Open Call: Asia Stewart
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About this commission
Asia Stewart’s Fabric Softener is a theatrical response to Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, offering an imagined ritual with the power to revive young Black women and insist on their survival. Stewart draws on three characters from the many who populate Morrison’s 1977 novel: Pilate, her daughter Reba, and granddaughter Hagar. In the original text, Hagar dies of a broken heart after deeming herself unworthy of love, beauty, and acceptance.
In her performance, punctuated by musical outbursts of spirituals and passages from the novel, Stewart presents three new characters who are not recreations of these women but are instead archetypes: The Laundress, The Celebrant, and The Witness. The performance begins as The Celebrant and The Witness prepare The Laundress for an intervention: a baptism, a becoming, and a funeral for what used to be and can no longer exist.
Creative Team
Yaz Lancaster (they/them) is a transdisciplinary artist residing in Lenapehoking (NYC). Their work as a performer, composer, poet/writer, and collaborator is grounded in queer, DIY, and liberatory frameworks. It utilizes fragmentation and collage, relational aesthetics, improvisatory forms, and experimental electroacoustic composition. Through independent study, Lancaster spends time thinking about the cultivation of care and intimacy, Marxist/collectivist praxis, and digital (sub)cultures.
Their debut record, AmethYst, comprising music for violin, voice, and electronics, was released in April 2023 and has been featured on I CARE IF YOU LISTEN, Bandcamp (New & Notable), and Foxy Digitalis, among other publications. Recent and upcoming collaborators include Black Mountain College/Hub New Music, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Eliza Bagg, Massa Nera, Mingjia, Minnesota Philharmonic, Miss Grit, and Sean Pecknold.
Lancaster additionally works as the comanager of people places records, a co-organizer of abolitionist music collective Sound Off, and a freelance (music) writer. They love powerlifting, summers down South, and going silly mode with their little dog Nori. More at yaz-lancaster.com.
Acknowledgments
Fabric Softener was commissioned by The Shed as part of Open Call‘s third edition (2023 – 24).
This work was made possible, in part, by the Franklin Furnace FUND 2022 – 23, supported by the Jerome Foundation, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and the friends and members of Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc.
Fabric Softener is also supported by YoungArts and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
Additional thanks to Robert Rising & NYCitySlab, Nicholas K, and Gotham Production Studios for supplying set pieces, costumes, and audio recording equipment.
Development was made possible by The Watermill Center, NARS Foundation, GALLIM, ART/ New York Theatre, and Amanda + James.
In memory of Barbara Jean Lockhart.
All text and dialogue in this performance is reprinted and performed by permission of Estate of Chloe A. Morrison
Copyright © Estate of Chloe A. Morrison, 1977.
Location and dates
July 25 – 27
7:30 pm
The Shed’s Griffin Theater is located at 545 West 30th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues. View The Shed on a map.
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Accessibility
Seating
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Thank you to our partners
Additional support for Open Call is provided by The Wescustogo Foundation and Jody and John Arnhold | Arnhold Foundation.
The creation of new work at The Shed is generously supported by the Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Commissioning Fund and the Shed Commissioners. Major support for live productions at The Shed is provided by the Charina Endowment Fund, with additional support from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
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