Joe’s Movement Emporium presents The Gift, Mar 19, Online

Joe’s Movement Emporium and Clarice Smith presents The Gift, Mar 19, Online

NextLOOK featuring:
Rachel Grossman & Tosin Olufolabi:
The Gift

March 19, 2021 . 7PM

By: Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Click here.

The Gift is an immersive, interactive performance that invites the audience to transition from self-reflection to action and advocacy over the course of the event. Sometime in the U.S.’s future, when most illnesses have been cured, two doctors host the first clinical trial for the societally destructive infectious agent Preston-Weche-Rhys – the source of white supremacy culture – with the audience cast as the subjects.

This event is part of NextLOOK. In partnership with Joe’s Movement Emporium, NextLOOK supports the development of new music, plays, dance and other experiences by regionally-based performing artists. These artists are mentored by seasoned arts administrators from The Clarice and Joe’s Movement Emporium to construct innovative methods of deepening the audience’s involvement in their creative process. By removing logistical barriers of cost and space and providing a sounding board for artists creating new work, NextLOOK invests in the regional arts ecology and creates an accessible, exploratory environment that connects intriguing artists with adventurous audiences.

Pay What You Wish, Online here.

Clarice Smith presents Vital Signs Showcase, Dec 7 at 5:30pm, Online

Clarice Smith presents Vital Signs Showcase, Dec 7 at 5:30pm, Online

Vital Signs Showcase
Tariq Darrell O’Meally, moderator
Ines Donfack & Maya Lee
Sadia Alao
Stephen Lyons
Chidinma Opaigbeogu

Monday, December 7, 2020 • 5:30PM EST

By: Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Online.

Presented in partnership with the UMD Office of Diversity and Inclusion, UMD Office of Multicultural Involvement and Community Advocacy and Black Terps Matter

In an effort to support student voice and action related to the Black Lives Matter movement, The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, the UMD Office of Diversity and Inclusion and UMD Office of Multicultural Involvement and Community Advocacy in partnership with Black Terps Matter announced Vital Signs: Creative Arts for Black Lives Mini-Grants in Summer 2020. Grants have been awarded to artists in the UMD community who are creating projects that affirm Black life and vitality and interrogate white supremacy and anti-Blackness.

In this showcase moderated by BlackLight Summit director Tariq Darrell O’Meally, members of the first Vital Signs cohort will present excerpts of their Vital Signs works and discuss the intersection of their personal experiences with their art.

Free, No Tickets Required, Online here.

Clarice Smith presents Veiled Revue & I AM IN A BASEMENT, Dec 3, Online

Clarice Smith presents Veiled Revue & I AM IN A BASEMENT, Dec 3, Online

“Veiled” and “I AM IN A BASEMENT”

Thursday, December 3, 2020 7:30 pm

By: Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Online.

Veiled Revue
By Amber Daniels and Becky Hill

Veiled ciphers through historic vaudeville repertoire extracting inspiration to create an abstract dance theater work. In an era of #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, American territory borders, a global pandemic, a monumental presidential election and further investigations of social norms, we are researchers with the knowledge that the present is affected by our past. Using vignettes, audiences will simultaneously experience both the despair that haunted the entertainment industry of the vaudeville era, as well as the joy. We will manipulate how vaudeville was viewed then versus the transformation of what it could be today. The piece will be performed in “armor,” a costume that covers the body entirely to erase gender, sexuality, race and class. It is our hope through this investigation, we will have audiences question, react and be moved to action.

I AM IN A BASEMENT
By Tristan Koepke

Reflecting on creative practices on pause, Tristan builds small accumulations that give way to lacy patterns of ritual that unfold and rupture into chaotic, effervescent celebrations of catharsis and release. Sinewy threads of movement repeat and intervene in a contemplation exertion, endurance and destruction.

Free, No tickets Required, Online here.

Clarice Smith presents Fearless New Play Festival, Nov 19-22, Online

Clarice Smith presents Fearless New Play Festival, Nov 19-22, Online

Fearless New Play Festival
Jennifer Barclay, festival director
Lauren Yee, keynote playwright

Thu, Nov 19, 2020 . 07:30PM to 09:30PM
Fri, Nov 20, 2020 . 07:30PM to 09:30PM
Sat, Nov 21, 2020 . 07:30PM to 09:30PM
Sun, Nov 22, 2020 . 07:30PM to 09:30PM

By: Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Click here.

The Fearless New Play Festival is a four-day celebration of new scripts in development that address urgent issues of today. The festival kicks off on November 19 with a panel discussion with local theater professionals. After two weeks of rehearsals, we present a speech by a nationally renowned keynote playwright and a staged reading of their work on March 20, and staged readings of new short plays by current TDPS students and alumni on March 21 and 22.

Selected plays for the 2020 Fearless New Play Festival

By Grace (Part Two) by Agyeiwaa Asante ’18
A Tea Party by Mariel Berlin-Fischler ’14
All of my Bullies and Where They Are Now by Elizabeth Crino ’18
Ghost Story by Evangelina Hakes ’19
The Ice Room by Liz Maestri ’03
RAPunzel by Jasmine Mitchell ‘20
Tiny Ruins by April Monu ’18
Please Like Me by Jordan Resnick ’22
Loving in the Age of Social Distancing by Amber Smithers ‘20
The Tao Island by Lyra Woods ’17

Announcing Keynote Playwright Lauren Yee: The School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies is thrilled to announce that internationally-renowned playwright Lauren Yee will be our 2020 keynote playwright. Lauren Yee is a playwright, screenwriter, and TV writer born and raised in San Francisco. She currently lives in New York City.

Free, No Tickets Required, Online here.

Clarice Smith presents Ghost Bride & Responsive Wild, Nov 19 & 20, Online

Clarice Smith presents Ghost Bride & Responsive Wild, Nov 19 & 20, Online

Fall Thesis Concert –
Ghost Bride & Responsive Wild
Rose Xinran Qi, choreographer
Krissy Harris, choreographer

Thursday, November 19, 2020 . 7:30PM
Friday, November 20, 2020 . 7:30PM

By: Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Click here.

Responsive Wild
Choreography by Krissy Harris

Responsive Wild considers and questions notions of womanhood and femininity. Inspired by family history, rock and roll, and physics concepts, Harris investigates these ideas through highly physical, bold and expansive movement. The work is in conversation with feminist theories and reveals a complex interrelationship of the inside/outside body and its potential for energetic expression.

Ghost Bride
Choreography by Rose Xinran Qi

Ghost Bride is based on the Asian tradition of a ghost marriage, when a man dies early in life and his family recruits a young woman to marry him in spirit. Through a combination of movements derived from postmodern dance and classical Chinese dance, this work conveys a story of revolution for women’s rights through time and place. Qi evokes the Chinese feminine form Shenyun (bearing) through breath control in order to communicate the internal emotion behind specific movements.

Free, Tickets Required, Online here.