June 20, 7:00 p.m. sharp
Approximately 40 minutes
Start location: Albert Capsouto Park, Varick Street &, Laight St.
End location: African Burial Ground National Monument
All events in the River To River Festival are free and all are welcome.
pushit!!
A site-responsive performance, pushit!! is a meditation on emotional labor and the impossibility of the “stage” as a place of freedom for the Black performer. The work is choreographed and/or sculpted around the social/political landscapes of the city/space/present-ing body and the unique architecture of the building/private space.
This work is the first in a series of the exercises in getting well soon, a project/meditation based on the loose and often used phrase indicating a hope of recovery. The exercises in getting well soon have been articulated as movement, installation, theater, games, endurance and collective action. If “Hope is a Discipline” as the activist Mariame Kaba writes, what are the methods of hope in a performance practice? Or does hope have to be abandoned in order to get well, as Calvin Warren proposes in his essay “Black Nihilism and the Politics of Hope”?
pushit!! is presented in partnership with Tribeca Art+Culture Night.
PERFORMANCE ROUTE
PLEASE NOTE: Due to the processional nature of this performance, there may be some accessibility challenges. The audience will be traveling through the streets with the artist.
June 20, 6-9pm
Various locations
Tribeca Art+Culture Night (TAC) is a downtown festival that celebrates the arts at large in Tribeca and takes place in 30 multiple and diverse spaces. It is free and open to the public. The event presents a program of events like a festival, showcases venues/organizations like an open art fair, unlocks spaces to the public like an open house and offers curated guided tours showcasing exhibitions like an art walk.
About NIC Kay
NIC Kay is a Brooklyn-based artist born in Bronx, New York, NIC Kay is a person who makes performances and creates/organizes performative spaces. NIC’s exhibitions, performances, and publications include Deep-Time Construction, CCA Wattis Institute, CA, 2018. AMERICAN REALNESS Festival, Abrons Arts Center, NY, 2018. Risk Pool, Triple Canopy, 2018.
NIC Kay is a recipient of LMCC's 2018-2019 Workspace Residency, a recipient of an Artist Residency, Pioneer Works, NY 2018; Performing Artist-in-Residence Program, Museum of Arts and Design, NY 2017; Van Lier Fellowship, Movement Research, NY 2017.