WaterWorks Emerging Artists Showcase

Our signature commissioning program, WaterWorks, was created to identify, cultivate, and nurture the talents of visionary artists of color — ranging from artists that are just emerging in the field to artists who have well-established careers. Harlem Stage aims to shine a light on these artists and to light the path on their road to artistic achievement.

The WaterWorks Emerging Artists program is designed for budding artists of color, to enable them to develop their creative instincts and business skills. Throughout the one-year commission, artists develop an original performance piece, presented as part of a work-in-progress showcase at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse. The yearlong program offers commissioning support, mentorship, critical feedback, and professional development opportunities for each artist.

Thank you for joining us!

Harlem Stage

Vinson Fraley | I Got Time Today

Dancer/Co-Choreographer: Catherine Kirk (she/her)

Text: Natalie Cook

Tariq Al-Sabir* | BIG BABY

*Due to unforeseen circumstances, Tariq Al-Sabir will not be performing

Commissioned by Harlem Stage through its WaterWorks Emerging Artists Program and supported by a grant from the Jerome Foundation. Other supporters of the WaterWorks Emerging Artists Program are the Mellon Foundation, Ford Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Thompson Family Foundation, and the Leonard & Robert Weintraub Family Fund.

Additional funding for Jennifer Cendaña Armas was provided by Queens Council on the Arts.

Additional funding for Vinson Fraley was provided by the Mertz-Gilmore Foundation and their Late Stage Stipend Grant.

Special thanks to Chelsea Factory for generously hosting the artists for residencies in Summer 2022.

ABOUT THE WORK

SISTERS BY WATER

BY SHENNY DE LOS ANGELES

Dominican-American interdisciplinary performance artist and Harlem Stage WaterWorks Emerging Artist, Shenny De Los Angeles uses her art and voice to focus on healing generational trauma, inviting every hurt to free itself into joy. Sisters by Water is a live ritual performance that explores the friendship between a Dominican-American femme and Haitian-American femme honoring the Latinx femmes that are changing the foundation of self-love.

The piece chronicles these young girls becoming women and their exploration of intimacy in their relationship and how they share very similar fears/discomfort with their own naked bodies.

Coming from two cultures where Black women’s bodies have been historically violated, the film seeks to reveal the impact of how fear of oneself lives within the DNA of generations to come. DNA holds memory. What happens to Caribbean women who survive and what do they pass down to their children? We witness Ambar and Larimar grow up feeling the weight of what their mothers were never able to heal from.

During this fellowship, De Los Angeles seeks to explore, study, and express this story through multimedia, storytelling integrated with spoken word, video projection, and ritual spiritual practice.

SHENNY DE LOS ANGELES

INTERDISCIPLINARY PERFORMANCE ARTIST AND WRITER

Shenny De Los Angeles (she/they) is a Dominican-American interdisciplinary performance artist and writer. Shenny centralizes Black & Brown Caribbean femmes in her stories, inviting every hurt to free itself into joy and affirming the beauty in being alive. Her short film, The Ritual to Beauty, received the Grand Jury Prize at Slamdance and the LOLA Award (highlighting the experience of the Afro Diaspora) at the Philadelphia Latinx Film Festival. It is now available to stream on The New Yorker. Shenny has also been commissioned by The Latinx Playwright Circle, Latina Magazine, and Mabou Mines Theatre, to name a few. Currently, as an Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Shenny is exploring ritual performance pieces that integrate spoken word in theatrical and cinematic form. Learn more about her work at www.shennydelosangeles.com

ABOUT THE WORK

STORY OF A ROMANCE

BY JENNIFER CENDAÑA ARMAS

Harlem Stage WaterWorks Emerging Artist, Jennifer Cendaña Armas is an interdisciplinary performer, writer, and community worker from NYC, having graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in Theater & Politics. Cendaña Armas has been selected to explore and create a new work, Story of a Romance. Inspired by vinyl singles and maxi cassettes, Cendaña Armas combines text, movement, and song to chronicle different versions of the same romantic relationship and how community issues, such as class, impact our intimate relationships while challenging the notion that a woman’s ultimate aspiration should be a relationship. Co-starring Alphonso Walker Jr., with direction by Tramane Harris, and choreography by Georgina Bates and Arcell Cabuag. Mentored by Awoye Timpo and reg e. gaines. Additional funding provided by Queens Council on the Arts.

