The Nourish Project
Live Streaming Event January 28 - February 7 conceived and directed by Rebecca Martínez
created in collaboration with Jaisey Bates, Natalie Benally, Latrelle Bright, Siobhan Juanita Brown, Camryn Bruno, Sage Chanell, Christopher Darbassie, Jono Eiland, Brittany Grier, Jennifer Fok, Joaquin Lopez, Megan J. Minturn, Nikiko Masumoto, Joya Powell and Movement of the People Dance Company, Sara Sawicki, Madeline Sayet, Cherie B. Tay, Dr. Michelle Tom, Sigvanna Topkok, Edna Vazquez and Dina Vovsi.
The Nourish Project explores the idea of how we feed ourselves. Using music, dance, and poetry curated through a framework of the five senses and four natural elements, The Nourish Project hosts a space for audiences to follow their curiosity and explore their own paths during the experience. The event hopes to offer replenishment for the soul and invites people to find a moment of rest in a weary world.
Conceived and directed by current WP BOLD Associate Artistic Director Rebecca Martínez (Here We Are – New York Times Critics’ Pick). Created in collaboration with a multidisciplinary cast of musicians, dancers, storytellers, writers, and cultural organizers from around the country, including playwright Jaisey Bates (the day we were born), international touring artist Edna Vazquez, Bessie Award-winning choreographer Joya Powell and performers from her dance company Movement of the People, organic farmer and artist Nikiko Masumoto, theatermaker Latrelle Bright (The Water Project), performer, teacher and heritage holder Siobhan Juanita Brown, award-winning performing artist Joaquin Lopez, performer Jono Eiland (Miss You Like Hell), NYC Youth Poet Laureate Camryn Bruno, Lighting Designer Jennifer Fok (I Am My Own Wife), Sound Designer & Composer Christopher Darbassie (The Black Exhibition), theatermaker and director Madeline Sayet, Virtual Designer Sara Sawicki (Manual Cinema’s Frankenstein), and Dr. Michelle Tom.
Through a generous grant from The Jenna and Paul Segal Foundation, Broadway Producer Jenna Segal will sponsor a world premiere by a female playwright with a female director through The Heidi Thomas Writer’s Initiative/ This program is named after acclaimed British playwright and screenwriter Heidi Thomas. Miss Thomas is the creator and executive producer behind the BBC’s Call the Midwife series. Heidi’s award-winning theatrical work has been performed at the Liverpool Playhouse, the National Theatre Studio, The Almeida, Chichester Festival and Royal Court Theatres, the National Theatre of Norway, by the Women’s Playhouse Trust and by the Royal Shakespeare Company and on Broadway. Her screenwriting has been acknowledged and awarded by BAFTA, the Emmys, The Writers Guild of Great Britain, Women in Film and Television UK, and the Royal Television Society.
Dina Vovsi
Dina Vovsi (she/her) is a New York-based director and theatermaker. Recent projects include EXITS, an audio-theatrical journey through Fort Greene, supported by New Georges and the Brooklyn Arts Council, and Love is… [Kocham Cię], a 2022 Brooklyn Arts Council SU-CASA collaboration with Pete McGuinness Senior Center. She has directed and developed new work with The Civilians, New Georges, Working Theater, Cape Cod Theatre Project, and more. Dina is a member of the 2022-23 Roundabout Directors Group, a New Georges Affiliated Artist and a Working Theater 5 Boroughs 1 City Initiative commission recipient. She was a 2021 Brooklyn Arts Council Grantee, a Robert Moss Directing Fellow at Playwrights Horizons, a member of The Civilians’ R&D Group, the recipient of an SDC Foundation Observership, a member of the Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab, and a Mass MoCA Assets for Artists Grantee. As an associate/assistant director, Dina has worked on Broadway, off-Broadway, and regionally with Roundabout, Playwrights Horizons, Spoleto Festival USA, WP Theater, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Ma-Yi, and more. www.dinavovsi.com
Rebecca Martínez
(CONCEIVER/DIRECTOR, she/her) is a director, choreographer, deviser, facilitator and ensemble member of Sojourn Theatre and the BOLD Associate Artistic Director at WP Theater. Originally from Denver, Colorado with deep ancestral roots in the Southwest, she’s now based in Brooklyn, NY. Recent projects include: Sanctuary: A Soundwalk (Working Theater), Here We Are: Pandemic Fight (Theater for One – NY Times “Critics Pick”) I Am My Own Wife (Long Wharf Theatre); Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles (Repertory Theatre of St. Louis), Miss You Like Hell (Baltimore Center Stage), Wolf at the Door (Milagro Theatre, NNPN rolling world premiere), Anna in the Tropics (Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs, Henry Award for Outstanding Direction). Rebecca has worked with INTAR, Working Theater, Signature Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, the Lark, The Playwrights Realm, New Dramatists, the 52nd Street Project, Radical Evolution, Milagro Theatre, Oregon Children’s Theatre and Brave New World Repertory Theatre among others. Member of: Sol Project Collective, Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, INTAR’s Unit52, SDCF Observer, Latinx Theatre Commons Advisory Committee, 2019 Audrey Resident, New Georges Affiliated Artist, 2018-2020 WP Lab, 2017 Drama League Directing Fellow, Member of SDC. She is the recipient of four Portland, Oregon Drammy Awards and the Lilla Jewel Award for Women Artists. Rebecca is an artist with the Center for Performance and Civic Practice where her work focuses on co-designed, cross-disciplinary social and civic practice engagement and invitation strategies. Rebeccamartinez.org
Jaisey Bates
(WRITER Words for a rising sun, she/they) writes, directs and performs with The Peoplehood (the-peoplehood.com). A Princess Grace Award and O’Neill National Playwrights Conference finalist and Kilroys List honorable mention, Jaisey is a recipient of the Emerging American Playwright Prize from Marin Theatre Company, and of Judge’s Choice/Featured Play from the Oklahoma City Native American New Play Festival.
