Cleveland Public Theatre
As we kick-off events in June, two companies from Cleveland Public Theatre (CPT) will be in residence. We are pleased to introduce you to The Cleveland CORE Ensemble and India Nicole Burton Ensemble. India and her ensemble will share excerpts from their current work in progress on Thursday, June 2nd.
The Cleveland CORE Ensemble
Led by CPT Executive Artistic Director Raymond Bobgan, CORE has been exploring a series of interconnected “hypotheses” over the last several years. Their current iteration is called “Candlelight Hypothesis.” At NACL, Bobgan will be joined by CORE ensemble member Anastasía Urozhaeva. They will be working on two solo performance segments from the larger piece — one that centers on the ancient Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus, and another about a starship captain from the future who is sending a message back in time. Their work will not have a public showing at this time.
India Nicole Burton Ensemble
India Nicole Burton is joined by ensemble members Jaiie Dayo Aliya, Zyrece Montgomery, Molly Andrews-Hinders, and Micheal Akintoye, who are working on an untitled new performance that reimagines racial history in the Americas. Their point of departure is the question: What would the world look like had any single insurrection that ever occurred, during slavery, been successful?
They base their fictional narrative on a historical event in 1663, known as “The Servants’ Revolt,” in which African slaves and European indentured servants joined together to rise up against their cruel tobacco plantation managers in Gloucester County, Virginia. Though this dimly-if-at-all-remembered uprising was put down, its repercussions still trouble the “American Project,” due to the calculated response of the owners, who keenly recognized the potential threat of a united underclass, and subsequently sowed racial animus, the seed that would divide their workers, secure their own lives and fortunes, and ultimately entangle racism in the social and economic landscape of America.
Burton and the Ensemble imagine events unfolding differently, leading to civil war and a western hemisphere divided, with descendants of former servants and slaves in the North, and in the South a majority white population that continues to subjugate Black slaves. Their protagonist, Cercee, and her kinfolk, who reside in the North, are gearing up to journey to the South to help stage one of the biggest coups in the history of their existence, to end slavery once and for all. However, along this Journey, the idea of race, and how it was created as a construct of power, shows up in the most unexpected way.