Kelly Strayhorn Theater

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: KST Presents Fall 2022, The Soul of East Liberty

EAST LIBERTY, PA — The soul of a community lives in the spaces where people create, share experiences, and care for one another. Kelly Strayhorn Theater celebrates The Soul of East Liberty with a Fall 2022 season that centers the KST community and asserts our collective right to control our stories, our bodies, and our futures.

This season, KST will debut work from locally and nationally recognized artists. On September 17, a new partnership with BOOM Concepts populates the Lobby of Kelly Strayhorn Theater with visual art by J. Thomas Agnew, D.S. Kinsel, and J.L. Mallis. Later that evening Fully Expressed, a concert of local lyricists curated by and featuring emcee Adam “FRH” Golden, welcomes audiences into KST to kick off the season! Friday and Saturday, September 23 and 24 , we welcome 7NMS | Marjani Forté-Saunders and Everett Saunders home to present Prophet: The Order of the Lyricist, a new dance-theater work tracing the journey of the emcee. The Alloy School is also back in September with an eight-week session of professionally-led classes including Hip Hop, West African, Jazz Ballet, Creative Play and DanceFit.

October begins with a mango-infused play about agency and motherhood from Freshworks artist Alyssa Velazquez. Join us at KST on Saturday, October 29 for our Family-focused Halloween Mayhem, then get ready for a packed November featuring world premieres from recurring variety performance show Fail-Safe and The Theater Offensive. The November 11-12 edition of Fail-Safe includes two evenings of new and in-progress works by interdisciplinary musicians, performance artists, and dancers including Los Angeles-based artists Young Joon Kwak,  Kim Ye, and Xina Xurner (Marvin Astorga and Young Joon Kwak) as well as Pittsburgh artists Caroline Yoo, Goofy Toof, London Williams, MICHIYAYA Dance featuring Anya Clark, Swampwalk, Sacred Sauce (Samira Mendoza & Gladstone Butler), Formosa, and Davine Byon.

The month of November continues with Boston-based The Theater Offensive’s Gow of a Rosde on November 18 – 19. Gow of a Rosde celebrates the perseverance of QTPOC femmes in the midst of a pandemic and cultural uprisings. Through choreopoems, an ensemble of four queer Black and brown women bring to light and confront complicated realities within their lives. November’s creative momentum peaks at Suite Life, KST’s annual celebration of our namesakes Billy Strayhorn and Gene Kelly. Finally, in December we welcome Freshworks artist Michelle Johnson to close out the season with a musical tribute to Diana Ross.

It is more vital now than ever that Kelly Strayhorn Theater stoke creative experimentation, community dialogue, and collective action rooted in the liberation of Black and queer people. This fall, join us in proclaiming The Soul of East Liberty.

More Info and Ticketing HERE

KST Global Stream: Checking In, Artists Around the World featuring Jumatatu m. Poe

By: KST Staff

Every Thursday at 2:00pm, KST Senior Producer Ben Pryor takes to Instagram Live for conversations with artists in Pittsburgh, throughout the US and around the world. They will connect on the impact of COVID-19 and adapting to working in the arts through a pandemic.

On Thursday, June 18, Pryor was joined by choreographer and performer Jumatatu Poe.

“I am a choreographer and performer based between Philadelphia and New York City who grew up dancing around the living room and at parties with my siblings and cousins. My early exposure to concert dance was through African dance and capoeira performances on California college campuses where my Pan-Africanist parents studied and worked, but I did not start “formal” dance training until college with Umfundalai, Kariamu Welsh’s contemporary African dance technique. My work continues to be influenced by various sources, including my foundations in those living rooms and parties, my early technical training in contemporary African dance, my continued study of contemporary dance and performance, my movement trainings with dancer and anatomist Irene Dowd around anatomy and proprioception, my sociological research of and technical training in J-sette performance with Donte Beacham. Through my artistic work, I strive to engage in and further dialogues with Black queer folks, create lovingly agitating performance work that recognizes History as only one option for the contextualization of the present, and continue to imagine options for artists’ economic and emotional sustainability.

