mouth full of sea
June 28, 2018
mouth full of sea
AAACC, 8pm
Gabriel Christian and C. Chibueze Crouch
Prices: $10 – $20 sliding scale, NOTAFLOF
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Summoning song, dance, performance and film, two blaq artists present a body of work grappling with their personal links to Trans-Atlantic slavery. Using Christina Sharpe’s In the Wake as a touchstone, they redefine the traditional dialogues around the mythic traumatized black body. Leaving space for nuanced, difficult explorations, this show inspects the narrative of slavery through a lens tinted with queerness, pre-colonial histories, and (pre)-existing violence between Africans. Ultimately, mouth full of sea maps the methods and tools our ancestors used to survive this tragedy, celebrating the lives lived, lost, and still living within salt, water and sand.
Funded by CQC and Theater Bay Area’s 2018 CA$H Grant
MULTIDISCIPLINARY
Creating Queer Community Program and Black Family Reunion Program
BIOGRAPHIES
Gabriel Christian is a multidisciplinary artist and teacher. After receiving a BA in theatre studies from Yale University in 2013, they shifted coasts and work from their native New York to the Bay Area. Here, Gabriel has pivoted from stage performance to reifying queer desire, genderfluidity (or “juicyness”), and black resilience through a broader spectrum of movement arts. They have held residencies at Destiny Arts Center, Finnish Brotherhood Hall, and This Will Take Time. Gabriel has performed with directors Robert Woodruff and Darryl V. Jones, choreographers Debby Kajiyama/Jose Navarrete, Jess Curtis, and Anne Bluethenthal, amongst others, and mounted independent work at Counterpulse, SOMArts, and Brava Theater Center. Ongoing projects include BLACK PRESENCE, a bricolage exploration of black presence with twenty-nine blaq and brown artists, and Lxs Desaparecidxs with partner and choreographer Randy Reyes. Upcoming shows include an appearance in Joe Goode’s Still Standing in late summer 2018.
Chibueze Crouch is an actor, writer, and teaching artist originally from Connecticut, now living in Oakland. She received a BA with distinction from Yale University in 2014. After winning two post-graduate fellowships to work abroad at the esteemed Trinidad Theatre Workshop, Chibueze immersed herself in film, stage, teaching, and arts activism. She later moved to the Bay Area, where she has performed in several productions and teaches theater at Destiny Arts Center. Her work uses voice, performance, and original text to explore African diasporic identity, Black queer feminism, masquerade, and Black joy. Chibueze has worked with Campo Santo, Global Street Dance Masquerade and performed at the Playwright’s Foundation as well as Finnish Hall. Upcoming shows include PARADISE at the Brava Theater and an untitled collaborative project with Rhodessa Jones and Theatre Rhino.
