• A Scribe Called Quess? .

  • Distillery indiegogo

    • When

    Sunday, June 1, 2014 to Tuesday, September 30, 2014

    Artists

    Tickets & Registration

    Supported by

    Performing Arts Support
    The Boettcher Fund; National Endowment for the Arts; National Performance Network; New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, Inc.; South Arts

    The DISTILLERY imagines what four New Orleans mid-career performing artists could achieve if provided local mentorship, national mentorship, rehearsal space, free public showings and a development stipend in a comprehensive three-month fellowship program at the Contemporary Arts Center.

    The DISTILLERY fellowship captures dynamic processes utilized in the rehearsal room when engaging new creative disciplines. The DISTILLERY fosters an audience-driven critical dialogue that promotes a sustainable approach to making performance work in a constantly varying environment.

    The 2014 DISTILLERY felows are:

    Michael "Quess?" Moore

    Maritza Mercado Narcisse

    Aurora Nealand

    Evan Spigelman

    The DISTILLERY fellows will have the opportunity to share the work from their residencies with live audiences through a series of FREE public Swap Meet events. These DISTILLERY Swap Meet events will be held on the following dates:

    June 23
    August 22
    September 19

    Visit http://neworleansdistillery.org/ form more information, including artist statements.

    Michael “Quess?” Moore

    Michael “Quess?” Moore is a poet, educator, and an actor in that order. His writing and work with youth as a poet led him to the classroom where he most recently spent four years as an English teacher. He is a founding member of Team SNO (Slam New Orleans), New Orleans’ first slam poetry team since Hurricane Katrina, and the only national championship team the city has ever produced having won competitions in 2010, 2012 and 2013. His accomplishments with Team SNO have earned him honors from the Mayor of New Orleans as well as from City Council. He’s also a member of VOIC’D (Voices Organized in Creative Dissent), a collective of actors spawned by Junebug Productions with a focus on social justice, whose last production, “Lockdown,” received critical acclaim and sold out audiences several nights in a row. He has produced a self-titled CD, “A Scribe Called Quess?” and his debut book of poetry, Blind Visionz, can be found at www.lulu.com.

    Maritza Mercado Narcisse

    Maritza Mercado-Narcisse has had the privilege of performing her work on the Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out stage, the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage and Piccolo Spoleto. She is a Louisiana Division of the Arts Fellow and has studied most recently with Susan Marshall, Doug Varone, Beppie Blankert & Milton Myers. She has been a New Orleans native since 1988 and has worked with a variety or NOLA based dance and theater artists including ArtSpot Productions, Moving Humans and Mondo Bizarro. She is "Mama" to Tyger, and Mateo; wife to J Hammons. This Summer Maritza premiered her company the Narcisse|Movement Project and will be teaching a master class series at Dancing Grounds in April.

    Aurora Nealand

    An established bandleader, composer, performer and improviser, Aurora Nealand has become a prominent force in the New Orleans music scene since she first arrived in 2005. Combining the “formal education”—studies at Oberlin Conservatory in "Contemporary Music" and training at the Jacques Lecoq School of  Physical Theatre in Paris—with the “informal” experience of playing music in the streets and clubs of New Orleans and throughout the northern Hemisphere, Nealand has emerged as an innovative, sensitive and daring music creator and performer

    She is most recognized for her performance on saxophones, clarinet and vocals and has been at the forefront of the revival of New Orleans Traditional Jazz amongst the younger generation of the city’s musicians. In addition to leading the traditional jazz band, The Royal Roses, Nealand is also the leader/frontman of New Orleans premier rockabilly band “Rory Danger and the Danger Dangers”, and performs frequently with her solo project, “The Monocle”. She also is a member of Panorama Jazz Band and Why Are We Building Such A Big Ship.  In 2010 -2012 she appeared frequently as herself in the HBO TV series, “Treme.”

    Evan Spigelman

    Evan Spigelman is a performer, director, light designer and co-founder of New Orleans performance collective Skin Horse Theater. Evan is also co-director of the New Orleans Queer Youth Theater, a transformative space for queer and allied youth to actualize their power through performance. In 2013, Evan served as a core organizer with the New Orleans Fringe Festival. 

    Outside of New Orleans, Evan has worked with the Ontological Hysteric Theater and Incubator Arts Project in New York City. He has a B.A. from Bard College in History and Gender and Sexuality Studies and has studied at the Summer Institute on Sexuality, Culture, and Society at the University of Amsterdam. From time to time, Evan can also be seen stalking around New Orleans as his gender-bent alter ego, Ms. Asa Metric.  

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