JENNIFER CENDAÑA ARMAS

INTERDISCIPLINARY PERFORMER, WRITER, AND COMMUNITY WORKER

Jennifer Cendaña Armas is a performer, writer, and community worker from NYC. Her show, Twists & A Bridge, looking at the effects immigration has on familial and romantic partnerships; premiered at NYC Summerstage and later at NY Urban Arts Festival, with an early incarnation presented at Berkeley’s La Peña Cultural Center. She was a featured artist at The Smithsonian Institute’s Crosslines exhibit where she premiered visual and performance work exploring identity and the African-Asian-Hispanic bloodlines of the Philippines. Additional theatre features: skinimin12 (NYC Hip-Hop Theatre Festival at The Public Theater and Downtown Urban Theatre Festival); We Got Issues!, a touring production and activist circle focusing on women’s empowerment; movement choreographer for the show blak directed by reg e. gaines. Music & Poetry: Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Word. Sound. Power.; Peruvian North American Cultural Institute in Cusco; London’s Ronnie Scott’s Upstairs; Lincoln Center’s La Casita; Urban Griots at Joe’s Pub. She has facilitated workshops nationwide and globally, including Riker’s Island, Jahajee Sisters, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Esperanza Center for Peace & Justice, women impacted by the Pinochet regime in Chile, youth theatre in Ghana and Belize, and writing workshops in Ireland, the UK, and Belize. Member of Blackout Arts Collective. Jennifer-armas.com ig: juniper_posts

ABOUT THE WORK

3 RITES: LIBERTY

BY EDISA WEEKS

Harlem Stage WaterWorks Emerging Artist, Edisa Weeks, is a Brooklyn, NY-based choreographer, educator, curator, and founder of DELIRIOUS Dances. Edisa is a 2022 Harlem Stage WaterWorks Emerging Artist for which she is developing her new work, 3 RITES: Liberty, which digs into the pathologizing of African Americans by psychiatry and the foundations of liberty in America. The WaterWorks commission will support Weeks’ research, writing and embodying of three stories told by the Liberty character that are based on objects (gun, bible, lightbulb) that inform the Black/African experience in America. Weeks is developing 3 RITES: Liberty with creative advisor James Scruggs and producer Marýa Wethers.

EDISA WEEKS

CHOREOGRAPHER, EDUCATOR, AND CURATOR

Edisa Weeks (she/her) is a choreographer, educator, curator, and founder of DELIRIOUS Dances. She creates multi-media interactive work that explores our deepest desires, darkest fears, and sweetest dreams. Her work has been performed in a variety of venues including the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum, and Mount Tremper Arts; as well as in swimming pools, storefront windows, senior centers, sidewalks, and living rooms. Weeks grew up in Uganda, Papua New Guinea, and Brooklyn, NY, and has a BA from Brown University, and received a full fellowship to attend New York University’s TISCH School of the Arts where she obtained an MFA in choreography. She has had the joy of performing with Annie–B Parsons Big Dance Theater, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Co., Dance Brazil, Homer Avila, Jane Comfort, Jon Kinzel, Muna Tseng, Reggie Wilson Fist & Heel Performance Group, Sally Silvers, Spencer/Colton Dance, among others. In addition, she danced in the 2016 “Bessie” award-winning performance by The Skeleton Architecture. She is on the Board of Directors for Movement Research and is an Associate Professor of Dance and Acting Chair of the Department of Drama, Theatre, and Dance at Queens College. She teaches modern technique, improvisation, choreography, the collaborative process, and mentors emerging artists. www.deliriousdances.com

