| La MaMa Presents THE EDGE OF NATURE, Live Performance by director Josh Fox, June 14-30 | |
| Posted by: Official_Press_Release 09:17 am EDT 05/04/24 | |
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| LA MAMA PRESENTS WORLD PREMIERE OF THE EDGE OF NATURE FROM OSCAR-NOMINATED & EMMY-WINNING DIRECTOR JOSH FOX, JUNE 14–30 Live Performance Chronicles Fox's Year-Long Recovery From Long Covid in One Room Cabin in the Woods Opportunities To Impact Climate Change At Each Show "We can't heal ourselves without healing the planet. We can't heal the planet unless we heal ourselves." La MaMa is proud to present the world premiere of The Edge of Nature, a live performance by Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning director Josh Fox, best known for Gasland, the documentary that ignited the anti-fracking movement worldwide. The Edge of Nature chronicles Fox's year-long journey healing himself from long Covid in a one room cabin in the woods just as the world shuts down in 2020. Running June 14–30, 2024, with an opening set for Monday, June 17, performances take place at La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre, located at 66 E 4th Street in Manhattan. T ickets are now on sale at www.lamama.org . Josh Fox is internationally recognized as a spokesperson on climate change and extreme energy. Fox wrote parts of the Democratic Platform on energy and environment for Bernie Sanders in 2016, and has created The Edge of Nature to call attention to the only time in human history that we, as a civilization, halted emissions. Since 2010, Fox has toured over 600 cities with his film projects, which galvanized the anti-fracking and climate change movements worldwide. The premiere of The Edge of Nature at La MaMa launches a tour of the project throughout the Northeast. Scientists have come to call the first six-eight months of the Covid Pandemic the "anthropause," an unprecedented global reduction in human activity. During this time, industrial fossil fuel pollution plummeted and for the very first time in history and worldwide emissions were reduced enough to halt climate change. In the midst of this, Fox, who is suffering from neurological symptoms and cognitive damage from long Covid, isolates himself in a one room cabin in the hopes that his beloved Pennsylvania forest can heal him. During his nine month seclusion, Fox confronts the legacy of genocide and intergenerational trauma that scars the land and his family. His co-stars are a tenacious group of beavers, a young bear mother, howling coyotes and a ton of invasive honey-suckle. Nature may just teach us how to heal ourselves and the lessons of the anthropause may just save the world. In this live performance, Fox narrates his battle with long Covid alongside an ensemble of 11 musicians and singers who perform classic American Folk songs and an original score by Dougie Bowne. Fox, known for his first person voiceover and storytelling, will narrate the film live as well as play the score live on banjo and many other instruments. The premiere of The Edge of Nature at La MaMa brings together performance, film, music and environmental action in a visually stunning and innovative way. Fox is planning to release the film version of The Edge of Nature in conjunction with performances at La MaMa. Following each performance, notable celebrities and local climate activists will join Fox onstage in a post-show conversation. The goal of these talks is to educate audiences in ways they can help heal the planet. "We can't heal ourselves without healing the planet," says Fox, "And we can't heal the planet unless we heal ourselves. The Edge of Nature is about healing. Healing long Covid, healing intergenerational trauma, and healing spiritual and political anguish. This healing process is not one of self- focused individualism. The earth, our forests, and all of our ecosystems are deeply scarred, traumatized, sick, and wounded. The Edge of Nature is grappling with the idea of survival, the value of human life and the profound internal legacy of identity." Fox created The Edge of Nature with the late Myron Dewey (1972–2021), a native Paiute filmmaker who co-directed the documentary Awake, A Dream From Standing Rock (Netflix) with Fox. Myron was tragically killed in 2021 under suspicious circumstances. This is Fox and Dewey's final collaboration. Their intense dialogue about indigeneity, genocide, intergenerational trauma is a focal point of the project. Fox voices fears of antisemitism in the USA and takes on the deep seated racism of American History- drawing attention to the parallels between the native American Genocide, the holocaust and the present moment of extreme sectarian violence in the USA. The Edge of Nature marks Fox's first show at La MaMa since 2002, when his company, International WOW Company, premiered