Or, An Oral History: Utmost | RAKIA! A Sarah Donnelly Production
Or, An Oral History: Utmost, a Sarah Donnelly Production by RAKIA!, features artists Rakia Seaborn, Sean Billy Kizy, and Ethan Baldwin as glitter-wearing oracles. All seeing and sensuous, they hold court in a storefront window turned deconstructed disco ball.
Cross the threshold and track the evolution of the work from a 2015 virtual diary into a real-world dancehall for existential booty-shaking. Audiences are invited to time travel to a place before “baskets of deplorables,” “Lemonade,” and Russian interludes. Part séance, part experimental novel of the body, the trio of artists magically transforms into medium & soothsayer via six days of interrogative performance.
Can we apprehend the present by collectively exorcising the past? How do we recapture the #blackgirlmagical optimism of recent history? Where do we carve out a path to a more just future when complexity is distilled into a series of hashtags?
Morning Open Hours, Bitches Brew:
Monday – Wednesday, June 19 – 21, 8:30 – 10am, FREE
Join RAKIA! for coffee and improvisation as she brews a potion, while raiding her virtual diary for choreographic material from 2015.
Evening Open Hours, High Art Happy Hour:
Wednesday – Friday, June 21 – 23, 7:30 – 9pm, FREE
“Meet in the ‘ball for happy hour cocktails & high art selfies!” The supernatural triumvirate will conjure a triad of pieces (The Mixtape, WE, and “I am tired and possibly hungover and want to go home“) from 2016’s Or, An Oral History: Summer Series.
Wednesday, June 21st, The Mixtape
Thursday, June 22nd, WE
Friday, June 23rd, “I am tired and possibly hungover and want to go home”
Swan Song Soiree: Saturday, June 24, 8-10pm, RSVP Required, $10 Suggested Donation
Three is a magic number! Don your shiniest party wear & grab a glass of champagne while the trio tackles the triptych in an interactive, evening-length piece- for the first and last time. RSVP here: Swan Song Soiree
About the “Glitter-Wearing Oracles”
Rakia Seaborn, a native of Detroit, MI, graduated from Oberlin College in 2007, earning a Bachelors of Art in Dance with a concentration in Choreography. In 2014, she gained an MFA in Dance from Sarah Lawrence College. Seaborn has worked with Dianne McIntyre, Rashaun Mitchell, Jodi Melnick, Michael Cross Burke, Tyler Ashley, and PMMDC. Her choreographic work has appeared at Dixon Place, La Mama, The Tank, AUNTS, The Bessie Schönberg Dance Theatre, JACK Arts, and Brooklyn Studios for Dance. Seaborn is currently a Guest-Artist-In-Residence at Trinity/La Mama. She makes dances about women through a literary lens, to rewrite history, redefine the present and offer images of a more just future.
Ethan Baldwin is a DC-born and Brooklyn-based Art Director, Graphic Designer and Photographer. Having always been drawn to artistic movement, his work often incorporates themes from dance, athleticism, and high-energy, on stage and off. He has danced and choreographed with Danceworks NY, and is almost always moving and shaking while pushing pixels. He is excited for another performance with RAKIA! and truly buys into the life of incorporating glitter in all we do.
Sean Billy Kizy is an architect, installation artist, and toy designer. Originally from outside Detroit, MI, he now resides in Brooklyn, NY. He has established Billy’s Action Figures as a studio that designs and fabricates projects of all scales with the overlying ambition to create forms that engage motion and inspire action by others. He is a registered architect in New York City with LEED credentials, holds a B.S in Architecture with Distinction from the University of Michigan and an M.Arch from Rice University. Sean Billy Kizy has taught at Rice University, has been on architectural studio juries at CUNY NY, and has lectured at NJIT on the topic of ‘Explosive Organism and Sustainable Regrowth’. His experience includes work at several architectural firms including OMA and SHoP Architects.
For more information, contact: sarahd@rakiadances.com