Natalie Benally
(PERFORMER, she/her) is born into the Grey Streaked Ends Clan and born for the Red Running into Water Clan. Her Maternal Grandparents are the Zuni Pueblo Clan and her Paternal Grandparents are the Water’s Edge Clan. As a young Diné girl growing up on the Navajo Reservation, Natalie’s first dance studio was the land she was surrounded by, which taught her movement embedded in cultural re-connection and storytelling. She is also a self-taught hip hop dancer. Natalie attended Fort Lewis College where she earned a BA in theatre – Performing and Directing in 2010 and was a first generation college graduate in her family. She performed dance professionally for 7 years with Dancing Earth Contemporary Dance Company and also led youth workshops for Native youth throughout her time with the company. Natalie performed the lead role of Dory in the Navajo dubbed version of Disney/Pixar’s Finding Nemo and directed/choreographed the production I’m Native And… for Fort Lewis College’s inaugural Indigenous Arts Festival, which was then invited to the Los Angeles Kennedy Center for the Arts’ Regional College Theater Festival in 2019. In addition to performing, she works as the Indigenous Programs Coordinator for Girls Inc. of Santa Fe. She is also co-founding a mixed media storytelling company, Tse’Nato’, where she hopes to continue sharing stories through dance, theater, and film. She was recently awarded the Senator John Pinto Native American Filmmakers Fund in 2020 to direct a short film entitled “Mother’s Day”.
Latrelle Bright
(PERFORMER/COLLABORATING WRITER, she/her) is a theatre maker, professor and arts advocate rooted in the Champaign-Urbana community. Past directing credits include Cabaret, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime and No Child (Illinois Theatre), Dreamgirls (KCPA), Men on Boats, Fun Home, Sleep Deprivation Chamber (The Station Theatre), Top Dog/Underdog (Hattiloo Theatre), Otherwise Occupied and Lost Recipes (Jump Start Performance Company) and Spell #7 and Betrayal (The Renaissance Guild). Her interest in storytelling extends beyond traditional plays and musicals with interests in social justice and the environment. Projects include: co-producer of The Gun Play(s) Project with Nicole Anderson-Cobb, PhD; The Water Project, devised with eight local community members and Journey to Water, connecting African Americans with regional water sources, a collaboration with Prairie Rivers Network through a Catalyst Initiative Grant from the Center for Performance and Civic Practice. Recently she engaged in an interdisciplinary devised project about the quantum world with Smitha Vishveshwara, PhD, Quantum Voyages that premiered on campus, traveled to Boston for the American Physical Society Conference and collaborated in a Zoom production with UC San Diego. She co-directed This is the Ground for Opera on Tap NYC with Jerre Dye at the Old Stone House in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Latrelle received her MFA in Directing from The University of Memphis, is a TCG Young Leader of Color and an Associate Member of Stage Director’s and Choreographers Society.
Siobhan Juanita Brown
(PERFORMER) (Keesuty8ee Elm, Mâseepee Wôpanâak) is from Roxbury, MA. Performance credits include Suzan-Lori Parks’s The America Play at the American Repertory Theater, The Emancipation of Valet de Chambre (premiere) at Cleveland Play House, Studs Terkel’s American Dreams: Lost and Found (premiere) with the Acting Company, and several seasons with Commonwealth Shakespeare Company. Currently at the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project, she is the Lower Elementary Lead Teacher at Weetumuw Katnuhtôhtâkamuq on the ancestral homelands of the Mashpee Wampanoag. The former Associate Director of Education at Citi Performing Arts Center in Boston, she began her work at The Wang Theater as a teaching artist, and has also taught with the Strand Theatre, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, nationally with the Acting Company and internationally with The Mama Project. A Montessori certified teacher, she also holds a bachelor of fine arts degree in performing arts and African American studies from Emerson College. Siobhan is a graduate of the American Repertory Theater Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.
