Out-FRONT! Fest. Presenting: Joey Kipp & Pioneers Go East Collective

Joey Kipp with Pioneers Go East Collective

Tracing Lorraine

Thursday and Friday, January 11 and 12, at 8 p.m.

Joey Kipp’s Tracing Lorraine is a theatrical performance that pulls forth the common thread of personal memory and erasure in a trilogy of works by African American playwright Lorraine Hansberry to imagine her humanistic vision for a contemporary audience. Rooted in an early pandemic video work by Kipp based on Hansberry’s play, What Use Are Flowers, Tracing Lorraine deepens his research into the author’s life and work with the addition of two more of her plays, The Drinking Gourd and Les Blancs. The theme of erasure to rebuilding prevails not only in the trilogy’s narratives, but also in Hansberry and Kipp’s personal histories, separated by over sixty years, in confronting the loss of their identities within their respective creative and cultural communities.

Conceived, choreographed, and performed by Joey Kipp. Co-choreographed by Symara Johnson. Dramaturgy by Chloe O. Davis. The project is developed in collaboration with Pioneers Collective’s lead artists including Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte (creative director), Jo Wiegandt (assistant director/producer), and Philip Treviño (production designer).

BIO

Joey Kipp is a Queer Afro-Latinx-Brazilian Brooklyn-based dance-maker, writer, and performer. He collaborates with Cynthia Madansky, Biba Bell, Ani Taj, Rachel Klein, Pioneers Go East Collective, and Heather Kravas. In 2019 he was in residency at the Rauschenberg Foundation with Heather Kravas, Vic Haven, and Zeena Parkins. Kipp was featured in The New York Times and their online project Speaking in Dance for Biba Bell, Stacy Grossfield, and Jody Oberfelder. Theater credits Opera WOW: AN OPERA (BRIC), THE BUBBLY BLACK GIRL SHEDS HER CHAMELEON SKIN (Progressive Theater), SOCIAL! (Park Avenue Armory), and LUCKY STAR 0.3 (Pioneers Go East Collective). He is a writer who has shared work with TELL: A Queer Storytelling, Occupy City Hall, and JUNETEENTH at Grand Army Plaza. 

SOCIAL HANDLE: @jkippster

About Pioneers Go East Collective

Pioneers Go East Collective is a radical queer laboratory collective of performing and visual artists dedicated to dance-theater and video art to empower the LGBTQ+ experience. An artist-driven collective, they create works of high artistic merit to build a platform to positively impact their community. Based in New York City, the collective is led by LGBTQ-identifying, BIPOC, and immigrant artists and cultural organizers Daniel Diaz, Joey Kipp, Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte, and Philip Treviño. The collective portrays same-gender-loving experiences, memory, and marginalization that resonate with contemporary lives. Pioneers Go East Collective combines stories of vulnerability and courage with popular culture to facilitate communal meaning and advocate for cultural integrity. Pioneers Go East Collective’s work has been widely presented and developed in New York City with partnerships and residencies at BAM, BRIC Arts Media, Judson Church, The LGBT Community Center, Center for Performance Research, Abrons Arts Center, La MaMa, JACK, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, Chashama Gallery (Harlem), Goethe Institute gallery, Exponential Festival, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Process Space at Governors Island/LMCC, Lumberyard (Catskill, NY), Collar Works (Troy, NY), and Buddies in Bad Times in Toronto. Current collaborators include syd island, Vanessa Rappa, Symara Johnson, ALEXA Grae, Darrin Wright, Mark Tambella, Paul Simon, Jo Wiegandt, Azmi Mert Erdem, joy (Zanni productions), Lynn Ligammari, and Bryan Baira. pioneersgoeast.org

Out-FRONT! Fest. is supported in part with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, and the Harkness Foundation for Dance.

Social Handles: @PioneersGoEast and Facebook at PioneersGoEast