We started with the idea of fairy tales as portals into queerness, transformation and the indulging of forbidden desires; a resistance to the numbing effects of normativity. Hoary (working title) is a practice of being in our bodies, of not knowing something but making something anyways.

Addressing site is an integral aspect of this practice; we create semi-fictional histories and sonic resonances in each location the work is researched, employing language, sound and vocal utterance as vibratory tools that give animacy and agency to place. This activates the audience’s potential for a multi-sensory and imaginative attunement to their environment, creating new possibilities for our shared perception and behavior. Decentering empirical human concepts of knowledge, we disrupt our enculturated nervous system responses and move beyond the shortcomings of late capitalist embodied experience by embracing ambiguity, fluidity, and the beauty of the not yet known.

Credits

Conceived and Directed by Levi Gonzalez
Created and Performed by: Levi Gonzalez, Kayvon Pourazar, Rebecca Serrell Syr
Music/Sound/Performance by: Senem Pirler
Costume/Fabric Consultation by: james kidd
Lighting Design by: Madeline Best

Photography Credit: Rachel Keane

Production History

Premiere: The Chocolate Factory Theater, NYC | November, 2024

Hoary is Commissioned and Presented by the Chocolate Factory Theater. This work was funded in part by New England Foundation for the Arts’ New England Dance Fund, with generous support from the Aliad Fund at the Boston Foundation. This project has also been supported, in part, by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant. Additional support has been provided by the Loghaven Artist Residency, the another audience creative residency at black hole hollow, the Ucross Artist Residency Program, and Rootstock 24 at the Croft Residency. Hoary was also developed as part of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s RehearsalWeek program. LMCC.net