Performance
A warm-up for a performance by Emily Gastineau
Generic Minneapolis
Dates
Fri, Mar 25, 2022, 12:00 am
Performance lecture by Emily Gastineau and comedy by Devohn Bland Performance by Leila Awadallah, Terry Hempfling, Antonio Duke, and Tristan Koepke–with lighting by snem DeSellier and DJ Judith Shuǐ Xiān
Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 12:00 am
Performance lecture by Emily Gastineau and lecture by George Hoagland Performance by Alexandra Beaumont, Margaret Ogas, Sally Rousse, and aegor ray–with lighting by Søren Olsen and DJ Juleana Enright
Sun, Mar 27, 2022, 12:00 am
Performance lecture by Emily Gastineau and poetry by Moheb Soliman Performance by Alys Ayumi Ogura, Krista Langberg, Theo Langason, and Emily Michaels King–with lighting by Kat Purcell and DJ Terry Hempfling
Yeah, I said it. But in truth: Minneapolis isn't generic at all. Especially after all that has happened. And neither is anywhere else, really. But you could name something, couldn't you? An image that came to your head? Is it Grain Belt? Is it "the lake"? May Day? Spoon and…don't say niceness. Um, do you mean white things? Is it about feeling invisible? Scratch that, this isn’t right. What you think is generic about Minneapolis says more about you than about Minneapolis. It tells us something about what we take for granted. So for three nights, we'll excavate the generic in the specificity of this town, in this performance community, in me, in you.
Generic Minneapolis is a research extravaganza, a collective brainstorm, a conceptual swap meet, a provocation. It greases the gears for the premiere of Emily Gastineau's work Generic Specific in April 2022. Each night of Generic Minneapolis features a different grouping of thinkers: a poet, a comedian, an academic, an artist. And each night there will appear a generic evening-length work by rotating casts of performers, DJs, and lighting designers. The work is score-based and instantly activated, because if we are working with generic objects, then the material is already known and we can step directly into the performance. Minneapolis. We are ready.
Generic Specificis a contemporary dance work that examines affective economies through the lens of the generic and the personal. The piece explores how feelings circulate, how value is produced through proximity, and how normativity is constructed through repetition. Generic Specific will premiere at Red Eye Theater, April 28-30, 2022, with collaborators Valerie Oliveiro, Anna Marie Shogren, and Judith Holo Shuǐ Xiān.
generic (noun): something so pervasive that we become unable to see its specificity. Ex: brand (of cola), a tool (a traffic cone), a dance movement (the step-touch), an expression (a smile), or an idea (the good life). The objects and ideas that saturate a culture until they become standard, ostensibly unmarked, even invisible—as we remain implicated, attached, choreographed by them.
Accessibility
Red Eye requires proof of vaccination, including boosters as eligible, for all audience members and artists who enter the space. Masks are currently required for all events. If you have questions about this policy, or concerns related to accessibility or to children under the age of five, please contact the Red Eye Artistic Directors with as much advance notice as possible at staff@redeyetheater.org.
To request ASL interpretation, audio description, large-print programs, or other accessibility-related accommodations for any event, please contact us at least two weeks prior to the event. staff@redeyetheater.org | 612.870.7531
About the Artists
Leila Awadallah | LeilAwa
Leila Awadallah| LeilAwa is a dancer, choreographer, and film dabbler based between Minneapolis and Beirut. She is the founder of Body Watani dance project. Leila’s ways of moving through the world are woven with and informed by Arab/Mediterranean roots from Palestine and Sicily. To connect further, visit leilaawadallah.com
Alexandra Beaumont
Alexandra Beaumont is a textile and movement artist whose work explores personal and collective joy, restoration, and expansiveness.
Devohn Bland
Devohn Bland is a Minneapolis-based comedian, writer, and musician, with a focus for using the art of radical collective joy to poke fun at systems of oppression and create positive change.
snem DeSellier (they/them))
snem DeSellier is a wiggly idea raised by the long tidal river and ghosts of western massachusetts. They are stubborn, they are slow, they are blowing a million seasons through their body at any given moment. Here along these rivers they have created/designed/performed work in various rhythms with Lightning Rod, 20% Theatre Company, Body Watani Dance, Red Eye Theater, 9x22 Dance/Lab, Playwrights’ Center, Pillsbury House + Theatre (2023 Naked Stages Fellow), and Wonderlust Productions. They build for a future of transdisciplinary stretching and translational medicine that has capacity for the wide and complex bodies of those they love, those they are, and those they don’t yet know. They are here for the misaligned misattuned immeasurable ones.
Photo: Valerie Oliveiro
Antonio Duke
Antonio Duke is an actor and playwright. He strives to be an unrestricted conduit for the spirits he conjures in his theatrical practice. For him theatre is an act of spiritual manifestation rooted in a practice of Afrocentric storytelling. He follows in the tradition of the griot: solo West African storytellers. www.antonioduke.com
Juleana Enright
Emily Gastineau (she/her))
Emily Gastineau is a choreographer, performer, writer, and editor based in Minneapolis. Recurring concerns in her body of work include objects, desire, value, citation, spectatorship, collectivity, and the generic. Her work has been supported, developed, or presented at Frascati (Amsterdam), On the Boards (Seattle), workspacebrussels, Garage29 (Brussels), The Luminary (St. Louis), SE.S.TA (Prague), Studio 303 (Montreal), Walker Art Center, Red Eye Theater, Soap Factory, Southern Theater, Weisman Art Museum (Minneapolis), Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, and Minnesota State Arts Board, among others. She created over a dozen collaborative works with Billy Mullaney (US/NL) as part of the performance duo Fire Drill, and curated events at former studio space Fresh Oysters Performance Research. Emily engages with language within her choreographic practice as well as through arts writing and publishing: she co-founded the platform Criticism Exchange, and her writing on performance has been published at Mn Artists, MARCH.international, Temporary Art Review, Culturebot, and elsewhere. She worked with Mn Artists at the Walker Art Center for a decade, where she was most recently the editor of the interdisciplinary arts writing publication. She studied at DAS Choreography, Amsterdam University of the Arts.
