Brisa Areli Muñoz, UGBA, Zhailon Levingston, Diego Alejandro González, William Carlos Angulo, and Iyvon E.
NEW YORK CITY and MEXICO CITY: A brand new worldwide arts residency program referred to as theurbanX.org is seeks to attach Black and brown artists throughout the diaspora by the lens of city tradition. The pilot program formally launches this month with six New York-based creators who will conduct creative residencies in Mexico City. The inaugural cohort will embrace Brisa Areli Muñoz, UGBA, Zhailon Levingston, Diego Alejandro González, William Carlos Angulo, and Iyvon E. A second cohort of Mexican creators might be chosen in fall 2023 for a sequence of residencies in New York City.
“As a Black queer creator who has been in dialogue with the global artistic community for decades, I am deeply curious about what connects us,” mentioned Bryan Joseph Lee, this system’s government creative director and CNTR ARTS founder, in a press release. “What does it truly mean to be a part of the global majority? What technology do we have to share with and learn from our siblings around the world? Across borders and boundaries, Black and brown folks have used culture as a means of creative expression and a lever for social change. I’m thrilled to launch theurbanX.org as a platform for artistic expansion and a resource for creative changemaking around the world.”
theurbanX.org’s mission is to harness the facility of city tradition and the humanities to construct bridges throughout borders, share data and sources in neighborhood, and empower creators of the worldwide majority. Multidisciplinary and intersectional by design, the inaugural cohort of six U.S.-based artists will use hip-hop, poetry, playwriting, choreography, dramaturgy, music, and therapeutic ritual as modes of artistic expression.
The core of theurbanx.org’s program mannequin focuses on three areas: growth, connection, and change. Through a sequence of totally funded worldwide micro-residencies, contributors will obtain time, area, and the chance to see themselves and their work in a world context. Participants will even interact with like-minded creatives of their host metropolis, and spark collaborative conversations with artists of their selecting. Opportunities for artistic change might be designed by every participant, and should embrace public sharings, listening periods with native artists and neighborhood leaders, masterclasses, workshops, performances, and extra.
Brisa Areli Muñoz is a Chicane theatre director, therapeutic practitioner, and cultural employee primarily based out of New York City. She is the creative director of Musical Theatre Factory, a company that develops changemaking new musicals in a joyous, collaborative neighborhood. Brisa can be the creative director of One Nation/One Project’s collaboration with the town of Edinburg, Texas. ONOP is a nationwide arts and wellness initiative designed to activate the facility of the humanities to restore the social material of our nation and heal our communities. She has directed and facilitated workshops on Broadway, nationally and internationally, and is obsessed with utilizing artwork as a device to encourage, activate, and remodel establishments, organizations and communities to turn into extra inclusive and simply.
Ungrateful Black Artist (UGBA) is a queer poet, rapper, playwright, actor, and activist primarily based out of Brooklyn, NY. UGBA is the founder/host of CEREMONIES—a Brooklyn primarily based month-to-month Black queer artist showcase held in honor of Essex Hemphill. UGBA can be the founding father of “Dark-Skin Support Group,” a digital assist community for dark-skin Black Americans in want of an area to debate the realities of colorism. In 2020, UGBA was named a “Black LGBTQ+ playwright you need to know ” by Time Out NY. UGBA is the present script assistant for the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play Fat Ham. He is an alumnus of the Public Theater’s #BARS program and a present member of The Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group 2020-2023 cohort. UGBA is a 2023 Artivism Fellow by Broadway Advocacy Coalition, a 2022 MAP Grant recipient, a 2020-2021 BAM Resident, and the present creative director at NY Writers Coalition.
Zhailon Levingston is a Louisiana-raised storyteller, director, and activist. A board member for the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, he co-created and taught the Theatre of Change course at Columbia University, which goes into its third yr. He is a Music Mentor Fellow and has performed work with Idina Menzel’s A BroaderWay Foundation. His directing credit embrace Neptune, The Years That Went Wrong, The Exonerated, Chariot Part 2, and Mother of Pearl. He is the affiliate director of Primer for a Failed Superpower, and Runaways on the Public Theater. Zhailon is the unique resident director of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical on Broadway and the affiliate director of Hadestown in South Korea. Most lately, Zhailon directed Patience by Johnny G. Lloyd at 2nd Stage Uptown, and Chicken and Biscuits by Douglas Lyons, which premiered on Broadway final fall.
Diego Alejandro González is an NYC-based director, playwright, neighborhood builder, and theatremaker by means of the México-Texas border. This yr, Diego has co-founded The Borderlands, a cultural arts firm, and MUXE Creative, an indie artistic company. Diego served because the affiliate creative director for Thirteen O’Clock Theater within the Rio Grande Valley and has held varied positions at Ars Nova, the Public Theater’s Public Works, Dance Lab New York, Roundabout Theater Company, and Tectonic Theater Project. They have collaborated with WP Theater, The Sol Project, Musical Theater Factory, The Civilians, ¡OYE! Group, and Abrons Arts Center. Directing Credits embrace new works and regional premieres at Thirteen O’Clock Theater, 24 HR Musical, and All Star Theater. Documentary credit embrace What Do I Stand For? and Revolution. They have co-led advertising and marketing technique and consulting with the groups at Baltimore Center Stage and Dance Lab New York.
William Carlos Angulo is a director, choreographer, playwright, and humanities educator primarily based in New York City. His work in theatre and dance has premiered in 15 U.S. states and Puerto Rico, in addition to in Poland, France, Germany, Croatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina. William created the primary skilled coaching program at Goodman Theatre in Chicago and was an unique teacher for Broadway Across Borders by the U.S. Department of State. He created the NextGen Choreography Apprenticeship in partnership with Dance Lab New York, the place he mentors gifted younger choreographers. He has choreographed for Grammy-winning recording artists like Breland, LOCASH, Florida Georgia Line, and extra, and his choreography has been hashtagged on TikTok and Instagram over 17 million occasions. William is at present creating two new Broadway musicals, Hombres and Shout Sister Shout. He is a proud member of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC) and the Alliance of Latine Theatre Artists (ALTA).
Iyvon E. is an award-winning Nigerian American artistic producer, dramaturg, and administrator from Brooklyn. She is the creative director of the Parsnip Ship, a new-play growth firm that contains a radio-play platform amplifying underproduced playwrights. Additionally, she is the director of creative packages at Signature Theatre (NYC), the place she leads the LaunchPad Residency Program and SigSpace, a free foyer program. Iyvon is a recipient of the Fulbright International Scholarship and Gilman International Scholarship (each to Italy) and the 2019 Mark O’Donnell Prize recipient, and is a W.P. 2020-2022 Producers Lab member and an affiliate dramaturg with Beehive Dramaturgy Studio.