ABOUT THE WORK

I GOT TIME TODAY

BY VINSON FRALEY

Harlem Stage WaterWorks Emerging Artist, dancer, and choreographer, Vinson Fraley has been selected to explore a new work in dance and movement entitled I Got Time Today. Fraley dives into a deep study of movement and expression on the inner tensions that lie between what is perceived and said, to bring the act of remembrance into ritual and healing practices. Fraley seeks to explore ways to communicate the abstraction of gesture and the way everyday body language stimulates spaces of the interaction of openness, in which dreams and memories overlap into each other.

VINSON FRALEY

INTERDISCIPLINARY PERFORMANCE ARTIST, DANCER, AND CHOREOGRAPHER

Vinson Fraley is a New York City based performance artist. He was born in Statesville, North Carolina and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He began his formal training in voice and drama at DeKalb School of the Arts. He started dancing at the age of 14 at DanceMakers of Atlanta. Fraley received his BFA in dance from NYU Tisch in 2015. During his final year of college he became a member of Kyle Abraham’s A.I.M (Abraham.In.Motion) and later joined the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company in 2017. Some of Vinson’s collaborators include Carrie Mae Weems, Sterling Ruby, Damien Jalet, Kohei Nawa, Bobbi Jene Smith, Holland Andrews, Sara Mearns, Terri Lyne Carrington, Boysnoize, Mario Sorrenti, Collier Schorr, Kenyon Victor Adams, Janet Biggs, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The American Modern Opera Company, Arts at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), and MIT.

He has had the opportunity to present works in the US, Germany, and France. Recently his work has been seen at The Joyce Theater, Lincoln Center, The Water Mill Center, and The Peter Brant Foundation. His movement direction has been seen in videos by Calvin Klein, Burberry, Serpentwithfeet, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Nike, and Pattern Beauty. Vinson contributed an original music composition for the Bill T. Jones/ Arnie Zane Company’s work titled Afterwardsness. He is signed to DNA Models.

His work has been written about and featured in various publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Interview Magazine, System Magazine, I-d Magazine, Highsnobiety, Document Journal, and Dance Magazine. He was photographed by Inez and Vinoodh for the cover of V Magazine. He has also appeared in worldwide campaigns and commercials for Calvin Klein and Apple.

He is thrilled to be showing work at Harlem Stage again!

ABOUT THE WORK

BIG BABY

BY TARIQ AL-SABIR

Harlem Stage WaterWorks Emerging Artist, Composer, Vocalist, Music Director, and Producer, Tariq Al-Sabir, has been described as a “boundless talent” by Baltimore’s City Hall and The Examiner deemed him “a rising musical mastermind.” Now based in NYC, Tariq is a sought after creator and collaborator. Tariq Al-Sabir has been selected to work on a 3-vignette opera, BIG BABY, each vignette featuring its own story and own set of characters. It specifies the non-traumatic and fictional stories that have centered Black individuals and their unique relationship to technology.

TARIQ AL-SABIR

COMPOSER, VOCALIST, MUSIC DIRECTOR, AND PRODUCER

Composer, Vocalist, Producer, and Music Director Tariq Al-Sabir has been described as a “boundless talent” by Baltimore’s City Hall and The Examiner dubbed him “a rising musical mastermind”. A Baltimore native, who’s first job was lending his voice to the 2006 theme song of HBO’s The Wire, Al-Sabir is a sought after creator and collaborator. He has been featured on Al Jazeera and TEDx for his innovative work that creatively and boldly challenges genre exclusive expectations in music.

