The Absolute Future Program

Written, Directed and Choreographed by: Raja Feather Kelly

Original Music by: Christoph Mateka

Lighting Design: Tuçe Yasak

Performance: Chris Bell, Ashley Chavonne, Ami Gernux, Alexandria Giroux, Sara Gurevich, Amy Hoang, and Nick Sciscione

Photography: Kate Enman

Video: Laura Snow

Production Assistants: Emma Denson, Neysha Merced

Marketing: Dahlia Qumhiyeh

Board: Charmaine Warren, Cynthia Tate, Laura Snow, Lauren Morrow, Tim Gilligan, Torya Beard 

Run time: 85 min

 

The Absolute Future is the feath3r theory’s 2024 production featuring 7 performers, lighting design by Tuce Yasak, and an original score by Christoph Mateka. The performance purports to be about a group of friends who team up to watch The Great American Eclipse and miss it and that is the narrative you see, but for the feath3r theory, The Absolute Future is a work budding existential crisis. It is a work that asks us How we come together and why we fall apart.

The full title: Death, Loneliness, and The Absolute Future of the Multiverse, or How to Cover the Sun with Mud, combines a daring mix of fiction, reality, fantasy, and surrealism. It’s highly physical and layered with detail. The story is simple: they meet, they hike, they talk, they play— so how could they miss the experience of nature’s greatest and rarest sight happening right above their heads?On their journey, these seven strangers reflect on their experiences of cultural phenomena, from Y2K through The Great American Eclipse. Their stories are both spoken and physicalized, materializing a 6 part multiverse. While the text tells one story of people coming together to have a shared experience, the bodies sculpt a tumultuous and unreliable story of crashing and exploding while eagerly relying on mundane formality. Each scene has its own physical universe that ebbs and flows in and out of connection with what is being said. For example, a moment motif that repeats is the performer’s hands shaking at the sides of their head as if they are suggesting “I’m losing my mind”. Sometimes this motif feels like a Metaphor, while other times it is the exact behavior that represents the scene at play. Another particular mode of theatricality we use is what we call “Priscilla”. Priscilla is a combination of our interest and understanding of Meisner, Brecht, and Theatre of the Absurd.

It is work that relies on spontaneity, to show the world as we expect our audience to see it, and simultaneously build and reject plot at the same time.One idea that we employ is to use unaffected text for as long as we can while building up emotion from the deep physical work that the choreography requires. While it is incredibly difficult to keep the text dry and deadpan, the pay off is that when we finding an opportunity to drop-in to the climax of the work (Scene 3.5) with realism, the impact is well worth the wait.Ultimately we move from Unaffected to realism, realism to natural, natural to highly stylized, and highly Stylized to aggressively emotional, and finally landing in a heightened naturalism. So why a show about a group of people missing an Eclipse that actually didn’t happen yet?

The Great American Eclipse is a real astronomical event and a rare occurrence where the Moon casts a shadow on the Earth. When this happens our collective understanding of the Earth as a part of a larger system is reflected upon.

Astrologically, however, shadows are about transition, revelation, and that which is hidden and psychologically, Shadow work is about that which we push down, repress, or otherwise disassociate from. We intend to make a correlation here. As a devised-danced theater company, we are often looking for an event within the culture that signifies a need for conversation. It is from this conversation that we can evaluate the values, experiences, and perspectives of that said culture. We also look for ways in which certain ideas or experiences cannot be expressed with spoken language and how we might be able to develop a physical vocabulary to express these big ideas.

The job of the feath3r theory was to create a narrative in which all of this can live and then create a theatrical experience where we can express the findings that have come up in our movement research, cultural research, and our interactions with one another.This passionately human and humorously charged work is furious, sensitive, and pulsates with a heart that is desperate to find a connection in a world evolving to keep us divided.

the feath3r theory (TF3T)

the feath3r theory (TF3T) is a New York City based devised-danced theatre media company and a collaboration of dancers, actors, filmmakers, musicians, photographers, and designers. Our mission is to broaden the space for unheard voices and repressed histories, to bring into the theatre those sometimes left out, and to use theatre to provoke much-needed public conversations.

