Nightlife Skinshow:
Desperate 4 Attention
(You Won’t Last 5 Seconds!)
Guest Curated by Kelsey Rondeau
DECEMBER 8 & 9, 2022
DOORS: 7:30PM
PERFORMANCE: 8PM
$20 in advance // $25 at the door
Starring a glittering array of Brooklyn's premiere nightlife performers, choreographers, and recovering musical theater kids, this ragtag crew of queerdos are excited to weaponize their BFAs, shake their asses, and put the 'High' in 'High Art.'
Featuring…Hans & Ava, Hunter Sturgis, Jonathan Matthews-Guzmán, Lena Horné, Beatriz BB, and Manatsu Tanaka!
Acclaimed as 'virtuosic' and 'desperate for attention,' Hard/Femme Dances was formed in 2018 by Kelsey Rondeau and Hunter Sturgis. Merging dance, theater, spectacle, and always character-driven, the company has made solo works involving mad housewives, amorous clowns, drug-fueled party-goers, a French music hall diva, and more. They have shown their work at Gibney Dance Center, Spoke The Hub, BAX, and the House of Yes. They are excited to be returning once again to Triskelion Arts, where they will be premiering a new work in June 2023. @hardfemmedances.
Hans and Ava
You Don't Bring Me Flowers
An intimate look at love, loss, domesticity, alcoholism, childrearing, and cheating as told by two sentient roses in a long-term relationship.
Hans and Ava have been enabling each other since they met on the Good Ship Lollipop in 1912. During the pandemic, they created the hit IG livestream show Call Me By My Venmo Name, which had over 22 different editions, including Now! That's What I Call Coronavirus!, Hans' Vodka Beach Party, Hans and Ava Ruin the Holidays, and Geriatric Park. You can see their antics live at Club Six26 in Jersey City.
Hunter Sturgis
Inheritance I
Inspired by ancestry, spirituality, and quantum physics, Inheritance is an activation, a practice of manipulating time, seeing into the future and bringing about that future.
“What are the dimensions of trauma?
Does it work like a satellite routing a collective misery to a certain locale? Does it’s energy participate and re-emerge in some other space? How does our trauma affect the cosmos?
Time cycles, spirals, and can be experienced in many other shapes, and at varying rates.” -Rasheedah Phillips
Hunter Sturgis (he/him) is a queer dance artist, filmmaker, and Pilates teacher from south Texas based in Brooklyn. Hunter graduated with a BFA in Dance from University of Texas at Austin (2017).
He has had the honor & privilege of working with choreographers such as Charles O. Anderson, Erica Gionfriddo, Kate Watson-Wallace, Gregory Dolbashian, Sidra Bell, Luciana Achugar & Manuel Vignoulle. Hunter creates to subvert and challenge oppressive power structures that have taken root systemically, historically, and thusly, corporeally. He uses the power of disruption to open up new spaces where there is deep, uncharted territory of the heart.
@mercury___007
Jonathan Matthews-Guzmán / Phias-cŒ
8 days into 30, 2 summers ago
I (love to) teach young children. From 2017 to (gasp) 2020 I taught ballet at a school that has recently closed its location on the (lower) Upper East Side - The Ballet Club. While for many, the dances young recreational ballet students perform in their recitals are nothing more than amusing, cute, mind-numbing, and sentimental, they are actually intensely rigorous choreographic formal exercises - how to create developmentally appropriate, yet challenging enough, however, easily memorizable demonstrations of skills built (and paid for) over time, to music, done adorably. In a word – “absurd.”
This piece is my attempt to make a solo for myself to a beloved piece of music from my childhood, at the recreational/skill-demonstrating dance recital piece developmentally appropriate level for circa 7 years of age, as executed by a body which just turned 30. But that's not all - I'm gonna need your help to zhuzh it up a bit.