Orphan on God's Highway following his legendary work The Bomb in 2001. Joining Fox onstage is a gifted 11-member ensemble including Gabriela Bonomo, Mya Elzy, Ira Gamerman, Morgan Jenness, Emma Lyndell, Sammy Rivas, Eva Rubin, Belle Rue, Bella Torres, Celeste Vandermillen, and Georgina Saldaña Wonchee. The additional creative team for The Edge of Nature includes Charles Foster (lighting design) Scott Fetterman (video/projection design), Morgan Jenness (dramaturgy/ensemble), Erick Alonso (assistant director), Matthew Sanchez (film editor),. The Edge of Nature is produced by Diane Crespo. Frances Fisher, Myron Dewey (1972–2021), Doug GoodFeather, V (Formerly Eve Ensler), Jake Sargeant, and serve as Executive Producers. Twelve performances of The Edge of Nature will take place June 14–30, 2024, at La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre, located at 66 E 4th Street in Manhattan. Critics are welcome as of Friday, June 14 for an opening on Monday, June 17. The performance schedule is Thursdays–Saturdays at 7pm and Sundays at 2pm plus Monday, June 17 at 8pm. The anticipated running time is 2 hours with one intermission. General admission tickets are $30 and $25 for students or seniors. The first 10 tickets to every performance are $10 each. Tickets are available at www.lamama.org . About the Artists Josh Fox is best known as the Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning writer/director of Gasland Parts I and II. He is internationally recognized as a spokesperson and leader on the issue of fracking and climate change. He has premiered three films on HBO, two on Netflix, and his work has been broadcast worldwide to hundreds of millions of viewers. In addition to his Oscar Nomination and Emmy for best Directing, Josh has four other Emmy nominations, won the Sundance Special Jury Prize, a Writer's Guild nomination, an IDA Nomination, The Cinema Eye Hell Yeah Prize, The Yoko Ono/John Lennon Grant for Peace, Three Environmental Media Association Best Documentary Prizes, among numerous other awards and accolades. As a TV commentator and guest he has appeared regularly on MSNBC, FOX, CNN, The Daily Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, PBS, TYT and many other outlets. In 2020, Fox created The Truth Has Changed, a groundbreaking filmed live performance and book about misinformation, propaganda and psycho-graphic targeting aimed at manipulating our current media and political ecosystem. The show ran to standing ovations at The Public Theater, The Actors Gang, The Wexner Arts Center and 45 other venues across America and Europe. In 2017, he produced and co-directed and co-wrote Awake, A Dream From Standing Rock with indigenous filmmakers Doug Good Feather and Myron Dewey (1972–2021), which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and then on Netflix and toured to hundreds of locations around the world. In 2016, he was awarded his third Environmental Media Association award for Best Documentary for his latest film How to Let Go of the World and Love All The Things Climate Can't Change, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2016, toured the world theatrically and was released on HBO in June 2016. His work raising awareness on climate change, fracking and renewable energy earned Fox the 2010 Lennon/Ono grant for peace given by Yoko Ono. He co-founded The Solutions Project with Mark Ruffalo, Mark Jacobson and Marco Krapels and he was advisor to Artists Against Fracking, Damascus Citizens and many other orgs involved in the successful fight to ban fracking in New York State and the Delaware River Basin. Fox's films have toured to hundreds of cities worldwide helping to form the global movement against fracking. Fox is also the founder and producing artistic director of the International WOW Company, a film and theater company that he founded in 1996 that has performed across the US, Europe and Asia. He has written/directed/produced five feature films, six short films and over twenty-five full-length works for the stage, which have premiered in New York, Asia and around Europe. For his theatre work, Josh has received five grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, numerous prestigious MAP Fund Grants, a Drama Desk Nomination, an Asian Cultural Council fellowship, and an Otto Award, among others. The New York Times has hailed him as "one of the most adventurous impresarios of the New York avant-garde" and Time Out New York called him "one of downtown's most audacious auteurs," citing his "brilliantly resourceful mastery of stagecraft." As a drummer, Dougie Bowne has worked with veritable who's who of notable musical artists, notably Iggy Pop, John Cale, Laurie Anderson, Jack Bruce, Chris Whitley, Cassandra Wilson, John Zorn, Yoko Ono, Marc Anthony Thonpson, Jim Jarmusch, Yuka C. Honda, Nels Cline, Mike