FORGOTTEN PARADISE: PASSAGE

Charlotte Brathwaite is a creator and director of original genre-defying works that illuminate the realities and dreams of those whose stories have been marginalized,  silenced and ignored. Her trans-disciplinary inquiry manifests as immersive rituals of the body, color and music in collaboration with artists such as Meshell Ndegeochello, Jacqueline Woodson, adrienne maree brown and Peter Sellars amongst others.  She has received major grants, awards and fellowships including Doris Duke, United States Artists, Art Matters, Creative Capital and the Princess Grace. Her work has been presented at festivals and venues across the globe in North and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. Charlotte is also an educator of the arts and has an MFA in Directing from Yale University. She is co-Artistic Director of Cornerstone Theater Company with her long time collaborator Sunder Ganglani.  

@interstellartendencies3000

https://charlottebrathwaite.com

Photo: Malick Welli

Malick Welli (b. 1990) is a Senegalese visual artist who lives and works in Dakar. His work lies at the intersection of fine art, photography and installation. His work has recently been shown at the National Museum of World Cultures in Leiden, Netherlands, and at the Chanel Fashion house's 19M gallery. Welli is interested in religion, spirituality, power dynamics and how they shape visual culture. Her work has been exhibited at 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair (USA); Art X Lagos ( Nigeria) EXPO CHGO (USA); Cairo Biennial (Egypt); AKAA (Also Known As Africa, France), among others. His work is included in the permanent collection of the Chazen Museum of Art (USA).

@malickwelli

https://www.malickwelli.com

Greg Corbino is a trans-disciplinary artist, puppeteer and educator whose work investigates how object performance crafted from plastic detritus and engaged by community can create queer ecologies of care and action in public space. Called “gorgeously baroque” by the New Yorker, and “crafty and audacious” by the New York Times, his work is deeply invested in nature and aspires to be an act of repair, creating puppets from materials collected from New York shorelines to draw attention to the calamitous environmental impact of the plastics industry. Gregory is a long-time collaborator with Peter Schumann and The Bread and Puppet Theater and has also worked with Jennifer Miller, Reverend Billy, Savitri D and The Stop Shopping Choir, Xaviera Simmons, Sanford Biggers, Cecilia Vicuña, Amy Trompeter and Greenpeace International. His fabrication and design work has been seen at Soho Repertory Theater, The High Line, The Queens Museum, The Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Smithsonian Institution. 

@greg.corbino

https://www.gregorycorbino.com

Photo: Phil Van Nostrand

Tareke Ortiz, Mexico City. Composer with an interdisciplinary approach: ethnomusicological research, the human voice as a choral possibility for the emancipatory experience, cabaret as activism pro LGBTQ+ rights, song making for linguistic rights, sexual and reproductive rights, violence prevention and creation of intercultural technologies concerning arts with indigenous communities of Mexico and the immigrant population in the US. From bilingual film music for deaf and hearing audiences to new chants for critical spirituality his work has been part of art venues, universities and activist environments in north, central and south America, Europe and Asia. In México is currently a member and Board Director of the National System of Art Creators (SNCA), Artes Verbales, (the national grant for literature in indigenous languages), Músicos Tradicionales de México, (the national grant for both, traditional and new forms of traditional music of Mexico) among other national programs at México’s Ministry of Culture.

@tarekeortiz

Photo: Cortesía Prensa

Sunder Ganglani is an artist who works in collaboration between forms; music, theater, civil disobedience, pedagogy, performance. As a former Co-Artistic Director of The Foundry Theater in New York City his works with W. David Hancock, Ariana Reines, Claudia Rankine, David Greenspan, Melanie Joseph and many others have toured nationally and internationally, and won all kinds of awards. More recently his work has focused on music and justice – as a dramaturg he’s made operas and new experiments in music with Esperanza Spalding, Helga Davis, Charlotte Brathwaite, Justin Hicks, and Darius Jones. As a musician, composer, and organizer he’s grateful to have a creative home with The Stop Shopping Choir community in New York City where he works with Billy Talen, Savitri D, and the 45 member choir as chosen family. He’s received grants, fellowships and been awarded residencies, he studied Anthropology at UMass Amherst, Dramaturgy at Yale, and he was raised in Salem Massachusetts by parents from opposite ends of the earth, and a sister and brother. 

@sunder_underscore

Photo: Francisca Benitez