Camryn Bruno
(AUDIENCE GUIDE/COLLABORATING WRITER, she/her) is an NYC Youth Poet Laureate, author, and writer from New York City, raised in Trinidad and Tobago. She has performed at the Apple Store, The UN, The Apollo, The Public Theater, The Brooklyn Museum, and many more. Her Poems explore women’s rights, self-love, and Black rights. You can find out more about her via her website- www.camrynbruno.com
Sage Chanell
(PERFORMER, she/her) is a former Miss International Two Spirit and the co chair to the Central Oklahoma Two Spirit Society. Shawnee, Ponca, Otoe, and Lakota Sioux.
Christopher Darbassie
(SOUND DESIGN, he/they) is a New York based interdisciplinary artist. (Select Sound Credits): Fly Away (Petzel Gallery), Chicken & Biscuits (Queens Theater), Black Exhibition (The Bushwick Starr), Waafricka 123, Drowning in Cairo (Criminal Queerness Festival), The Hole (New Ohio Theater), Neptune (Dixon Place, Brooklyn Museum). Chris has also served as assistant to designers Dan Kluger, Lee Kinney, and Kimberly O’Loughlin at Playwrights Horizons, Theater for a New Audience, The Atlantic and Long Wharf. BFA Pace University. Wingspace 2019-2020 Sound Design Fellow. www.darbassiedesign.com
Jono Eiland
(PERFORMER, he/him) is a founding member of Sojourn Theatre. He is also a member of two Los Angeles based classical companies Porters of Hellsgate and Method & Madness. Recent roles include Iachimo in Cymbeline, Palamon in Two Noble Kinsmen (Porters of Hellsgate), Lucio in Measure for Measure (Method & Madness), and in the ensemble of Miss You Like Hell (Baltimore Center Stage). He holds a BA in Theater Arts from Virginia Tech.
Jennifer Fok
(LIGHTING DESIGN, she/they) is a Chinese New York City-based Lighting Designer for theatre and dance. Select designs have been seen at Lincoln Center Education, Long Wharf Theatre, Flint Repertory Theatre, Detroit Public Theatre, The Know Theater Of Cincinnati, Gibney Dance, HERE Arts Center, Portland Stage, The New School For Drama, Bates Dance Festival, NCPA Beijing, José Peón Contreras in Mérida, Flynn Space, Ars Nova, Luna Stage, Company One Boston, New Repertory Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Theatre At Monmouth, among others. Jennifer holds a BFA in Theatrical Production Arts from Ithaca College. www.jenfok.carbonmade.com
Joaquin Lopez
(PERFORMER, he/him) is a counselor and performing artist in Beaverton, Oregon whose work is grounded in personal transformation, self-expression, and Latino Queer identity. He holds a passion for producing cultural events that honor Latin American heritage and Latino Gay culture. In June of 2019, he released UNIVERSO, an electro-pop album that pays homage to his coming-of-age as a gay man. He is the oldest son of the Lopez family who for twenty years has run La Bonita Mexican restaurants in the Alberta Arts District, Overlook Neighborhood, and SE Division Neighborhood in Portland. Joaquin runs a counseling private practice specializing in men’s issues, personal development, and the bicultural Latino experience. When not at the office, Joaquin spends time reading, walking, playing the guitar, singing, and writing poetry. He enjoys time with friends and family, especially his nieces and nephews who keep his spirit young.
Nikiko Masumoto
(PERFORMER, she/her) is an organic farmer, memory keeper, and artist. She is Yonsei, a fourth generation Japanese American, and gets to touch the same soil her great-grandparents worked in California where Masumoto Family Farm grows organic nectarines, apricots, peaches and grapes for raisins. She activates her facilitation, leadership, and creative skills as a performer and leader in the following organizations: co-founder of Yonsei Memory Project, team member of Center for Performance and Civic Practice re-imagining group, member of University Advisory Board (CSU Fresno) board of Trustees of Western States Arts Federation, board of directors of Art of the Rural, and perennial volunteer change-worker. Her most cherished value is courage and most important practice is listening.
