The 2017 Naked Stages Fellows have been chosen!
Pillsbury House Theatre is excited to announce the recipients of the 2017 Naked Stages Fellowship: Antonio Duke, Ritika Ganguly, and Jessica Lopez Lyman. Antonio Duke is a recent graduate of the University of Minnesota / Guthrie B.F.A Actor Training Program who uses acting, hip hop dance, and spoken word poetry to explore various myths from the black spiritual canon. Ritika Ganguly has trained in multiple genres within Bengali music and in contemporary Indian theater. She is inspired by theatre thinkers across the subcontinent, and strives to bring free, non-proscenium theatre to the stage. Jessica Lopez Lyman, Ph.D. is an interdisciplinary performance artist and Xicana feminist scholar interested in how People of Color create alternative spaces to heal and imagine new worlds.
The 2017 Program Mentor will be Daniel Alexander Jones. The 2017 Fellows were chosen by a panel of artists comprised of past Naked Stages recipients and other professional artists, including Christina Ham, Katie Ka Vang, and Stephanie Rogers.
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About the 2017 Naked Stages Projects:
Antonio Duke’s piece, Ashes of Moons, is an examination of adoption through spoken word poetry, African mask work, and hip hop dance. It will tell three stories centered on motherlessness; the first comes from the Yoruba people, the second comes from the Odyssey, and the third focuses on the relationship between himself, his siblings and their biological mother.
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Ritika Ganguly’s project will demystify ‘folk’ music as it is understood in the United States, and present Baul – a particular musical style coming out of Bengal – as a tangible, nuanced, pragmatic, and political art form. It will deliberately adapt Baul to the stage, invoking Baul methods of story-telling and the modes of non-verbal communication that Baul poet-practitioners use to make connections with story-listeners.
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Jessica Lopez Lyman’s project, 141 Mednik Avenue, is an interdisciplinary installation that explores Chicanx rituals. Based on family archives and stories from her abuelo, a Los Angeles barber, this piece asks: how do you maintain, cultivate, and pass on rituals of the home when you are a displaced migrant living in the U.S.?
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More Information
This year, 2017 Guggenheim Fellow Pramila Vasudevan begins her second year as Director of Naked Stages. A creative opportunity unlike any other in Minnesota, Naked Stages is a 7-month development program that provides time, financial support, and mentoring to three emerging artists as they develop their unique voices as performance artists and creators. Twice a month, they also participate in production meetings focused on the business side of art, from audience development to technical support, helping to develop their unique voice into a sustainable, artistic career.
The performances of the 2017 Naked Stages naked stages artists will be January 11 – 20, 2018. All tickets are Pick-Your-Price. (Regular price = $15).
BOX OFFICE AND MORE INFO: 612-825-0459 or www.pillsburyhouseandtheatre.org