I produce dance and performance work independently, as well as in collaboration with idiosynCrazy productions, a company I founded in 2008 and now co-direct with Shannon Murphy. Most recently, the company serves as a resource to produce public dialogues around the integrations of art into society, and the social responsibility of the artist. Collaboration is often essential for my work, and for the past several years I have worked collaboratively with J-Sette artist Jermone Donte Beacham on a series of visual and performance works called Let ‘im Move You.   Previously, I have danced with Marianela Boán, Silvana Cardell, devynn emory, Emmanuelle Hunyh, Tania Isaac, Kun- Yang Lin, C. Kemal Nance, Marissa Perel, Leah Stein, Keith Thompson, Kate Watson-Wallace, Reggie Wilson, Jesse Zaritt, and Kariamu Welsh (as a member of Kariamu & Company). As a performer, I also collaborate with Merián Soto. From 2009-2018, I was an Assistant Professor of Dance at Swarthmore College.

I have performed my work in various cities around the US and in Europe, and I have received various awards including: a 2010-2011 Live Arts Brewery Fellowship (Philadelphia), 2010-2012 and 2017 annual Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Performance Grants, a 2011-2013 Community Education Center Residency Fellowship (Philadelphia), a 2012 Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Fellowship (Philadelphia), a 2013 NRW Tanzrecherche Fellowship (Germany), a 2013 New York Live Arts Studio Series residency with Jesse Zaritt (NYC), a 2016 Independence Fellowship (Philadelphia), a 2016 18th Street Arts Center creative residency (Santa Monica), a 2017 Rocky Dance Award (Philadelphia), a 2017 Sacatar Residency Fellowship(Bahia, Brazil), a 2017 MAP Fund award with Jermone Donte Beacham, a 2017 NEFA National Dance Project Production Grant with Jermone Donte Beacham, a 2018 MANCC residency, three Swarthmore College Cooper Foundation grants for presenting other artists (Swarthmore, PA).” –Jumatatu Poe (Guest Thursday, June 18)

KST Global Stream: Checking In, Artists Around the World featuring Ishmael Houston-Jones

By: KST Staff

On Thursday, May 28, Pryor was joined by choreographer, author, performer, teacher, and curator, Ishmael Houston-Jones.

Ishmael Houston-Jones (Guest – Thursday, May 28) is choreographer, author, performer, teacher, and curator. His improvised dance and text work has been performed in New York, across the US, and in Europe, Canada, Australia, and Latin America. Drawn to collaboration as a way to move beyond boundaries and the known, Houston-Jones celebrates the political aspect of cooperation. He and Fred Holland shared a 1984 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for Cowboys, Dreams and Ladders, which reintroduced the erased narrative of the Black cowboy back into the mythology of the American west. He was awarded his second “Bessie” Award for the 2010 revival of THEM, his 1985/86 collaboration with writer Dennis Cooper and composer Chris Cochrane. In 2017 he received a third “Bessie” for Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and other Works by John Bernd. As an author Houston-Jones’ essays, fiction, interviews, and performance texts have been published in several anthologies. His work has also appeared in the magazines: PAJ, Movement Research Performance Journal, Bomb, and Contact Quarterly. His first book, Fat and Other Stories was published in 2018 by Yonkers International Press. Houston-Jones curated Platform 2012: Parallels which focused on choreographers from the African diaspora and postmodernism and co-curated with Will Rawls Platform 2016: Lost & Found, dance, New York, HIV/AIDS, then and now. He has received a 2016 Herb Alpert, a 2015 Doris Duke Impact and a 2013 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Artists Awards.