Devised-danced theatre is the feath3r theory’s method and style of theatre-making. The script, physical work, and performance score originate from collaborative ideation and results in narrative structures that rely equally on behavioral storytelling and Choreography as much as text and media. The work is developed and performed by and ensemble of dancers and designers. It is written, directed, and choreographed by Raja Feather Kelly.

Artist Notes

Raja Feather Kelly is a choreographer, director, and the Artistic Director of the feath3r theory (TF3T). Kelly has created 18 evening-length premieres with the feath3r theory. He has choreographed many off-Broadway productions, most recently Michael R. Jackson’s White Girl in Danger. Kelly choreographed the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning Broadway musical A Strange Loop. He has received numerous accolades, including three Princess Grace Awards, an Obie Award and an Outer Critics Circle honor, among many others.

Credits

Performers

 

Chris Bell
Chris Bell, MFA (Case Western Reserve) BS (Lamar) and currently makes work with Raja Feather Kelly & The Feath3r Theory. Recent Projects: Teeth (Assoc.Choreo./PH), Eighty-Sixed (Assoc. Direct. & Choreo./ 2ndstage), Jelly’s Last Jam (Choreographer/LWT). He teaches for The National Theater Institute, Roundabout Theatre Co., Marquis Studios and TADA! Youth Theaters. chrisbelldances has presented work nationally recently at CU Boulder and Men in
Dance (Seattle), and locally including evening length works at Dixon Place, Gibney and Triskelion. chrisbelldances was the first dance company in residence at Cherry Grove Community House and Theater, America’s longest continuously operating LGBTQIA+ summer theater.

Ashley Chavonne
Ashley Chavonne is a Brooklyn-based choreographer, movement director, and performing artist from Detroit, MI. Most recently, she has worked as associate choreographer for Macbeth in Stride at Shakespeare Theatre Company, movement director for Bernarda’s Daughters at the Signature Theater, musical staging for Ryan Raftery’s Mother of the Year-The Kris Jenner Musical at Joe’s Pub, and made
her off-broadway debut in the role of Lisa in The Village! A Disco Daydream. She has been a collaborator with The Feath3r Theory since 2019.

Ami Gernux
Amy Gernux is a New York-based performer and artist at the intersection of dance, theater, voice, costume, and makeup design. She works primarily with the feath3r theory (Raja Feather Kelly) and Faye Driscoll, and is delighted to have also performed for Jim Findlay and Third Rail Projects. Notable Choreographic Associate credits include: Met Gala 2022: In America: an Anthology of Fashion (Raja Feather Kelly and Rachel Chavkin), UGLY: BLACK QUEER ZOO (Raja Feather Kelly, 2018), Calving (Faye Driscoll, 2022) and Weathering (Faye Driscoll, 2023).

Alexandria Giroux
Alexandria Giroux is from Arizona, and attended New School for the Arts and Academics. She has been a member of the feath3r theory since 2018. She has assisted Raja on other projects including most recently, New Dances (Julliard), and White Girl in Danger (Second Stage Theater). Alexandria is also a Doula.

Sara Gurevich
Sara Gurevich was born and raised in New York City. She began performing with Raja Feather Kelly | the feath3r theory in 2015. Gurevich holds a BFA with honors from the Ailey School/Fordham University, and an MSW from NYU’s Silver School of Social Work. She is also a psychotherapist.

Amy Hoang
Amy Hoang is a dance artist originally from Amarillo, TX. She holds a BFA in Dance
Performance and Education from the University of North Texas. Amy joined the feath3r theory in 2019 and has since been a part of other TF3T projects such as Bunny Bunny (live and animated), The KILL ONE Race, and WEDNESDAY. Amy loves house dance.

Nick Sciscione
Nick Sciscione is a dancer from Elizabeth, New Jersey. He holds a BFA in Dance from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. He currently resides in Brooklyn and also works as a Rehearsal Director for STEPHEN PETRONIO DANCE COMPANY INC.

