Evento

Ping Chong + Company: ALAXSXA | ALASKA Preview Show

Join us for preview showings of Ping Chong + Company's newest theatrical work, ALAXSXA | ALASKA, ahead of the show's tour of Alaska. Presented by special arrangement with Lincoln Center Education.

ALAXSXA | ALASKA weaves puppetry, video, recorded interviews, and Alaska Native drumming and dancing in a collage of stories of encounter between indigenous communities and newcomers to the Great Land. The title of the piece includes the ancient Unangax tribal name for the rocky shores of the Alaska Peninsula: Alaxsxa (uh-LUK-shuh). This word is mirrored by and juxtaposed against the familiar, Anglicized version of this place name: "Alaska." The title serves as a metaphor for the personal and cultural clashes that lie at the heart of this project.

Performers Ryan Conarro and Gary Upay'aq Beaver (Central Yup'ik), along with puppeteer Justin Perkins, use movement and puppetry to reveal a series of little-known historical narratives of cultural collision, alongside Beaver and Conarro's personal stories from Alaska life. Through storytelling and Native dance, they recount their shared memories and unfold their personal perspectives as insider (represented by Beaver as a 21st-center indigenous artist and culture-bearer) and outsider (Conarro, confronting the ramifications of his choice to move to Alaska and his presence as non-Native artist, journalist, and educator).

ALAXSXA | ALASKA will be presented Off-Broadway in October 2017 at La MaMa ETC in New York, and will tour in Alaska and nationally with support from NEFA's National Theater Project. This project is also made possible with funding by the Jim Henson Foundation, Theatre Communications Group, National Performance Network, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

ENSEMBLE

Gary Upay'aq Beaver (Central Yup'ik)
Ryan Conarro
Justin Perkins

PRODUCTION

Created by: Ping Chong, Ryan Conarro, Gary Upay'aq Beaver (Central Yup'ik), & Justin Perkins
Directed by: Ping Chong & Ryan Conarro
Puppet & Object Design: Justin Perkins
Sound Design: Lucy Peckham
Video and Projection Design: Kate Freer
Lighting Design: Marika Kent
Screen Design: Seth Kirby
Costume Design: Stefani Mar
Yuraq Songs, Music, & Dance: Gary Upay'aq Beaver and Wassilie Berlin, Sr. (Central Yup'ik)
Mask Design: Philip Charette (Central Yup'ik and French Canadian), Alaska Native Heritage Center
Qaspeq Costume Collaborator: Loni Hoover (Central Yup'ik)

For more information and for artist biographies, please visit: http://www.pingchong.org/interdisciplinary-performance/production-archive/alaxsxa--alaska/