Suzanne Bocanegra: Creator/Writer/Performer
Ruth Negga: Performer
Paul Lazar: Director
Emily Coates: Dancer
Joseph Wolfslau: Designer & Technical Director
Jecca Barry: Producer
Part performance, part memoir, and part gleefully rambling cultural essay, Suzanne Bocanegra’s “Artist Lectures” are intensely personal, exhaustively researched, and kaleidoscopically wide-ranging, exploring not only how and why she became an artist, but also general meditations on art-making, history, and popular culture. Bodycast is inspired by the two teenage years Bocanegra spent in a body cast due to scoliosis. She mines specific details of her life to create a meditation on art-making and shifting ideals of feminine beauty.
Suzanne Bocanegra: Creator/Writer/Performer
Ruth Negga: Performer
Paul Lazar: Director
Emily Coates: Dancer
Joseph Wolfslau: Designer & Technical Director
Jecca Barry: Producer
Suzanne Bocanegra (Creator/Writer/Performer) is a visual artist who uses theater and theater craft to interrogate the history and practice of visual art, employing large-scale video, performance and installation, as well as collage, sculpture and painting. She is the recipient of the 2020 Robert Rauschenberg Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship, among other awards. In 2019, a major show of Bocanegra’s work titled “Poorly Watched Girls” was presented at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. Also in 2019, her solo show “Wardrobe Test” was the inaugural exhibition at Artcake, an exhibition space in Brooklyn. Bocanegra’s most recent performance “Honor, an Artist Lecture by Suzanne Bocanegra starring Lili Taylor,” was commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and has traveled to LAMoCA, ICABoston and the Walker Art Center. Previous performances have been commissioned and/or presented by the Museum of Modern Art, The Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance at the Ace Theater, the Wexner Center for the Arts, the Hammer Museum, and the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, among others. Bocanegra’s work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Guggenheim Museum (New York), the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston) and the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), among others. https://suzannebocanegra.com
Ruth Negga (Performer) was nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for her starring role in the film Loving and starred in the film Passing. Her television credits include AMC’s Preacher. Her upcoming projects include David E. Kelley’s Apple TV+ limited series, Presumed Innocent, opposite Jake Gyllenhaal, and Dan Levy’s film Good Grief. In 2022, Ruth made her Broadway debut in Macbeth as Lady Macbeth, earning a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play. Ruth was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and was raised between there, Limerick, Ireland, and London, England.
Paul Lazar (Director) is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Walker Art Center, Dance Theater Workshop, Classic Stage Company and Japan Society. Paul’s one person performance, Cage Shuffle, premiered at the American Realness Festival in 2017 and continues to tour the U.S. and Europe. He has acted in over 40 feature films, including Snowpiercer, The Host, Mickey Blue Eyes, Silence of the Lambs, Beloved, Lorenzo’s Oil and Philadelphia. Stage credits include Macbeth on Broadway, and off Broadway in Tamburlaine at Theatre For A New Audience, Young Jean Lee’s Lear, The Three Sisters at Classic Stage Company, Richard Maxwell’s Cowboys and Indians at Soho Rep, Irene Fornes’ Mud at the Signature Theater and Mabou Mines, and Mac Wellman’s 1965 UU at the Chocolate Factory Theatre. Paul has performed with The Wooster Group, acting in Brace Up!, Emperor Jones, The Hairy Ape and North Atlantic. He is the winner of two Bessie Awards, among others.
Emily Coates (Dancer) has performed internationally with New York City Ballet, Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project, Twyla Tharp and Yvonne Rainer. Highlights include three duets with Baryshnikov, in works by Erick Hawkins, Mark Morris, and Karole Armitage; principal roles in works by George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins; and Rainer’s work from 1961 to the present. Her choreographic projects have been commissioned and presented by the Baryshnikov Arts Center, Works & Process at the Guggenheim, Wadsworth Atheneum, Quick Center for the Arts, Hopkins Center for the Arts, University of Chicago, Danspace Project (NYT Critic’s Pick 2017, NYT Fall Dance to Watch 2018), Performa (Best Dance 2019, with Yvonne Rainer), and most recently in the performance exhibition Hard Return at the Neuberger Museum, with support and fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Center for Ballet and the Arts, Jerome Robbins Dance Division/New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts, and National Endowment for the Arts, among others. She is professor in the practice and director of dance studies at Yale University, where she created the dance curriculum. She co-authored Physics and Dance with physicist Sarah Demers (2019), and co-edited Remembering a Dance: Parts of Some Sextets, 1965/2019 with Yvonne Rainer (2023). emilycoates.art
Joseph Wolfslau (Designer and Technical Director) is a set, sound, and costume designer based in Brooklyn. Recent designs include sound design for Sw!ng Out (Joyce), production design for La Sonnambula (Prom-enade Opera), production design for Magnum Opus: A Retrospective (The People Movers), sound for The Emperor’s Nightingale (Pan Asian Rep.), sound for The Peanut Butter Show (Little Lord), production design for Cendrillon (Promenade Opera), sound for Romulus the Great (Yangtze Rep.), sound for Brideshead Obliterated (Dixon Place), set, sound, and costumes for 410 [Gone] (Yangtze Rep), sound for CoIncident (JACK), sound for Ski End (New Ohio), sound for CoVenture (Baryshnikov), and set and costumes for Poor Sailor (Tugboat Collective).
Jecca Barry (Producer) is an independent theatre, opera, film, and music producer. She is the founder and creative producer of Fin Productions, and a co-founder of the Up Until Now Collective. Jecca’s practice focuses on developing work with artists that are challenging the conventions of the performing arts industry. From 2012-2022, she served as Executive Director of the acclaimed production company Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) and was a Co-Director of New York’s annual PROTOTYPE Festival from 2017-2022. Jecca has overseen the commissioning, development, production and touring of over 30 new theatre, music-theatre, and opera works, and has toured those works to over 40 national and 20 international venues. Jecca holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in avant-garde flute performance from the Royal Northern College of Music and New York University.
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’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.
Benefits 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)
All 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)
All 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)
All 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)
All 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)
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
Kyle Abraham
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
David Lang
Elizabeth LeCompte
Eiko Otake
Annie-B Parson
Philippe Quesne
Alex Timbers
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
Pentagram Design
Graphics