Checking In, Artists Around the World featuring Jaamil Olawale Kosoko

By: KST Staff

Every Thursday at 2:00pm, KST Senior Producer Ben Pryor takes to Instagram Live for conversations with artists in Pittsburgh, throughout the US and around the world. They will connect on the impact of COVID-19 and adapting to working in the arts through a pandemic.

For Thursday, May 21, Ben checks in with Nigerian American performance artist, poet, and curator, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko.

Check out more on Jaamil Olawale Kosoko at the link below: jaamil.com

Jaamil Olawale Kosoko (Guest – Thursday, May 21) is a Nigerian American performance artist, poet, and curator originally from Detroit, MI. His creative practice draws from Black study and queer theories of the body, weaving together visual performance, lecture, ritual, and spiritual practice. Recent awards include a 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Choreography, 2019 NPN Development Fund Award, 2019-21 Movement Research Artist in Residence, 2018-20 Live Feed Artist at New York Live Arts, 2017-19 Princeton Arts Fellow, 2019 Red Bull Writing Fellow, 2017 MAP Fund recipient, and a 2017 Cave Canem Poetry Fellow. His works have toured internationally to South Africa, Europe, Canada, and throughout the US appearing in festivals and venues such as The Centre for the Less Good Idea (Johannesburg), Fusebox Festival (Austin), PICA | Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Tanz im August (Berlin), Moving in November (Finland), Within Practice (Sweden),TakeMeSomewhere (UK), Brighton Festival (UK), Oslo Teaterfestival (Norway), and Zürich MOVES! (Switzerland) among others.

He is the author of two chapbooks: Animal in Cyberspace and Notes on An Urban Killfloor. His poems and essays have been included in The American Poetry Review, The Dunes Review, The Broad Street Review, among others. Season 1 of his interview-based podcast, American Chameleon can be found on all podcast platforms. Visit jaamil.com or follow @jaamilkosoko on Instagram for more information.

Checking In, Artists Around the World featuring Adil Mansoor

By: KST Staff

Every Thursday at 2:00pm, KST Senior Producer Ben Pryor takes to Instagram Live for conversations with artists in Pittsburgh, throughout the US and around the world. They will connect on the impact of COVID-19 and adapting to working in the arts through a pandemic.

 For Thursday, May 14, stream, Ben checks in with Pittsburgh-based theatre director and educator, Adil Mansoor Check out more on Adil Mansoor at the link below: www. adilmansoor.com

Adil Mansoor (Guest – Thursday, May 14) is a theatre director and educator based in Pittsburgh, PA. He is recovering from the Western Canon. He reads the Canon as an archive of white, patriarchal power and fear. He is working on original projects deconstructing Tennesse Williams’ The Glass Menagerie as a manifesto on gay male misogyny and unpacking the Cyclops story in The Odyssey as colonial justification for invading and erasing entire civilizations. His upcoming solo lecture-performance, Amm(i)gone, adapts Sophocles’s Antigone as an apology to and from his mother. As a queer-identifying, Muslim-raised, immigrant in America, understanding and disrupting the Canon provides a survival tactic. In relationship to the Canon, Adil explores theater as a symptom of, and an antidote to, legacies of oppression. Adil also directs new and contemporary plays, primarily by queer folks and people of color, to disrupt dominant narratives. As a founding member of Pittsburgh’s Hatch Arts Collective, he has directed all their projects including Chickens in the Yard by Paul Kruse and Gloria by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Other directing projects include The River by Jez Butterworth (Quantum Theatre), Desdemona’s Child by Caridad Svich (Carnegie Mellon), and Popularity Coach by Brian Guehring (The Rose in Omaha). Adil has developed and directed new work through NYU, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, and Kelly Strayhorn Theater. As an educator, Adil has worked with Middlebury College in Vermont, The Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Mozilla Fest in London, and many others. He was the Artistic Director for Dreams of Hope, an LGBTQA+ youth arts organization in Pittsburgh for over 5 years. He is an alumnus of DirectorsLabChicago and was the inaugural director with Quantum Theatre’s Gerri Kay New Voices program. Adil received his MFA in Directing from Carnegie Mellon University.

