SUGAR VENDIL ANTONYM: scenes of childhood

Created, Composed, and Performed by Sugar Vendil

Artistic Consulting by Mei Ann Teo, Pink Fang

Activation performed by Katherine Paola De La Cruz, Benedict Nguyễn, ayo ohs, Annie Wang, and Sugar Vendil

Costume Design by Harriet Jung
Lighting Design by Hao Bai

Sugar Vendil’s “Antonym: scenes of childhood” is an installation that juxtaposes the past, present, and future. A reminder of the lasting experience of childhood, this new work is an extension of Vendil’s forthcoming performance, Antonym: the opposite of nostalgia.

scenes of childhood features grown-up versions of Vendil’s childhood hobbies, visual performance scores, video, floating non-adhesive postage stamps, origami stars, and dresses by Antonym costume and set designer Harriet Jung. Vendil will activate the installation with performance interludes that share memories of a lonely yet hopeful childhood and possibly some embarrassing old poetry, layering electro-acoustic music, voice, and dance rooted in somatic memory. 

Vendil invites audiences to take part in her childhood world by engaging in nostalgic activities such as slam books, a sticker wall, and writing letters to future or past selves, or loved ones, that the artist will mail for participants. Lighting Design by Hao Bai.

About the Artist

Sugar Vendil (she/they) is a composer, pianist, and interdisciplinary artist who is forging new creative pathways as a second generation Filipinx American and future ancestor. She started her artistic life as a classical pianist, and after spending nearly a decade searching for her own voice, her practice evolved into making music and performances that integrate sound, movement, and unconventional approaches to the piano. She has a keyboard/synth duo, Vanity Project, with composer Trevor Gureckis. Vendil is based in Lenapehoking, known as Brooklyn.

Vendil’s work contains a potent sense of physicality and is obliquely autobiographical. Detaching from linearity and narrative, she conjures the immediate and raw emotions that are still perceivable from imperfect memories. 

She was awarded a 2024-25 CUNY Dance Initiative Residency at York College/Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning. Her project, Antonym: the opposite of nostalgia was awarded a 2022 NPN Creation Fund grant and 2021 MAP Fund grant. It is co-commissioned by Living Arts Tulsa, High Concept Labs, and National Sawdust, and was also a two-time finalist for NEFA’s NTP Creation and Touring Fund. 

Commissions include music for 3.1 Phillip Lim’s F/W 2024 show, Simple Tasks 2 on Jennifer Koh’s Grammy-award winning album Alone Together; a Chamber Music America commission to write for The Nouveau Classical Project; ETHEL’s Homebaked 2019, and ACF | Create. She scored Jih-E Peng’s May We Know Our Own Strength (2021) and GATHER (2023), short films centered on works by visual artist Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya, and The Rite of Spring (2024), written and directed by Nick Nocera. In early 2024, her visual scores were part of the National Arts Club’s 2020 Fellows group exhibition, Light, Line, and Sound. She showed two ink-on-paper scores, and trapunto etude (2024), a beaded and embroidered canvas score inspired by the art of Pacita Abad.

Vendil loves dancing and collaborating with other makers. She is part of choreographer Emily Johnson/CATALYST’s Being Future Being and was a musical collaborator with treya lam for Marie Lloyd Paspe and Almasphere’s bumalik. Vendil composed the music for Phil Chan’s Ballet des Porcelaines in 2021, playwright William Burke’s Is This Supposed to Last?, and premiered composer-saxophonist Darius Jones’ LawNOrder at The Stone and Being Caged in ICE at Roulette in 2018. In 2025, she danced in Adrienne Westwood’s [ ] at ODC Theater. Her album, May We Know Our Own Strength, is out on Gold Bolus Recordings.

She lives with her partner and young child, who she hopes will pursue dance and volleyball but will not force him/them. Vendil is an advocate of the oxford comma, is obsessed with her (late) cat Coco, and has an excellent memory.

CREATIVE TEAM

Mei Ann Teo (Artistic Consultant) makes theatre at the intersection of artistic/civic/contemplative practice, across genres, including music theatre, intermedial participatory work, classics, and documentary theatre. Teo’s work has been in international festivals in Europe and Asia, and has directed/developed new work across the US including The Public, Bushwick Starr, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Theatreworks Hartford, The Shed,Goodman Theatre, Public Theater, Berkeley Rep, and the National Black Theatre. Work includes Dim Sum Warriors by Colin Goh and Yen Yen Woo, composer Du Yun at Shanghai’s Theatre Above and 25 city China tour, and Madeline Sayet’s Where We Belong national tour produced by Woolly Mammoth Theatre and the Folger Shakespeare Library. Teo has served as the Artistic Director of Musical Theatre Factory and the Assoc. Artistic Director and Director of New Work at OSF. Teo is currently the Artistic Director, New Work at Pink Fang, formerly Ping Chong and Company.