 

Creative Team

 

Christoph Mateka
Christoph Mateka’s focus is on sound and listeners‘ experience with sound. He has
more than 15 years of experience as a sounddesigner, musician, music producer
and sound engineer for theater, opera and studio productions. Christoph Mateka has been living and working in Vienna, Austria, since 2003.

Tuçe Yasak
Tuçe Yasak has been following light in NYC since 2008, creating over 100 site-specific light installations for performance in the US and abroad. Yasak received the 2018 and 2019 BESSIE award for Outstanding Visual Design for her designs and has ongoing collaborations with Raja Feather Kelly | the feath3r theory, Contra Tiempo, Miguel Guitierrez, Ayesha Jordan & Charlotte Brathwaite, Daria Fain, Ni’Ja Whitson and Nia Whitherspoon, among many others. Light, movement and architecture intertwine in her work to support space-making and story-telling.

Kate Enman
Born and based in Brooklyn, Kate is a photography artist whose work has been published in The New York Times, Time Out New York, and Ain’t Bad Magazine. Having studied and shot in Tel Aviv, Rome, and New York City, she is passionate about analog photography, delights in documenting the world around her, and specializes in portraiture, dance and still-life. She currently holds the role of Asset Manager, Media / Video Archivist for New York City Ballet, and lives in Bushwick with her husband, new baby, and two cats.

Laura Snow
Laura Snow is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker and longtime collaborator of the feath3r theory. Snow holds degrees from Connecticut College and the University of Melbourne, and has associate produced documentary series for PBS, VICE, A&E and CNN, as well as the documentaries, NEWTOWN and HOUSE TWO. Snow’s 2016 short film LEAVE-TAKING premiered at DocNYC 2016, won the Online Audience Award at the 2017 Mindscape Film Festival, and was acquired by the media company Conscious Good. Snow currently works as a video and podcast producer for New York City Ballet.

Emma Denson
Emma Denson (Project Manager) is an Alabama-born, Brooklyn-based director and playwright. She was recently selected as a 2024 member of Directors Lab North. In September 2023, she directed a staged reading of the new musical Runaway Home, starring Melissa Gilbert, Michael Park, and Abigail Breslin. She was a 2023 Berkeley Rep Ground Floor Artist, where she worked with LeAnne Howe and Colm Summers on The Keening (Co-Deviser/Associate Director). Emma won Best Short at Downtown Urban Arts Festival 2023 for her play, Otis and Anna, which she wrote and directed. She directed a reading of the bilingual Ukrainian play, Hunger (which she co-adapted with Maria Rewakowicz) at Irish Arts Center for Origin Theatre Company’s 1st Irish Festival 2023, and a second reading took place at the Ukrainian Museum. She was a director-in-residence at her alma mater, Mississippi State University. Emma is the Associate Director at Origin Theatre Company and a New Georges Affiliated Artist. Select credits: Phaedra’s Love (Assistant Director, Columbia University), I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change (Director, Stagedoor Manor), The Messages (Assistant Director, BRICLab Performing Arts Residency), The Taming of Kate (Director/Deviser, WAXWorks at Triskellion Arts), Emily (Director, The Chain). She has loved returning to the feath3r theory after working as a production assistant on Wednesday in 2021!

Neysha Merced
Neysha Merced (she/her) is a DeSales University graduate with a BA in Dance. Her background, being born in Puerto Rico and raised in Allentown, PA, fostered her love of nature and performance. Now living in NYC, she is focused on community building through movement and networking with dancers and artists of all genres to create a sustainable future for the arts. Neysha is a dancer and the Associate Artistic Director of J CHEN PROJECT, a project-based dance company led by Jessica Chen. She assisted in designing the relaunch for the JCP 2022 Mentee Program. This is her second year as the Associate Manager of the Bessie Awards and her first year as Raja’s assistant. She is a certified GYROTONIC® & GYROKINESIS® Trainer, a model represented by Stetts Model Management, and a freelance florist outside of her arts administration career.

