Performance Art
“Woman is God to Woman: a ritual mas” was a solo work I created & performed in December 2018. This site-specific masquerade procession and ritual theater performance traveled from Oakland to San Francisco, CA, incorporating live original music, poetry, and improvised movement. Inspired by Bertha Mason, a character in Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre, and Adrienne Kennedy’s 1964 play “Funnyhouse of a Negro,” the work explored performative subversions of the “tragic mulatta” archetype. This piece was commissioned by Jess Curtis/Gravity for their Pop Up Performance series.
Photo credit: Alley Wilde
Vertical Vocalist with BANDALOOP
From 2021 to 2023 I joined BANDALOOP, an Oakland-based vertical dance company, as a featured vocalist, writer, and aerial performer. I was a lead artist in their two-year, internationally touring production, LOOM:FIELD, alongside a cast of seven dancers: Jose E. Abad, Sarah Keeney, Wailana Simcock, B Dean, Courtney Moreno, Rose Huey, and Melecio Zambrano. This multimedia show was about the devastating environmental destruction of the fast fashion industry, and the power of cloth, thread and clothes as carriers of personal and cultural memory. During my time in the company, I performed as a live vocalist on the ground and I trained in vertical/aerial dance to sing, perform, and dance on buildings. I wrote and performed original poetry, both in the air and on the ground, researching to create personalized texts for each production. I also co-wrote songs with music director Ben Judovalkis which were incorporated into performances.
In addition to LOOM:FIELD, in 2022 I co-created and performed in a BANDALOOP commission presented at the opening of Yale University’s Schwarzman Center, titled “love against all odds.” I wrote an original monologue and two songs for this production, with the support of Ben Judovalkis for music direction and Ian Miller for musical arrangements. I co-directed this piece alongside Artistic Director Melecio Estrella, featuring company dancers Jose E. Abad, Sarah Keeney, Wailana Simcock, B Dean, Courtney Moreno, and Rose Huey.
I’ve toured with BANDALOOP nationally and internationally, performing in multiple site-specific productions in Denver, CO; Oakland, CA; Lehigh, PA; Santiago, Chile; Atlanta, GA; Biddeford, ME; Gyor, Hungary, and the Museum of Art & History in Santa Cruz, CA, to name a few.
Selected Theatrical Performances
I’ve worked as a professional actor in productions at several regional theaters in the San Francisco/Bay Area, including Crowded Fire Theater, Brava Theater, Theatre Rhinoceros, and Berkeley Repertory Theater’s Groundfloor residency series. I’ve also performed at internationally lauded institutions such as the Yale School of Drama and Trinidad Theatre Workshop. Below is a selection of theatrical roles I have performed over the years.
Please see my CV for a full list of my performances as a professional actor.
"Edit Annie" by Mary Glen Fredrick (2023) at Crowded Fire Theater in San Francisco, CA.
"Edit Annie" by Mary Glen Fredrick (2023) at Crowded Fire Theater in San Francisco, CA.
"Edit Annie" by Mary Glen Fredrick (2023) at Crowded Fire Theater in San Francisco, CA.
"Edit Annie" by Mary Glen Fredrick (2023) at Crowded Fire Theater in San Francisco, CA.
"Edit Annie" by Mary Glen Fredrick (2023) at Crowded Fire Theater in San Francisco, CA.
"When Did Your Hands Become A Weapon?"(2018) at Brava Theater in San Francisco, CA. Written by company members of The Medea Project: Theatre for Incarcerated Women.
"When Did Your Hands Become A Weapon?"(2018) at Brava Theater in San Francisco, CA. Written by company members of The Medea Project: Theatre for Incarcerated Women.
"When Did Your Hands Become A Weapon?"(2018) at Brava Theater in San Francisco, CA. Written by company members of The Medea Project: Theatre for Incarcerated Women.
"When Did Your Hands Become A Weapon?"(2018) at Brava Theater in San Francisco, CA. Written by company members of The Medea Project: Theatre for Incarcerated Women.
"When Did Your Hands Become A Weapon?"(2018) at Brava Theater in San Francisco, CA. Written by company members of The Medea Project: Theatre for Incarcerated Women.
"When Did Your Hands Become A Weapon?"(2018) at Brava Theater in San Francisco, CA. Written by company members of The Medea Project: Theatre for Incarcerated Women.
"When Did Your Hands Become A Weapon?"(2018) at Brava Theater in San Francisco, CA. Written by company members of The Medea Project: Theatre for Incarcerated Women.
"37" by Nick Mwaluko, produced by the Playwright's Foundation for their 2017 Flash Plays Festival at Dennis Gallagher Arts Pavilion in San Francisco, CA.
"37" by Nick Mwaluko, produced by the Playwright's Foundation for their 2017 Flash Plays Festival at Dennis Gallagher Arts Pavilion in San Francisco, CA.
PARADISE: Belly of the Beast at Brava Theater. Part of the 2018 National Queer Arts Festival from May 7-9 in San Francisco, CA.
This video is an excerpt of the opening scene of PARADISE: Belly of the Beast (2018), a multimedia musical theater production combing American Sign Language, choreography, song, circus acrobatics, pole dance, burlesque, and aerial dance, to tell the story of a fallen Angel searching for her way back home. In this scene I performed as the Singing Siren alongside India Sky Davis (the Angel), KaliMa Amilak (Speaking Siren), and Kevin Abrams (Signing Siren). This show was written, directed and conceived by India Sky Davis with an all queer cast of color, under her company Topsy Turvy Queer Circus.