Al-Sabir has performed and premiered commissioned works at The Public Theater, Lincoln Center, National Sawdust, MoMA, Swiss Institute, the Gardner Museum, and the Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University. He nationally and internationally premiered the roles of Richard Moss and Travis Douglass in Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, an opera by Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon. Al-Sabir’s multimedia song cycle #UNWANTED, conceived during the 2018 SUITE/Space residency with the Mabou Mines Theater Company, premiered to the world at The Shed in 2019. Al-Sabir made his Los Angeles Philharmonic debut in the new production of Meredith Monk’s ATLAS directed by Yuval Sharon and collaborated with Monk on her new evening-length performance Indra’s Net.

Learn more at www.tariqalsabir.com

Over the course of the 2022/2023 season, Harlem Stage examines the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s to the 1970s, and its relationship to race, gender, sexuality, music, photography, film, poetry, theater, and dance, as well as its intersectionality with the larger Black Power Movement.

Learn more and buy tickets at harlemstage.org/black-arts-movement-examined

Photos by Kwame Brathwaite

OUR SUPPORTERS

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council.

Harlem Stage’s Programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

ABOUT HARLEM STAGE

Harlem Stage is the performing arts center that bridges Harlem’s cultural legacy to contemporary artists of color and dares to provide the artistic freedom that gives birth to new ideas.

For nearly 40 years our singular mission has been to perpetuate and celebrate the unique and diverse artistic legacy of Harlem and the indelible impression it has made on American culture.

We provide opportunity, commissioning, and support for artists of color, make performances easily accessible to all audiences, and introduce children to the rich diversity, excitement, and inspiration of the performing arts.

We fulfill our mission through commissioning, incubating, and presenting innovative and vital work that responds to the historical and contemporary conditions that shape our lives and the communities we serve.

Board of Directors

Courtney F. Lee-Mitchell, President

Jamie Cannon, Vice President

Michael Young, Secretary

Mark Thomas, Treasurer

Angela Glover Blackwell

Jenna Bond

Jamila Ponton Bragg

Staff

Patricia Cruz, Artistic Director & CEO

MANAGEMENT

Eric Oberstein, Managing Director

DEVELOPMENT

Shamar Hill, Director of Development

Shanté Skyers, Associate Director of Development

Julianna Friedman, Development Manager

PROGRAMMING

Carl Hancock Rux, Associate Artistic Director/Curator-in-Residence

MARKETING

Deirdre May, Senior Director of Digital Content and Marketing

Andre Padayhag, Marketing Manager and Graphic Designer

EDUCATION

Jordan Carter, Education & Community Engagement Manager

BOX OFFICE

Eddy Perez, Box Office Manager

PRODUCTION

Amanda K. Ringger, Director of Production

Yolanda Royster, Stage Manager

Clarence Taylor, Lighting Op

Orlando Alvarado, Audio Engineer

Gabriel Fequiere Jr., Video Op

David Barrett, Julio Collado, Lighting & Audio Deck Crew

JoAnn K. Chase Patricia Cruz

Hugh Dancy and Claire Danes

Jenette Kahn

Rebecca Robertson

LaChanze Sapp-Gooding Tamara Tunie

OPERATIONS

Rodney Bissessar, Director of Operations Lamont Askins, Operations Associate Acey Anderson Sr., Maintenance

ADMINISTRATION & FINANCE

NCheng LLC, Accountants/Advisors Michelle Blankenship, Principal Aaron Lam, Supervising Senior Accountant

CONSULTANTS

Aon/Albert G. Ruben Company (NY) —Claudia Kaufman, Insurance DAS Services, IT Consultant Digital Video Services—BriGuel Lutz & Carr/Chris Bellando, Accountants

Madison Consulting Group, —Matt Laurence

Manchester Benefits—Greg Martin Marc Millman Photography Digital Video Services —Jess Medenbach

RL Stein Group—Robyn L. Stein Snugg Studios—Derrick Saint Pierre Development Consultant

The Whelan Group Incorporated —Charles Whelan

Blake Zidell & Associates, Public Relations & Marketing

USHERS

Toma Carthens, Nobar De Leon, Andy Garcia, Robert Gibbons, Miriam Hernandez, Julian Norales