Latest news with #TheaterOffensive
Boston Globe
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
A new theater festival wants audiences to ‘love deeper' in dark times
'Our work aims to change the world,' Bennett said. 'Hopefully, when you leave, you'll feel moved towards creating a more beautiful world in your immediate community.' Advertisement Each work presented by the festival was developed through one of TTO's artist residency programs, which provide resources to queer and trans artists of color who reflect the organization's larger mission: to create art that 'transcends artistic boundaries, celebrates cultural abundance, and dismantles oppression,' as the festival's mission statement puts it. Advertisement 'There are many ways to push against oppressive systems, and I want my work to help people consider their actions and values, and how they want to show up in this world,' said Victoria Lynn Awkward, whose dance piece featured in the festival, 'In the Space Between ," was developed during TTO's 22-month Emergent Artist Residency. Set to an original composition of piano, flute, and percussion, 'In the Space Between' uses aerial movement, audible breathwork, and flowing fabrics to create a dance piece inspired by iconic Black feminist Audre Lorde's writings on power and eroticism. The sensuous nature of the piece is designed to 'build empathy,' Awkward said. 'Empathy is what's needed to bridge divides, and to be able to care for people with different cultures and backgrounds, as well as yourself.' As an organization, the Theater Offensive has been creating and cultivating cutting-edge art by LGBTQ+ makers since 1989, when it was born out of a gay men's guerrilla theater troupe. At the time, founder Over the years, and among other initiatives, TTO went on to produce innovative fringe theater festivals, establish its national award-winning program Advertisement More recently, TTO has evolved to explicitly focus on art by and for queer and trans people of color, who face unique challenges accessing financial backing and other forms of support for their work and are most vulnerable in what the organization calls an ongoing 'battle against authoritarianism, homophobia, transphobia, and racism' in the Trump era. Artists are looking to the past to process this dangerous present, said Bennett, who noted that ancestral connections are a common thread in the festival's performances. 'I live in Harlem, where my great-grandmother moved in the early 1900s and my grandmother and mother were raised,' said Awkward. 'I feel very connected to that lineage, and to the hope and joy they had throughout all the challenges they faced.' She added that the prevalence of textiles in her work is inspired by the legacy of Black quilting, including lore that quilts were used to mark safe houses and provide direction on the Underground Railroad. 'For me, textiles are beautiful and eye-catching — but also deeply entwined with my ancestry and lineage.' Another festival piece, 'The Messenger,' is a coming-of-age play with music about a burgeoning young oracle who takes a spiritual journey with her elders, learning from their wisdom so that she can serve her nation. Playwright and TTO resident artist Cheyenne Wyzzard-Jones said they were inspired by their lineage, including their Wampanoag background, as well as 'conversations with my community of Black diaspora folk, Native American family, elders, [and] medicine workers.' There's also 'Theater of Union ," a three-fold artistic exercise developed by Annalise 'River' Guidry. It is composed of 'Remembrance ," a community-building performance on the festival's opening night that 'explores and honors our many ancestries,' Guidry said, as well as a workshop that explores 'grief as a pathway toward collective liberation.' Both the performance and workshop are additionally preceded by a 'table talk' that expands on the artist's intentions. Advertisement Guidry wants to impart to their audience the notion of 'love ethic,' Black author and social critic bell hooks's framework for considering love as a series of actions and choices, not just a feeling. 'Lovelessness pervades in our society,' Guidry said, pointing to racist, anti-queer, and otherwise oppressive 'systems of domination' that keep Americans divided and at odds. The Queer [Re]Public Festival, then, aims to establish a more perfect union. 'The current culture and systems we are functioning under are not sustainable,' Guidry said. 'I believe in love to transform and save us.' Prices vary, June 26-29, Arrow Street Arts, 2 Arrow St., Cambridge,
Boston Globe
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Embrace Boston Ideas Festival returns with focus on collaboration
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up According to Imari K. Paris Jeffries, Embrace Boston's president and CEO, this year's festival, its fourth, is occurring in a different context than previous iterations. 'Now we're in a context where the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities — that funding has been wiped out, and cultural organizations feel like they're under attack. Organizations that are both cultural and historic, and focus on diverse histories are threatened.' Advertisement All of which lends urgency to the festival's mission, he adds. 'I think this is a Juneteenth that is symbolic of the times. It reflects the type of rebellion and the type of joy required and necessary in this moment.' Advertisement Collaboration is another necessity, Paris Jeffries said, pointing to the joining efforts among the NAACP, Urban League, the Divine Nine Partnership, and other organizations to provide a citywide celebration of Juneteenth. Giselle Byrd, executive director of the Theater Offensive, will speak on the panel discussion titled 'Black Pride in Public Space.' 'It is not easy to live and be liberated in this world and in our lifetime,' she says. 'A lot of folks live at the margins of being Black and queer or Black and trans, and sometimes those conversations don't happen because historically there has been erasure. It's an honor to have this moment of fellowship.' For Byrd, who took over the helm at the Theater Offensive in December 2023, it's crucial to have these conversations both to build community ('it's really community who takes care of another,' she says) and to loudly proclaim one's pride — even, or especially, in a time of heightened oppression. 'None of us have the luxury of being silent,' she adds. 'Audre Lorde said it best to all of us, 'your silence will not protect you.'' Kate Tuttle, a freelance writer and critic, can be reached at
