February 19 - February 25, 2023
Conceived and Performed by Janelle Lawrence and Sugar Vendil, BĀS is an interactive performance that addresses racial tensions between Black Americans and Asian Americans and invites audiences to reflect on their own intercultural connections. Through facilitated moments of music, dance, storytelling, and videography Lawrence and Vendil forge a call for solidarity.
Open Studios: March 14 - 16, 2023
Performances: March 17 - 18, 2023
In Leche Hervida, IV Castellanos is working with four intentions: Duplicate||Physical||Structure||Weight. Castellanos is an abstract performance artist, sculptor, land defender and water protector in training. This performance is the body with constructed objects that deconstruct. Prior to the two night performance run, audiences will be able to view Their sculptural installation during ‘Open Studio’ hours. During these hours those who are willing to participate, can accept Castellanos’ invitation for conversation while They cast the participant’s hand.
April 14 - 16, 2023
Choreographed by Candace Taylor, Effervescent Encounters is a dance piece exploring the magic that occurs when the light in one person witnesses and intertwines with another. Through our stories - individual and collective - we investigate the power of interdependence through the body. Audiences and performers will ground together in their humanity - both active participants in the piece. Scream, cry, laugh, it’s up to you - just bring your light and Candace will make magic with you.
May 4 - May 13, 2023
Award-winning creator and actor Eisa Davis transforms JACK into a contemporary art museum hosting The Essentialisn’t - a transatlantic undrowning --- in a pasture of hair. This original sound-based conceptual art work uses movement, voice and electronics to reanimate modernist figures from the Harlem Renaissance. Focusing on a central question - “Can you be black and not perform?” Davis cultivates a black feminine practice of presence and sovereignty.
Peter Mills Weiss & Julia Mounsey: Open Mic Night
June 1 - 4, 2023
Peter Mills Weiss and Julia Mounsey return to JACK to preview Open Mic Night - a wake, held for a venue that never existed. Embracing the chaos and demise of a bygone performance scene, this new work promises jokes, several reenactments, and even some snacks. Open Mic Night culminates in a eulogy — a speech celebrating not only the life of the fictional space, but of every real space we have lost, and the many lives we led in those spaces.
JACK Labs presents
Ian Askew: Until Other Times
June 15 - June 17, 2023
Fresh from JACK’s 2022 Radical Acts Festival, music and theater artist Ian Askew performs Until Other Times. You are invited to attend a memorial service, a dream confessional, a slow dance at the end of the world. Until Other Times considers how human and non-human animals navigate the fabricated scarcity of colonial economies, rejecting imposed limitations on our memory, our environment, and our capacity to care for one another. Directed and performed by Ian Andrew Askew, featuring Kiara Benn, Jailyn Phillips-Wiley, and Sifiso Mabena.
Until Other Times is a part of JACK Labs, a series designed to incubate theatrical work with an opportunity for playwrights to advance their play past the "workshop" phase, but without the pressure of a multi-week run.
Cancelled
JULY 6TH - 8TH
THE DYNAMITEXPERIENCE:
IN LIEU OF THE OPTION IS WHAT?
In Lieu of the Option is What? will be rescheduled to September 2023. Sign up for our mailing list for immediate updates on scheduling!
In Lieu of the Option is What? is a dance piece co-choreographed by Winston Dynamite Brown and Latra Ann Wilson. Responding to the current socio-political atmosphere stripping choice away from women, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ people, the ensemble of The DynamitExperience reckon with the real impact of this climate on their members and their communities. Pairing electric dance with live jazz composition, they will funnel their earnestness, distress, and compassion for change into art aimed at sparking conversation within the Brooklyn neighborhoods where they stem from, live, and create.
Oye Group: Ghetto Hors D’oeuvres, an ode to the streets of New York City
July 27 - July 29, 2023
Inspired by The 50th anniversary of Hip Hop, let's celebrate the growth and transformation of Hip Hop and the city that birthed it at this year's Ghetto Hors D'Oeuvres: Ode to New York City and Hip Hop! How has Hip Hop impacted our boroughs, neighborhoods, communities, and people?
Visual designers, Spoken Word Artists, Rappers, and Graffiti Street Artists, both local and immigrant, will decipher the block and break down the rock that is the cornerstone of Hip Hop. The stories told will depict the city's transformation and address inequalities of the Barrio and Hip Hop culture.
Ghetto Hors D’oeuvres sparks dialogue on complex issues of immigration, economics, and survival through the richness of art, poetry, complimentary hors d’Oeuvres, a DJ set, dancing, and conversation.
BITCHIN’ HEALS
August 10 - August 13, 2023
Bitchin’ Heals is a weekend of performances, workshops, art markets and mutual aid presented by Experimental Bitch and JACK! Upending a trauma-centered narrative, Bitchin’ Heals amplifies disabled joy while putting disabled artists and accessibility at the forefront. Bitchin’ Heals is curated by x senn-yuen @tittyglow.jpg and features NYC-based disabled artists. Learn more here!
JACK's programming is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, City Council Majority Leader Laurie Cumbo, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, The New York Community Trust, Howard Gilman Foundation, The Lozen Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation New York Theater Program in partnership with Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, The Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, The Hyde & Watson Foundation, the DuBose and Dorothy Heyward Foundation, The Lida Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, The Bains Family Foundation, and Ridgewood Savings Bank, in addition to many generous individuals.