Terry Hempfling
Terry Hempfling is a movement-based interdisciplinary artist. Terry has worked on projects with artists including Marina Abramovic, Anthea Hamilton, Laure Prouvost and Rachel Jendrzejewski (among others). Residencies include Triskelion Arts, Weisman Art Museum, Lighthouse Works, Antioch College and Shandaken Projects. BA: Dance and Theater, Antioch College. Terryhempfling.com
George Hoagland
George Hoagland (they/them) is a media studies professor at Minneapolis College of Art & Design.
Tristan Koepke
Tristan Koepke (he/him) is a dancer, choreographer, and Rolfer® based in the Twin Cities. www.tristankoepke.com
Theo Langason
Theo Langason is a theater maker, educator, and co-artistic director of Red Eye Theater.
Krista Langberg
Emily Michaels King (she/her))
Emily Michaels King is a performing artist based in St. Paul, Minnesota exploring authentic expression and human depth through movement, multimedia, and visual compositions for the stage.
Emily is known for her fearless personal work, provocative compositions, and collaged evening-length solo performances, including: her award winning show MAGIC GIRL; multimedia online work DIGITAL; IN PERSON, a companion to DIGITAL; the raucous CHICKEN WING; and STAR KEEPER. An in-progress version of her solo, ELECTRIC, was performed at Arena Dance’s 2022 CandyBox Festival. Additionally, her work has been presented at the Walker Art Center, the Guthrie Theater, and Movement Research, among others. Emily is also a 2025 McKnight Choreography Fellow.
Pairing minimalism and subtlety with cacophony and bared irreverence, Emily’s works employ the lush landscape of the inner world and the power of unapologetic vulnerability. They combine movement with text, graphics, sound, and technology to focus on themes of self discovery and reclamation, womanhood, and bold expressions of personal truth. www.emilymichaelsking.com
Margaret Ogas
Margaret Ogas is a dance artist working at the confluence of movement, storytelling, and experimental performance. Drawing from Chicana sensibilities, queer theory, and diasporic futurisms, her dances weave personal narrative with playful design to foster tender connections with audiences. Ogas is a 2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow and was a 2021 Naked Stages Fellow at Pillsbury House + Theatre. Her choreography has been presented throughout the Twin Cities at spaces such as the Walker Art Center, the Southern Theatre, and the Cedar Cultural Center. Her projects have received support from the Minnesota State Arts Board (2024) and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (2022, 2023, 2024). Beyond her choreographic work, Margaret is a dedicated teaching artist, freelance performer, and grant writer. She holds a BFA in Dance from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities.
Alys Ayumi Ogura
Alys Ayumi Ogura is a storyteller through movement, voice, and her quirky humor. Her performances have been described as “compelling” and “fierce” by the Star Tribune. Ogura has performed her choreographies since 2010 at the Walker Art Center, Southern Theater, and other venues around the Twin Cities. She has also worked with artists nationally and internationally, and most recently with Laurie Van Wieren, April Sellers Dance Collective, and MotionArt. Ogura is a former Arts Organizing Institute (2017-18) fellow through Pangea World Theater, and she is a 2021 Naked Stages fellow at the Pillsbury House Theatre. To give back to Minnesota’s dance community, she serves on the DanceMN steering committee.
Søren Olsen
Søren Olsen is a Designer | Maker | Educator | Choice Architect ❖ Get in touch and see more → designsbysoren.com. He’s currently establishing arts and wellness residency opportunities ＠ tamaracklandcoop.com. He adores Red Eye’s work for our local artists and community.
Kat Purcell
Kat Purcell uhauled to mpls with a phd candidate in 2016.
aegor ray
aegor ray is a writer living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His writing interests span queer and trans desire and terror, empire and its long-arching shadows, and the experiences of consuming and being consumed. aegor is writing his first novel. He is a Sagittarius.
J H Shuǐ Xiān
Judith H Shuǐ Xiān is a choreographer, improviser, and sound artist based in Minneapolis. She is a 2017/2022 Q-Stage: New Works and 2019 Momentum: New Dance Works recipient and was part of the 2022 Red Eye Works-In-Progress cohort. She is currently focused on researching ritual & meditation through experimental performance.
Photo: Elise Radspinner
Moheb Soliman
Moheb Soliman is an interdisciplinary poet from Egypt and the Midwest who's presented work around the US and Canada with support from diverse institutions. His debut collection HOMES (Coffee House Press, 2021), about nature, modernity, identity, and belonging through the Great Lakes bioregion/borderland, is a Minnesota Book Awards finalist and put him in Poets & Writers' annual 10 debut poets feature. mohebsoliman.info
Sally Rousse
Two-time McKnight Dance Fellow Sally Rousse is a contemporary ballet artist who performs, teaches, writes, advocates, and choreographs site-specific works.