Checking In, Artists Around the World featuring Bekezela Mguni

By: KST Staff

Every Thursday at 2:00pm, KST Senior Producer Ben Pryor takes to Instagram Live for conversations with artists in Pittsburgh, throughout the US and around the world. They will connect on the impact of COVID-19 and adapting to working in the arts through a pandemic. For Thursday, May 7th stream, Ben checks in with queer Trinidadian artist, librarian, and educator, Bekezela Mguni. Check out more on Bekezela Mguni here: https://www.bekezelamguni.com 

Bekezela Mguni (Guest – Thursday, May 7) is a queer Trinidadian artist, librarian, and educator. She has over 15 years of community organizing experience in the Reproductive Justice movement and holds an MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh. Bekezela participated in the first Librarians and Archivists with Palestine delegation in June of 2013. She completed her first micro-residency at the Pittsburgh creative hub Boom Concepts and was featured in the 2015 Open Engagement Conference. She was a 2015-2016 member of the Penn Ave Creative Accelerator Program with the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater and launched the Black Unicorn Library and Archive Project. The Black Unicorn Project is a Black feminist community library and archive. She also served as the 2016 Sophia Smith Archive Activist-in-Residence at Smith College. Bekezela was selected as an Emerging Artist in the 2016 Three Rivers Arts Festival and won the Juror’s Choice award for her visual artwork. She was a featured artist of the 2017 Activist Print Project, a partnership between, Artist Image Resource, BOOM concepts, and the Andy Warhol Museum. Bekezela is a Boom Concepts studio member, a community space and gallery dedicated to the development of artists and creative entrepreneurs. She is currently an artist in residence at Artist Image Resource and the Librarian in residence at the Pittsburgh International Airport. Bekezela also serves as the Education Program Director at Dreams of Hope which affirms the voices and leadership of LGBTQ youth through the arts.

Checking In: Artists Around the World featuring, Perel

By: KST Staff

Every Thursday at 2:00pm, KST Senior Producer Ben Pryor takes to Instagram Live for conversations with artists in Pittsburgh, throughout the US and around the world. They will connect on the impact of COVID-19 and adapting to working in the arts through a pandemic.

For this Thursday, April 23rd stream, Ben checks in with interdisciplinary artist Perel. Check out more on Perel here: https://perelstudio.xyz/  Perel (Guest – Thursday, April 23) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work is centered on disability and queerness as they relate to care, consent, sexuality, and personal and historic trauma. Utilizing choreography to examine power exchange between the artist and audience, “Perel is a master at timing, of tension, relief, and intimacy while creating a space of learning and unlearning.” (Victoria DeJaco, Spike Magazine). Their recent work, Life (Un)Worthy of Life: A Queer, Dis/Crip Talkshow premiered at No Limits, a disability centered festival in Berlin, DE. The artist‘s previous work, Pain Threshold, was presented at the American Realness Festival in New York in 2019, and has toured to Sophiensaele Theater, Berlin, and the Leopold Museum, Vienna as part of Impulstanz. Perel has received numerous residencies, commissions, and awards, most recently the Beth Silverman-Yam Award for Social Justice at Gibney Dance, and the first International Artist in Residence for Disabled Dance Artists at Sophiensaele. Perel was a selected disabled choreographer for Choreo-Lab, a pilot program of the integrated dance company, AXIS Dance. They are a Dance In Process Artist in Residence at Gibney Dance, and a Mertz-Gilmore Artist in Residence at Movement Research, NYC. Notable previous commissions have been presented at Abrons Art Center for American Realness 2018, The Chocolate Factory Theater, co-presented with the New York International Queer Performance Festival, Movement Research at the Judson Church, at The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts NYC, and for the 25th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act at the Chicago Humanities Festival.

