NOW 2024: Week Two
Ajani Brannum, Sophia Cleary, Tijuana Dance Company
WORLD PREMIERE
Past event
- Price
- $25*
- Genres
- Dance, Music, Theater
- Season
- Fall 2024
- DATE
- NOV 14-16
- IN-PERSON
- THU-SAT, 8:30 PM
- STREAM
- SAT, 8:30 PM (PT)
- RUNTIME
- Approx. 90 minutes, with intermission
- Program
- Download Program Notes (PDF)
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About
The 21st Annual New Original Works continues with a program of works by Ajani Brannum, Sophia Cleary, and Tijuana Dance Company. Committed to an investigation of history and contemporary norms, these works use humor, improvisation, and multidisciplinary collaboration to disrupt power dynamics, craft collective rituals of care, and build new modes of community abundance.
BUY A FESTIVAL PASS! SEE ALL 9 WORKS FOR $50!
Ajani Brannum
CONGRESS
As a national mythos slides into decay, CONGRESS builds a crypt for its ghosts. In this performance, five (alleged) men move, speak, and sing as representatives of both themselves and their historical inheritances. They conjure and confront patriarchy’s ghosts—descending into the space where social violence takes physical, psychic, and energetic shape. This theatrical convening extends Ajani Brannum’s investigation into what performers do on behalf of those who witness them. Part ceremony and part town hall, this interdisciplinary performance draws the audience in to confront bodily forms of oppression and remake the roles that hold together a suffering society.
Sophia Cleary
Read The Room
Framed as a theatrical rehearsal between an Actor and her Director, Read The Room reconsiders these roles and their relationship to the audience in an unsettling, comedic, and outrageous experience. Interdisciplinary artist Sophia Cleary investigates the tension between script and improvisation in theater and the illusion of control in a performance that embraces liveness: you cannot fast forward or rewind–you can only move without knowing what comes next. This two-hander play manifests as a metaphor for the contemporary climate where fact and fiction are no longer discernible and investigates what laughter seemingly condones–ultimately calling attention to what contracts can be upended rather than being consumed as spectacle.
Tijuana Dance Company
Salón México
The Tijuana Dance Company presents Salón México, an examination of the borderland staged in a dance hall. Directed and choreographed by Dulce Escobedo, this dance theater piece reveals the stories and complex interactions that pulse through Tijuana’s nightlife. An intricate choreography of identity, power, and survival emerges as individuals carve out spaces for personal and collective expression on the dance floor.
NOW 2024: Week Two will be presented as one shared program of all three works on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
Salón México is presented in Spanish.
Please note: CONGRESS contains mature content; Read the Room contains mature content, depictions of violence, and loud sounds; Salón México contains mature content, depictions of violence, and loud sounds.
NOW Festival 2024 was organized by Katy Dammers, Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Performing Arts with Rolando Rodriguez, Administrative Manager through an open application process with NOW alumni Marissa Brown (NOW ‘21) and Emily Mast (NOW ‘12 & ‘16).
about the artists
Ajani Brannum
Ajani Brannum investigates the choreographies of life in the shadow of empire. Through a fluid, shapeshifting performative practice, they observe the forces that persist–for better, for worse, for otherwise–in and through our living. Brannum draws heavily on the knowledges they inherit as a Black queer maker with southern roots, honoring and extending the ancestral wisdoms that animate their craft. By turns contemplative and irreverent, their work invites audiences to rehearse vital forms of sensing and relation. Brannum has created spaces of encounter with REDCAT, ODC, Human Resources, Materials & Applications, Highways Performance Space, Los Angeles Performance Practice, in classrooms, on tabletops and screens, and when no one is looking. Born in Anchorage, Alaska, they hold an AB in English and a Certificate in Dance from Princeton University, and a PhD in Culture and Performance from UCLA. They are also an alum of the Cecilia Weston Spiritual Academy, helmed by Jade T. Perry.
Instagram / Website / Substack
Sophia Cleary
Sophia Cleary is an interdisciplinary artist focused on performance and liveness. Making her work through the lens of the fool, or trickster, Cleary uses play as a method and critical position to engage her audience in a dynamic where power dynamics necessarily shift. Cleary has presented her work in Scotland at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, in New York City at the Center for Performance Research, Danspace Project, The Chocolate Factory, Dixon Place, The Kitchen, and e-flux, and in Los Angeles at the Hammer Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Art, and Human Resources.
Tijuana Dance Company
The Tijuana Dance Company (TJDC), directed by Tijuana artists Dulce Escobedo and Marianna Escobedo, offers a dialogue about the city of Tijuana, its people, and its history through dance. Established in 2020 by Dulce Escobedo, TJDC embraces a distinctive and innovative movement language that seamlessly integrates both dancers and non-dancers. This collaborative effort, involving artists from various disciplines and backgrounds, challenges and broadens conventional perceptions of dance and identity in Tijuana. Central to TJDC’s mission is the commitment to inclusion and diversity in dance, as well as sharing Tijuana’s narratives beyond the border.