Jonathan Matthews-Guzmán/Phias-cŒ (they/them) is a gender-free, neurodivergent performance artist-educator of Irish and Puerto Rican descent, born to native New Yorkers and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. They attended NYU Tisch Dance, and studied abroad at Toscana Dance HUB (now WADE), Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, and Springboard Danse Montréal. Jonathan has performed with This is Not a Theatre Company, Darrah Carr Dance, The Bang Group, and co-founded BREAKTIME with Holly Sass in 2017. Their work has taken them abroad to the International Theatre Festival of Kerala (India), The Croft (Michigan), and John Scott’s Irish Modern Dance Theatre (Dublin). They accompany at Tisch Dance and Barnard College, sing Tenor with The Cecilia Chorus of New York and Cantori New York, and have Music Directed for the Medicine Show Theatre Ensemble, and Queens Shakespeare/What Dreams May Co. Jonathan has collaborated with cabaret artists Rachel Murdy and Peter Szep at Don’t Tell Mama NYC, and colectivodoszeta at Pangea. Their writing can be found at Eye on Dance, Dance Magazine, Time Out NY, Baryshnikov Arts Center, and the Journal of Dance Education.
@the_elbowless_hug
Lena Horné
It’s Raining When We Oooo
A prolonged tease of word play and coos, this number is an ode to divas in lust. Often forgotten, but never ignored, the legacy of strong women demanding what they want in song has never shined brighter. Lena will take us on a rollercoaster ride, vocally exploring the ups and downs, as well as the depths of pure passion.
Lena Horné is a dynamic diva based in Brooklyn, NY. She is known for being a storyteller and an entertainer. Using her charm, her glamour, and her velvety voice, this Old Hollywood star-to-be will gently disarm you, freeing your spirit to dance again and enjoy the ride life has to offer. Lena performs weekly throughout New York City. Be sure to keep up with her via Instagram: @lenahornay
Beatriz BB
Nana On Her Way
Beatriz BB takes on character work in the form of Nana. Physical comedy, dance theatre, camp and play are the crux of this work. She takes on one of dancers’ greatest fears, aging, and finds humor in the wrinkled face of an inevitably bleak future.
Beatriz (She/Her) is a New York based dance artist and performer. She grew up studying ballet, musical theater and competitive dance in Kentucky. She then earned a BFA in Dance Performance at CalArts, where she built an interdisciplinary practice and passion for directing. Beatriz is a contemporary and commercial dancer, resident choreographer at House of Yes, and internationally touring artist. She enjoys cooking, yoga, drag, antiques, and dismantling the imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy.
@beatriz_bb_nyc
Manatsu Tanaka
The Manifesting of Midsummer's Night Dream
Manatsu is a Japanese word for 'Midsummer'......They got ambitions, they got dreams, and they had a past. But Manatsu is so ready to call the past as an end of a chapter to start writing for their new chapter in this career field. A personal journey of growth, recognition, acknowledgement and manifesting for success! This piece is my attempt to make a solo for myself to a beloved piece of music from my childhood, at the recreational/skill-demonstrating dance recital piece developmentally appropriate level for circa 7 years of age, as executed by a body which just turned 30. But that's not all - I'm gonna need your help to zhuzh it up a bit.
Manatsu is a non-binary Japanese Multidisciplinary Artist based in NYC and Tokyo. They can be seen in music videos, plays, contemporary dance, immersive theater, and so much more!They have been an original cast for several immersive theater productions in NY and Tokyo such as “ZeroSpace”, "Pansy Craze" by Maya Dawyer, and Japan's first long-running immersive theater "Venus of TOKYO" by DAZZLE Dance Company. They are a proud Company Member of Hard/Femme Dances, and a co-creator and the lead actor of Hearts of Cranes, an immersive online immersive experience in collaboration with Experience You&I.
@manatsu.tanaka
Image credits: flyer by Kelsey Rondeau, Alice Teeple & photo courtesy of Hans, Ricardo Ayala, Natalie Deryn Johnson, Lucas Andahl, Brendan Burke, Daisuke Kimura
*Triskelion Arts is ADA-compliant and committed to making our theater welcoming and accessible to all. For seating questions, and accommodation, or assistance is needed for purchasing tickets, please contact us at 718.389.3473 or info@triskelionarts.org. Accessible seats are available for each performance and an accessible restroom is located on street level.