BABYLIFT
Written, Choreographed, and Performed by Anh Vo
The Doxsee Theater | February 9-12, 2021
223 52nd Street, Brooklyn, NY 11220
** A solo show for no audience **
A fragmented and collaged multimedia solo work, BABYLIFT combines the terror and pleasure of erotic hauntings. Named after a 1975 mass evacuation of children from South Vietnam to the United States, resulting in a plane crash that killed 78 of those children, BABYLIFT confronts the afterlives of the Vietnam War (a.k.a. the Resistance War Against Imperialist America). Striving to queer linear masculinist history, Vo weaves archival material together with memories of the Civil Rights Movement, freedom fantasies of the 1960s, contemporary pop culture, and current leftist activism. These layers of narrative create an uncanny, abstract, yet emotionally-charged space that serves as both a memorial for the unmourned / unremembered and a reckoning for our collective complicity.
BABYLIFT was originally commissioned and workshopped at the Fresh Tracks program at New York Live Arts. It was further developed through residencies at Jonah Bokaer Arts Foundation, University Settlement (Performance Project Fellowship), Brooklyn Arts Exchange (Space Grants), New Dance Alliance (LiftOff), and Bridge Street Theater.
Featuring: Anh Vo
Scenic Designer: Kyle b. co
Lighting Designer: George Kan
Sound Design: Isaac Silber
Production Stage Manager: Delaney McDonough
Photo by Maria Baranova.