Source theatre
While You Sleep
(An Excerpt from a Jouvay Dream II)
by Nyugen E. Smith
Photo courtesy of the artist
Photography Credit: Pascal Bernier
COVID Safety Measures
To keep fellow audience members, CulturalDC staff, and artists as safe as possible, please stay home if you are sick.
Attendance Details
Dates: January 14-15 and January 20-22, 2023
Doors open at 7 PM
Free and open to the public, a donation of $25 for a reserved seat. Guarantee admission through the link below, limited capacity.
Location: CulturalDC’s Source Theatre, 1835 14th St NW, Washington, D.C.
Concurrently to the exhibition Bundlehouse: Ancient Future Memory, Smith will present a series of live performances of his latest performance artwork. A narrative composition that takes place during Carnival season somewhere in the Caribbean (an intentionally ambiguous locale that embodies an amalgamation of Caribbean cultural elements). While You Sleep (An Excerpt from a Jouvay Dream II) is Smith’s stage adaptation of an original short story that he wrote in response to Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite’s remarks on “the need for a ritual to keep the souls of the millions of enslaved Africans who perished during the transatlantic journey from coming back to haunt us.” Within this story and performance, “Jouvay” (J’ouvert), the unofficial start of Carnival, is positioned as the annual seance which keeps this haunting at bay. The story’s main character, Ele, is a young poet who has surreal nightmares every year during this season, though the closer it gets to Jouvay, the less troubled the spirits of the ancestors in the dreams become.
Nyugen E. Smith is a Caribbean-American interdisciplinary artist based in Jersey City, NJ. Through performance, found object sculpture, mixed media drawing, painting, video, photo, and writing, Smith deepens his knowledge of the historical and present-day conditions of Black African descendants in the diaspora. Trauma, spiritual practices, language, violence, memory, architecture, landscape, and climate change are primary concerns in his practice.
Limited capacity, reservation not required but recommended.
SPECIAL PROGRAMMING
January 14th - Artist Conversation with Nyugen E. Smith and Tsedaye Makonnen
The performance will be followed by and artist talk with Nyugne E. Smith and Tsedaye Makkonnen. Tsedaye Makonnen (b. 1984, Washington, D.C.)is a multidisciplinary artist whose studio, curatorial, and research-based practice threads together her identity as a daughter of Ethiopian immigrants, a Black American woman, doula and a mother. Makonnen invests in the transhistorical forced migration of Black communities across the globe and Feminism. Her work is both an intimate memorialization and protective sanctuary for Black lives. She is the recent recipient of a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, DC Public Library Maker Residency and Art on the Vine's Savage-Lewis Artist Residency (Martha's Vineyard).
She has performed at the Venice Biennale, Art Basel Miami, ChaleWote (Ghana), El Museo del Barrio, Fendika (Ethiopia), FIAP (Martinique), Queens Museum, the Smithsonian's and more. Her light monuments memorializing Black womxn exhibited at the August Wilson Center and National Gallery of Art. In 2019 she was on the front cover of the Washington City Paper's People Issue. She recently curated a group show with Washington Project for the Arts in DC titled Black Women as/and the Living Archive and is publishing an exhibition book.
January 21st - Artist Conversation with Nyugen E. Smith and Jeffereson Pinder
Performance will be followed by an artist talk with Nyugen E Smith and Jefferson Pinder, an African-American interdisciplinary artist known for his work that provokes commentary about race and struggle. Nyugen E Smith is an SAIC alum and Jefferson Pinder is part of the faculty at SAIC, facilitated by CulturalDC’s Executive Director and Curator, Kristi Maiselman.
Tsedaye Makonnen , photo courtesy of the artist.
Jefferson Pinder, photo credit: Luis Acosta Tejada
