one of 72 presenting and visual arts partners in the National Performance Network. Links Hall has provided research, development and performance opportunities for nearly 10,000 artists and welcomes an average of 6,000 audience members per year.
SPECIAL EVENTS
In support of this production Links Hall announces River See community events:
Rare experiences like River See instigate a dialogue about who we are, where we're going and what powers we can conjure when we come together. Join us in these ancillary events in celebration of the River See World Premier.
June 20 Post Show Opening Reception Sponsored by Whole Foods Market Lakeview
June 21- solo/black/woman Book Launch
By E. Patrick Johnson ( editor ) & RamÃ"n H. Rivera-Servera ( editor )
The collection solo/black/woman features seven solo performance works by emerging and established feminist performance artists from the past three decades. ( Sharon Bridgforth is featured in this text )
Books are available for purchase through Northwestern University Press, Barnes and Noble and Amazon and at book launch.
River See is a National Performance Network ( NPN ) Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by Links Hall in partnership with Living Arts of Tulsa, Diaspora Vibes Cultural Arts Incubator, The Theater Offensive and NPN. The Creation Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts ( a federal agency ). For more information: www.npnweb.org .
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Links Hall is located at Constellation, 3111 N. Western Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618—convenient to the Belmont/Clyborn & Western CTA Bus Stop in Chicago's Roscoe Village neighborhood. The former viaduct lot at Western and Belmont will be available to Constellation audience. For more information call 773.281.0824 or visit www.LinksHall.org
Links Hall encourages artistic innovation and public engagement by maintaining a facility and providing flexible programming for the research, development and presentation of new work in the performing arts.
Links Hall is supported by Alphawood Foundation, AllState Insurance Company, Arts Midwest, Arts Work Fund for Organizational Development, The Boeing Company, The Chicago Community Trust, Cliff Dwellers Arts Foundation, The Elizabeth Morse Charitable Trust, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, James S. Kemper Foundation, Lisa Dershin Creative Dance Fund, MacArthur Fund for Arts and Culture at The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, National Performance Network, The Weasel Fund and many individuals.
Links Hall's Performance Series is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency; and a CityArts Program 2 grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs.