Watt, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and many others. He was a member of The Lounge Lizards for over a decade. Dougie has composed scores for films, such as MacArthur fellow Edet Belzberg's award winning Watchers of the Sky, and written incidental music for films such as Frédéric Tcheng and Bethann Hardison's 2023 film Invisible Beauty, and co-composed songs for Marc Anthony Thompson's musical Ni¿¿er Lovers, which premiered in San Francisco in 2023, and was chosen Best of the Year in theater by The San Francisco Chronicle. His duo with Matt Nelson, Transient Luminous Event, will release a debut record on John Zorn's Tzadik label in Spring of 2024. Matthew Sanchez has been involved in all aspects of the filmmaking process, from shooting to editing. For 6 years, he worked as an editor and cinematographer at a non-profit for environmental awareness. While lensing over 25 short films, his varied work includes commercials for VH1, documenting the NYC underground music scene, Wired Magazine, and College Humor. Matt's film Happy Birthday Harris Malden premiered at CINEVEGAS film festival. He has also earned 4 Telly awards and cut a program for PBS that was nominated for 2 Emmy awards. He was editor, cinematographer and co-creator of Gasland and Gasland, Part II. Myron Dewey (Executive Producer) Myron Dewey's drone and livestream footage made him one of the most prominent media voices during the Standing Rock #NoDAPL movement, but his work there was based on years in community with youth, navigating and uncovering historical trauma. Myron Dewey was the founder of Digital Smoke Signals. He is Newe-Numah/ Paiute-Shoshone from the Walker River Paiute Tribe, Agui Diccutta Band (Trout Eaters) and Temoke Shoshone. As an educator he worked with youth to understand the generational trauma, rooted in their personal history, and help to process that pain. Myron conducted trainings in filmmaking, citizen journalism, and drone piloting, teaching, unpacking historical trauma, and holding sacred digital space for indigenous dialogue. He began his career as a wild-land firefighter and trainer at Haskell Indian Nations University and went on to work as a webmaster, technical trainer, and technical consultant at both Haskell Indian Nations University and the University of Kansas. From 2009 to 2013 he taught computing, digital media, and mobile app programming at Northwest Indian College in Tulalip, Washington, where he received the Teacher of the Year Award in 2010. That year, he was accepted into the acclaimed Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO) Ambassadors Program, where he expanded his projects to build technological equity for indigenous people. Myron was tragically killed in 2021. We carry on his legacy and hope to make him and his family proud. About La MaMa La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is dedicated to the artist and all aspects of the theatre. La MaMa's 62nd "Radical Access" Season comes on the heels of our 61st season when we re-opened our newly-renovated, original theater at 74 E. 4th St. The building's $24 million makeover provides the return of the fully accessible Club, a new Community Arts Space for neighboring groups in the East Village, and an expanded public lobby and galleries. Our "Radical Access" initiative builds an infrastructure of opportunity that supports new ways of connecting us to people and communities around the world, expanding our means of connectivity and providing space where artists and digital tools converge from multiple points of entry. La MaMa has been honored with 30+ Obie Awards, dozens of Drama Desk, Bessie Awards, Villager Awards, the 2018 Regional Theatre Tony Award, and most recently a 2023 New York Drama Critics' Circle Special Citation. We are a creative home to artists and resident companies from around the world, many of whom have made lasting contributions to the arts, including Blue Man Group, Bette Midler, Ed Bullins, Ping Chong, Jackie Curtis, André De Shields, Adrienne Kennedy, Harvey Fierstein, Diane Lane, Playhouse of the Ridiculous, Tom Eyen, Pan Asian Rep, Spiderwoman Theater, Tadeusz Kantor, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, Mabou Mines, Meredith Monk, Peter Brook, David and Amy Sedaris, Julie Taymor, Kazuo Ohno, Tom O'Horgan, Andrei Serban, Liz Swados, and Andy Warhol. La MaMa's vision of nurturing new artists and new work from all nations, cultures, races and identities remains as strong today as it was when Ellen Stewart first opened the doors in 1961. www.lamama.org Funding Credits Support for The Edge of Nature has been generously provided by Novo Foundation, NYSCA (New York State Council for the Arts), Atmos Magazine, Jake Sargeant, V (Formerly Eve Ensler), and numerous private donors. |
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