Dahlia Qumhiyeh
Born in Malaysia & raised in Kuwait, Dahlia Qumhiyeh grew up outside of the US as a Palestinian-Malaysian expat with her family. She received her B.S. in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and has since moved to New York City, working as an actress/movement artist with United Talent Agency. She has worked with Tanisha Scott, Mandy Moore, Brian Friedman, Charm LaDonna, Luam Keflezghi, and has contributed choreography to The Brooklynettes, and movement directed on campaigns for Bergdorf Goodman and Marla Aaron Jewelry. She has also been featured as an upcoming artist on Paper Magazine, GQ Magazine, NatGeo, Schön Magazine, and was awarded the GALLIM Moving Artist Residency in 2022. She recently debuted a solo work at Danspace Project under her collective “Barr Bodies” and is currently working with Yaa Samar Dance Theater at The Shed.

 

Artist Support

The Absolute Future was first developed with a Research and Development Commission as a part of the Live Arts Bard commissioning program at the Fisher Center at Bard (fishercenter.bard.edu), Co-Commissioned by NYU SKIRBALL Center, and with generous support from The Simons Foundation and is part of its “In the Path of Totality” initiative. (For more information, visit inthepathoftotality.org.) Other support for The Absolute Future includes Gibney’s Open Interval Residency Program. This work is supported by a technical residencies at the National Center for Choreography (NCCAkron); The Church at Sag Harbor; The Mercury Store; a Guggenheim Works-in-process residency at Bethany Arts Project; BAM; and the Park Avenue Armory, where Raja Feather Kelly is an Artist in Residence.

ABOUT NYU SKIRBALL

NYU Skirball holds close James Baldwin’s dictum that “artists are here to disturb the peace.” Our mission is to present adventurous, transdisciplinary work that inspires yet provokes, confirms yet confounds, and entertains yet upends. We proudly embrace renegade artists who surprise, productions that blur aesthetic boundaries, and thought-leaders who are courageous, outrageous, and mind-blowing.

A roster of international artistic visionaries command our stage, often with North American or World Premieres, including directors Milo Rau and Toshiki Okada; choreographers Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Florentina Holzinger, and Faustin Linyekula; composers Du Yun, George Lewis, and John Zorn; the theatre ensembles Elevator Repair Service, Forced Entertainment, Gob Squad, Wooster Group, and Teatro La ReSentida; along with the dance companies A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, Big Dance Theater, and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance. Eminent scholars, authors, and paradigm shifters headline our events and have included Kwame Anthony Appiah, Judith Butler, David Chalmers, Angela Davis, Zadie Smith, and Slavoj Žižek.

NYU Skirball’s engagement programming supports the University’s academic mission with conjunctions of cutting-edge live art and practical, experiential curricular resources, including artists’ conversations, workshops, scholarly essays, and diverse public events. Our work promotes encounters with boundary-pushing art forms, enhances critical thinking, nurtures imaginations, and employs the performing arts as an essential means of teaching, researching, and lifelong learning.

We are NYU’s largest classroom. We want to feed your head.

 

NYU SKIRBALL FUNDING

NYU Skirball’s programs are made possible in part with support from the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and by Howard Gilman Foundation; FUSED (French U.S. Exchange in Dance), a program of FACE Foundation in partnership with Villa Albertine; General Delegation of the Government of Flanders to the USA; Collins Building Services; Korean Cultural Center New York; Marta Heflin Foundation; Harkness Foundation for Dance; Van Cleef & Arpels; as well as our valued donors through memberships, commissioning, and Stage Pass Fund support.