Hao Bai (Lighting Designer), is a multidisciplinary designer in lighting, sound, video projection, and world-building (environment) for live and virtual performances. Recent: Virtual: Final Boarding Call (Ma-Yi Theater+WP Theater); Nocturne in 1200s (Ping Chong). Lighting: Waterboy and the Mighty World (Bushwick Starr & The Public Theatre); Lazarus (Ping Chong). Projection: Electronic City (NYIT Awards); My Home on the Moon (SF Playhouse–SFBATCC Awards); Twelfth Night (Folger, DC). Sound: Walden (TheatreWorks–CT Critics Circle Award), True West (People's Light). Lighting & Sound: 7Mins (HERE). Lighting & Projection: Priestess of Twerk (HERE + Irondale); Lighting/Sound/Projection: Arden (The Flea). Production Design: and the grass grows (Harvard University); Where We Belong (National Tours: The Public, Goodman Theatre, OSF etc.).

Harriet Jung (Costume Design). Broadway credits include Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ (2023) and Illinoise (2024). Her work has appeared at New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and The Royal Ballet, with choreographers including Justin Peck, Pam Tanowitz, Kyle Abraham, and Christopher Wheeldon. Additional work has been presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Guggenheim Works & Process, and the Museum of Art and Design.

PERFORMERS

Cindy Lan is a violist, composer, and collaborative artist from Queens, NY. Since 2019, she has explored her inner emotional world through the interplay of voice, strings, and electronics in her project ‘Breath & Bow Meditations’. She is a 2025 recipient of the Queens Art Fund New Work grant for the development of a forthcoming interdisciplinary work, “Sadness isn’t any louder than joy”. Her string quartet, Ondine Quartet, is a 2024 Chamber Music America Ensemble Forward grantee. She performs with Isogram and is a contributing performer for “Antonym: the opposite of nostalgia” by Sugar Vendil, and performed at National Sawdust, Lincoln Center, and Movement Research at Judson with Isogram. She performed as a soloist with Orchestra Northern Arizona in 2021 and 2023. She is the Executive Director of the Greenwich Village Orchestra, and holds an MM in Viola Performance from the Eastman School of Music.

Benedict Nguyễn is a freelance dancer, creative producer, and writer. She’s danced in recent projects with Sally Silvers, The Illustrious Blacks, and Kris Seto, among others. She appeared in the short film “Don’t F*ck with Bà” (2024, dir. Sally Tran) and is developing a dance theater work “DEFENSE” (2025). This fall, she’s producing Will Rawls’ NYC premiere of [siccer]. Benedict is the author of the [redacted] freelance labor zine nasty notes (2022) and the debut novel Hot Girls with Balls (Catapult 2025), a USA Today national bestseller. @xbennyboo / benedict-nguyen.com

ayo ohs (A.O./she/they) is a socially engaged artist, performer, and director working with movement, music, and healing arts in Lenapehoking/Brooklyn, NY. ayo’s current project, The Silent Unseen, includes an audio tour tracing histories of Asian American immigration through Flushing Meadows Park and the Queens Museum, with a forthcoming album and evening-length show in the Fall of 2025. ayo has collaborated with Andrew Schnieder on HERE (Jacob’s Pillow 2025), AFTER (EMPAC/The Public Theatre 2018), NERVOUS/SYSTEM, and NOWISWHENWEARE (BAM 2018, 2023). ayo was an original cast member in Faye Driscoll’s Thank You For Coming series (2013-2018). ayo is a founding member of Movement Research’s Artist of Color Council and has been an artist in residence at New York Live Arts (Fresh Tracks), Yaddo, Groundworks, and More Art. They hold a BFA summa cum laude from NYU Tisch School of the Arts’ Experimental Theatre Wing. ayoohs.com

Annie MingHao Wang (she/they) is a choreographer/dancer based in New York. They are a 2025 Fellow of the Bogliasco Center as a Van Cleef & Arpels Fellow in Dance and have also held residencies at Movement Research, Topaz Arts, Marble House Project. Leimay Foundation, BRIC, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Their work has been awarded grants by LMCC (Manhattan Arts Grant) and Brooklyn Arts Council and been presented by Pioneers Go East at the 2024 Out-FRONT! festival, Movement Research @Judson, Leimay's OUTSIGHT series, BRIC, Five Myles, and the Exponential Festival. Annie currently dances for Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group, Maho Ogawa's 水素co., Sugar Vendil, and Marie Lloyd Paspé.

Antonym: scenes of childhood is 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.