Kayla Farrish/Decent Structures Arts
Put Away the Fire, Dear

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

RUNTIME: 90 min

Put Away the Fire, Dear is a new evening length piece that dreams in frames of Old Hollywood/ American cinema revamped and remixed for live performance in a group work. From the eyes of a woman standing in her kitchen hearing the brook in the distance, imagining the room shake, onwards to a beating heart faint growing louder, she boils over. All gets dark, and then let’s in light as other characters fill in experiencing suspense, love, dysfunction, fantasy, eruption and abandon in themes of cinematic storytelling.
I am inspired about bringing film elements and techniques on the stage considering plot, structure, perspective, character, sound design, text, and set design. Combining movement, dance theater, and embodiment, I’ll define language through these characters and create arcs of what they go through. I want to shift the narratives in traditional cinemas to give visibility to excluded people, like BIPOC folks. I want to make way for the epic and dramatic as possible and also create spaces for vulnerability and intimacy, in ways I would limit myself. With varying physicality, embodiment, partnering, and form, I’ll create stories through romance, film noir, musical, and thriller. We will play with what is possible combining film and live performance. In addition, I’m inspired by music scoring, considering jazz, orchestra, hip hop, and contemporary sounds, and how their context changes in relationship to one another.

Created and Directed by Kayla Farrish, with collaboration in choreography and text with performers; Collaboration on Set Design and Production with Hayley Ader

Performers
Jessica Alexander
Quaba Ernest
Kayla Farrish
Maggie Joy
Sophia Parker
Marcus Sargeant
Junyla Silmon

Sound Score
Mixed by Kayla Farrish

Set Design
Hayley Ader and Kayla Farrish

Text Creations in collaboration with performers

Kayla Farrish/Decent Structures Arts is an emerging company combining filmmaking, storytelling, dance theater performance, and sound score. The company has been commissioned by Gibney Dance (2020-2021), Louis Armstrong House Museum (2020), Danspace Project Inc (2019), Pepatian and BAAD! (2018), and beyond. Farrish has been supported by creative residencies including Gallim Women + Residency (2021), Gibney Spotlight: New Voices, Barysnikov Arts Center, Arts On Site (2020), Keshet Makers Space Experience, BAX Space Grant (2019), Pepatian Dance Your Future (2018), and Chez Bushwick (2017). Pieces sprouted outwards including "Black Bodies Sonata", "The New Frontier (my dear America)” evening length and film, "With grit From, Grace", "Spectacle” Film and Live Production evening length work, and anticipated "Martyr's Fiction" (2021) that continued to push boundaries of form, voice, scene, narrative in an array of cinematic mediums. In 2020-2021, she has been commissioned for choreographing and directing a range of films and live performance hybrids. Her work has been performed at venues like Judson Church, Danspace, Jacob's Pillow, New York Live Arts, Joe’s Pub, BAAD!, film festivals, and beyond. In 2021 she created site-specific immersive, “Broken Record” duet commission, with Brandon Coleman for Little Island Festival, “Rinsing” short dance film, co-directed Melanie Charles “Y’ll D’nt Care Abt Black Women” Film, Saul Williams’ “People Above the Moon” Solo for The Motherboard Suites at NYLA, “Roster” Outdoor Concert Performance collaboration Four/Four Open Air Series with Melanie Charles, and Martyr’s Fiction Feature Film. In 2022, she will be releasing her feature film “Martyr’s Fiction”, creating new solo works with Belinda McGuire and herself, collaborating with Kenyon Adams, Symphony Space, and creating commissions for companies.

She’s received grants and support including Sundance Uprise Grant for Emerging BIPOC Directors, Dance Films Association Production Grant, Film Residency and community support from Little Falls, NY, and Brooklyn Filmmaker Collective Mentorship Fellowship. She was awarded a Bessie Performance Award for her solo “People Above the Moon” in NYLA’s “Motherboard Suite”. NY Times named “Roster” Top 2021 Dance Performances, and titled Farrish a “Break Out Star of 2021”. She was listed on Dance Magazine “Top 9 Screen Dance Makers to Watch” as well. She receives Harkness Promise Award for 2022, and is Bessie nominee for her performance of “December 8th” at Gibney. She is currently a rehearsal director at Sleep No More NYC and adjunct faculty at NYU Tisch.

Sophia Parker is a dance artist from Berkeley, California. She has preformed works by Adam Barruch, Bobbi Jene Smith, Brenda Way, and KT Nelson among others. Between 2018 and 2021, she was a member of Sidra Bell Dance New York and performed across the U.S and internationally with the company. In 2019, Sophia received her B.F.A in dance performance with departmental honors from Fordham University/The Ailey School.

Junyla Silmon, a Canton, MS native, graduated Summa Cum Laude from Montclair State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in dance performance and a minor in business administration. As a performing artist, she has worked with Susan Marshall, Christian von Howard, Yusha-Marie Sorzano, and Kayla Farrish, among others. Junyla is a company member with Company SBB//Stefanie Batten Bland, Accent Dance NYC, and Freespace Dance. She recently completed a two-year fellowship program with JCM/TheREDprojectNYC and serves as a senior research consultant for Dance Data Project. Junyla's recent work, [EK]+[OH], was presented at the 2022 Upsurge Dance Festival.

Jessica Alexander grew up in North Carolina and received her formative training at Purchase College, SUNY and the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance. She has worked with artists including Courtney Mazeika, Nicole von Arx, Tom Weinberger, Leah Wilks, and Kayla Farrish. Jessica is currently based in Brooklyn and spends her time dancing, teaching Pilates, and trying to keep her plants alive.

Marcus Sargeant is a 22 year old dancer from Southern California where he trained with Westside Dance Project. In 2022 he graduated from SUNY Purchase with a BFA in dance. Marcus has performed the works of many choreographers including Annamari Keskinen, Connie Shiau, Rena Butler and Johannes Wieland. He was a Spotlight Grand Prize winner for Non-Classical dance in 2018. Marcus is excited for life post graduation and is eager to keep performing and creating works in New York

Lighting Designer + Trisk Technical and Production Manager
Anna Wotring , Pittsburgh native, is a community minded dance artist, designer and production stage manager committed to the practice of collaborative leadership. She currently works with Annie Heath, Lauren Horn, Jennifer Nugent and slowdanger as a technical design consultant, dancer, and production stage manager. Wotring obtained her BFA in Dance, at the Five College Dance Department in Western Massachusetts. She has had the privilege of working with a multitude of dance organizations, including Alvin Ailey Studios, Attack Theater, Ballet Des Ameriques, BalletNext, Bill T Jones/Arnie Zane Company, the Dance Conservatory of Pittsburgh, Dance Place, H2O Contemporary Dance, Monica Bill Barnes and Company, New York Live Arts, the Pillow Project, Prayers of the People, RoseAnne Spradlin, Scapegoat Garden, Time Lapse Dance, and many others. Wotring is beyond excited to begin working and imagining with the Trisk team. @annaissupercool

Thank you Anna Wotring for building the beautiful worlds we have lived in the past 3 weeks.

Thank you Hannah Wendel for supporting me to create these shows as a series of collaborations. It's been a feat, a daunting task, and incredibly illuminating and abundant!

Thank you Rachel Mckinstry for your support and belief in my vision and all of ours to create these shows. Thank you for your support in every part.

Thank you to my incredible collaborators- for all of your efforts, imaginations, aid, advice, and commitment to building new works. I'm in awe and disbelief. I can't wait fo the future of these works.

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