NEWS OF THE STRANGE LAB
The Doxsee Theater | June 6 – 23, 2019
232 52nd Street, Brooklyn, NY 11220
The NEWS OF THE STRANGE LAB commissioned three new works by emerging artists exploring a collection of rarely seen tales from The One Thousand and One Nights, as well as early Medieval Arab fantasy writing that pre-dates even the earliest known transcriptions of these ancient Islamic tales. Lead artists include TMT Associate Artistic Director Moe Yousuf, Syrian/ Palestinian/American dance artist Leyya Tawil, and The Million Underscores (led by Colombian-born theater director Nicolás Noreña & Timothy Scott).
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The Brooklyn Reporter
ALL WE COULD GIVE
Lead Artist Leyya Mona Tawil
JUNE 6-9, 2019
ALL WE COULD GIVE offers a womyn-driven response to the resistance strategies and power manipulations of Scheherazade in the legendary ALF LAYLA WA LAYLA. Tawil composes this performance score with choreography, music compositions and conceptual directives. Through sonic and corporeal architecture, she and her collaborators interrogate their own behavior and choice in relation to attention and agency. Tawil draws information from pyramid structures, jinnia mythology and diasporic fantasy to build a poetic and sonic land within The Doxsee Theater. This work is situated in the field of Arab Experimentalism which narrates and speculates on culture through transgressive art.
Featuring Mehdya Fassi, Ava Mendoza, Mersiha Messiha, Tara Sheena, and Leyya Mona Tawil
Lighting Design Ashley Kok
Sound Design Ian Douglas–Moore
Poet Marwa Helal
ALL WE COULD GIVE Program
1001SUR
Lead Artist The Million Underscores (Nicolás Noreña & Timothy Scott)
June 13-16, 2019
1001SUR is a reimagination of 1001 Nights as told in a roadside bordello on the frontier of two undisclosed South American countries. It is a journey into the realms of the “exotic,” where layers of wishes, dreams and desires intermingle and transform reality. 1001SUR is an exploration of transcultural fantasies, an inquiry into the origins of narrative, an ode to Imagination.
Featuring Madeline Barr, Ryan William Downey, Ethan Nicholas Fishbane, Yuki Kawahisa, Marija Kovačević, Alenka Kraigher, Daniel Allen Nelson, Timothy Scott, Runn Shayo, and Johanna Stone
Lighting Design Ashley Kok
Stage Manager Bria Robninson
1001SUR Program
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Red Hook Star Revue
NEWS OF THE STRANGE
Lead Artist Moe Yousuf
June 20-23, 2019
NEWS OF THE STRANGE is a Medieval Arab fantasy suite in Western disco-era cookout tradition. It contains sorrows, difficulties and dangers, grave matters, the revelation of hidden secrets, heavy cares and troubles following one after the other, including drones, dancing, glamping, cloud-chasing vaping carnatic jinn, Western Oriental reverberations, poetry and reports. We shall perform it for you so that you may learn from it and take pleasure in it.
Featuring Sarah Dahnke, Eamon Goodman, Anahita Kumar, Sophie Laruelle, Viniyata Pany, and Moe Yousuf
Scenic Design You-Shin Chen
Lighting Design Reza Behjat
Costume Design Dina El-Aziz
Musical Director / Composer / Sound Design Eamon Goodman
Additional Compositions & Sound Design Viniyata Pany
Choreography Sarah Dahnke
Stage Manager Matt Hunter
NEWS OF THE STRANGE Program
Photo by Gaia Squarci