Movement of the People Dance Company
(PERFORMERS) Founded in 2005 by Bessie Award winning choreographer, Joya Powell, Movement of the People Dance Company is dedicated to addressing sociocultural injustices through multidisciplinary immersive Contemporary Dance. Their work explores active-isms under the lens of Africanist expressions. Performance engagements include: BAM, Lincoln Center, SummerStage, La Mama, The 92nd St Y, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Movement Research @ Judson Church, BAAD!, and The School of Contemporary Dance & Thought (Northampton) among others. Recognition include: 2020 Bodies in Motion Residency, 2020-2021 CUNY Dance Initiative Residency; 2019 Certificate of Appreciation – Manhattan Borough President: Gale Brewer, 2018-2019 EtM Choreographer Residency, 2017-2018 Women in Motion Fellowship, 2016-2017 Dancing While Black Fellowship. MOPDC facilitates community engagements nationally and internationally, and they hold an annual Free Day of Dance and acclaimed Winter Intensive. On the indigenous land of the Munsee Lenape, also known as Canarsie Brooklyn, Brittany Grier is an interdisciplinary artist who utilizes movement to build empowered communities. It has come through the intersection of dance, social justice, as well as storytelling; that honors legacy/traditions. The space continues to be heightened through her service as a dancer, community liaison, educator, choreographer and rehearsal director. She is grateful for Movement Of The People Dance Company, where dance is the vehicle that helps drive connections between individual narrative and collective response. “It is the nourish•me[a]nt for a creative being whole. Megan J. Minturn is a dancer, choreographer, and educator. She is honored to be a member of Movement of the People Dance Company; the people and movements in the company have nourished and helped her grow for the past 10 years. Her company, MJM Dance, performed at the 92nd St Y, Dixon Place, the Ailey Citigroup Theatre, Mark Morris Dance Center, HERE Arts Center, and Miami University of Ohio among others. Megan dances with MOPDC and Catherine Gallant Dance. Awards include Fund for Teachers Fellow (2019), Don Quixote Awardee (2019), NY State Dance Education Association’s Outstanding Educator of the Year (2016), Education Update’s Educator of the Year (2015), and BAC Grant (2013).
Sara Sawicki
(VIRTUAL DESIGN AND MANAGEMENT, she/her) is a Chicago-based theatre artist. She designs, facilitates, and manages virtual events ranging from small informal gatherings to full productions, with a focus on participatory structures. She is a company member with Sojourn Theatre, currently engaged on Sojourn’s Don’t Go. Sara is a puppeteer with Manual Cinema (MC) most recently an original cast member of Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN (Lord Byron). She tours internationally with MC in LULA DEL RAY (Lula’s Mother); MEMENTOS MORI (Lady); and ADA|AVA. Past projects include work with: NetherRealm Studios (cinematic performance capture); For Youth Inquiry (performer & director); Actors Gymnasium (Youth Circus co-director and writer); & one step at a time like this in collaboration with Chicago Shakespeare Theater (performer).
Madeline Sayet
(PERFORMER, she/her) is a citizen of the Mohegan Tribe and Executive Director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program. For her work as a theater maker she has been honored as a Forbes 30Under30, TED Fellow, and recipient of The White House Champion of Change Award from President Obama. Her solo performance piece “Where We Belong” is a part of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company’s current season. www.madelinesayet.com
Dr. Michelle Tom
(PERFORMER, she/her) DO, MPH, is Diné/Navajo from Chimney Butte, Arizona. After 7 years of extensive and diverse medical training in Florida, New York and New Jersey she returned home. Dr. Tom is a Board-Certified Family Medicine physician. She has been working on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic since March 2020 on the southern region of the Navajo Nation which at one point was the #1 in the world of COVID-19 cases per capita.
Meghan “Sigvanna” Topkok
(PERFORMER) is Iñupiaq from Nome, Alaska, with family roots in Mary’s Igloo. She currently serves as the Staff Attorney at Kawerak, Inc., providing legal services to the tribes of the Bering Strait region. Sigvanna’s partner is Michael Hoyt, a high school social studies teacher, and together they have two dogs and two cats that they love to bring on adventures qayaqing and camping around the region.
Edna Vazquez
(PERFORMER, she/her) Born in Jalisco, Mexico, and currently based in Portland, Oregon, Edna Vazquez is a fearless singer, songwriter, and guitarist whose powerful voice and musical talent transcend the boundaries of language to engage and uplift her audience. Her original music crosses the genres of alternative rock, folk, pop, and r&b seamlessly and delivers a message of light, love, and cultural healing. Her passion for music and education have led her to empower youth and the community through workshops and projects with bravo Youth Orchestras, Young Audiences, and The Lullaby Project by Carnegie Hall through the Oregon Symphony. After releasing her album Sola Soy, Vazquez began to perform at venues nationwide including Lincoln Center and the Kennedy Center. She has also performed at the MGM in Las Vegas in a special performance with Latin Grammy Award-winner Flor de Toloache and Natalia Lafourcade. Vazquez received the Most Influential Latina Award in 2019 and is regularly touring with Pink Martini as featured guest vocalist. Pink Martini’s album with Vazquez, Bésame Mucho, was released on October 4, 2019.
