Pillsbury House Theatre (PHT) is excited to announce the recipients of the 2022 Naked Stages Fellowship: Tumelo Khupe, Allison Vincent, and Marisol Herling.
The 2022 Fellows were selected by a panel of experienced artists facilitated by program director Masanari Kawahara, who succeeded longtime Naked Stages director Pramila Vasudevan this January. Pillsbury House + Theatre is excited to welcome these brilliant artists into the fellowship, especially during our 30th anniversary season celebration of solo performers.
From left to right: Tumelo Khupe (photo credit Reid Jarvi), Allison Vincent (photo credit Nico Swenson), and Marisol Herling (photo credit Nanne Sorvold)..
ABOUT THE FELLOWS:
TUMELO KHUPE (she/her/hers)
Project: Tumelo will be doing a solo performance exploring what it means to ‘live up to your name.’ A deeper look into how her identity is shaped and the discomforts, obstacles, vulnerabilities, moments of accountability, and victories that come with trying to understand the reality of the present through both a physical and spiritual lens.
Bio:Tumelo Khupe is a dancer (mostly known as a krumper through Minnesota Krump- aliases “Lady Stain” and “Twin QP.”), emerging choreographer, and actress based in the Twin Cities area. She began focusing on her passion for performing arts while living in her home country, Botswana. In 2016, she returned to the United States to pursue an education and career in the performing arts. As she continuously works to learn and understand the beauty in the culture of krump, she takes an interest in how krump offers endless possibilities for storytelling through its technique and language shared amongst its practitioners and provides a shared experience that encourages community building. She also takes an interest in how the body naturally captures critical moments in life that can reveal themselves through improvisation and uses some of these principles in her work. She graduated from St. Catherine University with a BA in Music Theater and a minor in Dance in May of 2020. Some awards received include the David Wick Leadership Award, David Wick Best Choreography Award, and The Mabel Meta Frey Outstanding Theater Artist Award.
ALLISON VINCENT (she/her/hers)
Project:For this solo performance, Allison will explore the liminal spaces we inhabit as humans and the boxes we attempt to compartmentalize, categorize, and store our lives in while navigating the binary world. Allison ponders the questions of this or that, here or there, past or present, life or death, male or female that she encountered while caregiving for her father as he succumbed to dementia.
Bio: Allison Vincent is a performer, director, writer, deviser, and teacher known for devised work, physical theatre, and gender-bending performances. She has been honored to collaborate with companies and theaters across the Twin Cities including The History Theater, Jon Ferguson Theater, The Four Humors, Mainly Me, The Illusion, The Guthrie, Frank Theatre, Sod House, Strike Theatre, Transatlantic Love Affair, and Walking Shadow. In addition to performing, Allison is a collaborative artistic director and founding member of Transatlantic Love Affair, a teaching artist at the Guthrie Theater, and has collaborated as a writer on over twenty produced scripts.
MARISOL HERLING (she/her/hers)
Project: Marisol will be creating a solo, narrative work. The research for this dance work is based in imposter syndrome and LGBTQ+ lineage and cultures in the diaspora. Finding inspiration in a Puerto Rican graphic novel, Marisol is drawing from the Superhero main character as well as personal life experiences. This interdisciplinary work will highlight trauma, strength, queerness, and an unapologetic confidence with her femme, lantix identity at the forefront.
Bio: Marisol Herling is a queer, Puerto Rican artist raised in Nebraska. Marisol graduated in 2014 from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a B.A. in Dance and a minor in Theater. After graduation she performed with sloDance, whose work was presented around the state of Nebraska as well as Vermont and Colorado. Marisol was also a founder of the dance collective embi, with a focus in live music collaboration and the accessibility of art to her communities. While working as a teaching artist and performer with embi and sloDance, Marisol was a guest faculty instructor for the dance program at UNL and a resident guest teaching artist for University of Nebraska-Kearney. She introduced after school dance programs at public elementary schools, as well as teaching and choreographing for student companies. Marisol relocated to the Twin Cities in 2018. In the fall of 2018, she produced, choreographed, and performed in a show for the Minnesota Fringe Festival. She has since collaborated with Chris Schlichting and Anat Shinar, and was a mover in Taja Will’s project Blood Language, as well as Jennifer Glaws’s work Touch Code. Marisol was also a collaborating artist for Taja Will’s film Linéas de Sangre, filmed at Belwin Conservancy. Most recently, Marisol was a part of Leila Awadallah’s work Terranea in the Candy Box Dance Festival.
ABOUT NAKED STAGES
2022 marks Masanari Kawahara’s debut year as Director of Naked Stages, a 7-month development program that provides time, financial support, and mentoring to three early career artists as they develop their unique voices as performance artists and creators. The program is made possible through the generous support of the Jerome Foundation.
The scheduled performance dates for the 2022 Naked Stages artists are December 1 – 10, 2022. We are continuing to evaluate the situation with COVID-19 and will keep you apprised of any changes.