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Definitive Figures Festival

VARIATION 1

Definitive Figures is a festival of performance and community events created to amplify and explore the femme body in space. It was originally conceived by dance artist Donna Costello and Vagabond Inventions' director Jennifer Sargent. Definitive Figures aims to elevate and explore feminist ideas while negotiating our plural identities of race, class, and sex in a patriarchal society.  

Variation 1 took place in New Orleans from February 28 to March 4, 2018. Over five days, the festival featured four core female-identifying artists presenting body-based performance work and also featured a host of other events and shows from stand-up comedy to a late-night dance party, each showcasing the diversity of femme experience through a variety of media.

VENUES

The inaugural festival took place at:

Catapult, Music Box Village, and the Allways Lounge and Cabaret.

MOVEMENT PERFORMANCE

 

EPISODES (excerpt)

by choreographer Jarrell Hamilton

 

HOW TO MAKE A KITCHEN MORE DIFFICULT

by choreographer Maritza Mercado-Narcisse

 

JITTERBUG AND THE AFTERMATH

by dance artist Donna Costello

and physical theater artist Jennifer Sargent

 

RELATIVES

by The Screaming Traps (Shannon Stewart

in collaboration with Ellery Burton)

SHORT-FORM, MULTIDISCIPLINARY PERFORMANCE

 

12

(theater/dance)

by Lisa Shattuck & Jeff Becker

 

BLACK GIRL GIGGLES

(stand-up comedy)

Hosted by Shep Kelly and featuring Brionne Bagneris, Tekesha Fairley, Briana Augustus, Camille Roane, De De Theriot with headliner Comedienne Janell Banks

 

DRINKING FROM THE DEVIL’S PUNCHBOWL 

(multidisciplinary)

by Madison Krekel

 

THE MONOCLE

(music/ film)

by Aurora Nealand

SPIRIT & SPARROW

(music)

by Spirit McIntyre, kei slaughter

definitive figures 4x6-Jarrell copy.jpg

Why the festival?

"We wanted to celebrate the many conversations we had about process, art forms, identity, female-ness and feminist ways of being, and what we face in our bodies and in the world at this time. Not wanting to show our work in isolation, we wanted to create an opportunity for further conversations and to connect with other femme and female-identified artists through creative questioning." 

 - Donna Costello and Jennifer Sargent

Definitive Figures Creators/ Producers

The Definitive Figures Festival was featured in the New Orleans Gambit: READ HERE.

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