Performance Dates & Times
Saturday, November 15th at 7:30pm, doors 7pm

Sunday, November 16th at 7:30pm, doors 7pm

Masks will be optional during these performances.

SUGAR VENDIL ANTONYM: scenes of childhood

Created, Composed, and Performed by 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. 

With field recordings of New York City from various times of year create a rich sonic landscape, the four seasons serve as a cyclical frame and context for 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.

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.