NYU SKIRBALL MEMBERS ARE FRIENDS...WITH BENEFITS

FRBenefits include:
• Up to 30% off one ticket per show
• Advance notice of upcoming events
• Exclusive pre-sale tickets
• Subscription to NYU Skirball’s e-newsletter
• Personalized NYU Skirball Member card
• Member offers at local Greenwich Village restaurants and shops
(Fully tax-deductible)

Sidekick $125All of the benefits Friends receive plus:
• Up to 30% off two tickets per show
• Complimentary NYU Skirball tote bag
• Complimentary ticket exchanges
• VIP reserved seating for select NYU Skirball humanities events
($110 tax-deductible)

Comrade $250All of the benefits Sidekicks receive, plus:
• Up to 30% off four tickets per show
• Waived ticketing fees (savings of up to $6 per ticket)
• Exclusive access and invitations to meet artists
• Invitations to private dress rehearsals
($235 tax-deductible)

Bosom Buddy $1000All of the benefits Besties receive, plus:
• Two complimentary drinks at the Lobby Café per Skirball Presents production
• Two passes to all Skirball humanities event receptions
• Enhanced pre-sale, prior to Member pre-sale
• Dedicated patron line for personalized customer service
($955 tax-deductible)

JOIN AS A BOSOM BUDDY MEMBER

Soul Mate $2500All of the benefits Bosom Buddies receive, plus:
• Four passes to all NYU Skirball humanities event receptions
• Ability to secure premium house seats
($2455 tax-deductible)

NYU SKIRBALL TEAM

NYU SKIRBALL ACADEMIC ADVISORY COUNCIL

Sheril Antonio
Senior Associate Dean, Strategic Initiatives, NYU Tisch

Ulrich Baer
University Professor

Una Chaudhuri
Divisional Dean for the Humanities &
Vice Dean for Interdisciplinary Initiatives

Anna Deavere Smith
University Professor

Michael Dinwiddie
Associate Professor, NYU Gallatin

Georgina Dopico
Interim Provost, NYU

Karen Finley
Arts Professor, NYU Tisch

Faye Ginsburg
David B. Kriser Professor, NYU Arts & Science

Lynn Gumpert
Director, NYU Grey Art Gallery

Sylvaine Guyot
Professor of French Literature, Thought, and Culture,
NYU Arts & Science

André Lepecki
Professor; Chair of Performance Studies, NYU Tisch

Julie Malnig
Associate Professor, NYU Gallatin

Judith Graves Miller
Professor Emerita of French and Collegiate Professor, NYU Arts & Science

Pamela Pietro
Arts Professor; Chair of Dance, NYU Tisch

Rubén Polendo
Associate Dean, Institute Of Performing Arts, NYU Tisch

J. Ryan Poynter
Associate Vice Provost for Academic Affairs & Chief of Staff

Karen Shimakawa
Associate Professor; Academic Associate Dean, NYU Tisch

Catharine Stimpson
University Professor

Justin Townsend
Arts Professor; Chair of Graduate Design for Stage & Film, NYU Tisch

Tomi M. Tsunoda
Associate Arts Professor; Chair of Drama, NYU Tisch

Bryan Waterman
Associate Professor, English Literature, NYU Arts & Sciences

Deborah Williams 
Clinical Professor, Liberal Studies

Julia Wolfe
Professor of Music Composition; Artistic Director of Music Composition, NYU Steinhardt

 

NYU SKIRBALL ARTISTIC ADVISORY COUNCIL

Kyle Abraham

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker

David Lang

Elizabeth LeCompte

Eiko Otake

Annie-B Parson

Philippe Quesne

Alex Timbers

 

NYU SKIRBALL STAFF

Jay Wegman
Director

Emily Anderson
Supervisor, Lighting And Sound

Cliff Billings
Ticket Operation Specialist

J De Leon, PhD
Associate Director, Engagement

Brian Emens
Theater Technician

George Faya
Theater Technician

Angie Golightly
Theater Technician

Jenny Liao
Manager, Operations

Craig Melzer
Box Office Manager

Kimberly Olstad
Director, Development

Jordan Peters
Front of House Supervisor

Alberto Ruiz
Production Manager

Don Short
Senior Supervisor, Lighting And Sound

Caroline Grace Steudle
Administrative Coordinator

Ian Tabatchnick
Director, Operations

Julia Thorncroft
Marketing Manager

Helene Davis 
Press Representative

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