Checking In: Artists Around the World featuring Ni’Ja Winston

By: KST Staff

Every Thursday at 2:00pm, KST Senior Producer Ben Pryor takes to Instagram Live for conversations with artists in Pittsburgh, throughout the US and around the world. They will connect on the impact of COVID-19 and adapting to working in the arts through a pandemic.

 For this Thursday, April 16th stream, Ben checks in with “Creative Capital and “Bessie” Awardee Ni’Ja Whitson. Check out Ni’Ja Whitson here: http://www.nijawhitson.com 

Ni’Ja Whitson (NY/LA) is a Queer Nonbinary multidisciplinary artist, Creative Capital and “Bessie” Awardee, wound and word worker, referred to as “majestic” by The New York Times, and recognized by Brooklyn Magazine as a culture influencer. They engage transdisciplinarity through a critical intersection of the sacred and conceptual in Black, Queer, and Trans embodiedness, architectures, science, and spirit. Whitson is an 18th St. Artist in Residence (Los Angeles), 2020 Center for Performance Research artist in residence, 2018 MAP Fund awardee, featured choreographer of the 2018 CCA Biennial, 2018-2020 Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Fellow, and invited presenter at the 2019 Tanzkongress international festival. Residencies and fellowships include Jerome/Camargo, Dance in Process at Gibney, Hedgebrook, Movement Research, Bogliasco Fellowship with commissions including St. Mark’s Church at Danspace, American Realness and Vision festivals, ICA Philadelphia.Their award-winning practice extends to choreography and directing in conventional and experimental theatre and performance with recent commissions from Yale Dance Lab, Spoleto Festival (Omar composed by Rhiannon Giddens, directed by Charlotte Brathwaite), EMPAC, and New York Live Ideas Festival. Whitson received an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a second MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College, receiving merit and artist awards at both. They are a sought-after speaker, presenter, masterclass facilitator and conversationalist whose offerings have been shared among notable institutions and arts organizations: Princeton, Cornell, LAX Festival, Movement Research, 2020 keynote of the Collegium for African Diasporic Dance conference. Checking In is a part of KST Global Stream, KST’s COVID-19 responsive online programming initiative.

Below is video of the conversation between Ben Pryor and Ni’Ja Whitson. Check out the full schedule of upcoming guests here.

Checking In: Artists Around the World featuring Staycee Pearl

By: KST Staff

Every Thursday at 2:00pm, KST Senior Producer Ben Pryor takes to Instagram Live for conversations with artists in Pittsburgh, throughout the US and around the world. They will connect on the impact of COVID-19 and adapting to working in the arts through a pandemic. Pryor kicks things off with Pittsburgh choreographer Staycee Pearl, Co-Artistic Director of Staycee Pearl Dance Projects and Soy Sos and PearlArts Studios. Check out Staycee Pearl and PearlArts Studios here: http://www.pearlartsstudios.com

Staycee Pearl is the co-artistic director of PearlArts Studios and STAYCEE PEARL dance project & Soy Sos (SPdp&SS), where she creates artful experiences through dance-centered multimedia works in collaboration with her husband and artistic collaborator, Herman Pearl. Staycee received her initial dance training at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. In 2010, SPdp&SS debuted at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, and served as resident dance company for the theater for three years. Staycee and husband/creative partner Herman Pearl proudly opened their dance/art/sound space, PearlArts Studios, in April of 2012. Since then the duo has produced several works including ..on being…, OCTAVIA, and FLOWERZ. Staycee is passionate about sharing resources and creating opportunities for the arts community by initiating project-generating programs including the Charrette Series, the In The Studio Series, and the PearlDiving Movement Residency. Checking In is a part of KST Global Stream, KST’s COVID-19 responsive online programming initiative.

Below is video of the conversation between Ben Pryor and Choreographer Straycee Pearl Check out the full schedule of upcoming guests here.