Lisa Fagan & Lena Engelstein: This Could Be You
Fagan and Engelstein present This Could Be You, a brand new bizarro duet bridging dance and theater, tailor-made for unlocking the potential of an asphalt oval situated between two unattainable balconies.
Nile Harris: Untitled (Theresa Buchheister)
In this untitled work-in-progress presentation, Harris responds to the architecture of the Domino Park amphitheater using the Manhattan skyline as a launching point on a desultory meditation on the characters past/present/future that make New York City, New York City.
A Note from Theresa Buchheister, Guest Curator:
The vitality of genre-expansive artists within a cultural landscape, the impact of rigorous thought and artistic process within the constraints of every day survival and the joy of collaborative experimentation (with oneself, with a partner or with a queer(ed) gaggle) are represented profoundly over the course of these two days in June onstage at Domino Park and are exquisite examples of my curatorial lens as a long-form rumination on these notions, whatever the vessel or opportunity.
In an effort to express the period during which I served as Artistic Director of The Brick Theater (January 2020-September 2024), I wanted to bring artists to the Sugar Sugar team that continuously tap into the thrill and terror of live performance. It is the feeling that has ceaselessly guided me, in theory and practice, and felt painfully at risk over the past 5 years. Lena and Lisa were the very first artists to present in The Brick under my leadership and the dirt from that show is still blessing every crevice of the space. Tiresias was part of ?!:New Works in 2021, the first moment we could open our doors to audiences and live performance since March of 2020 and they provided a mystical glimpse into a beautiful queer future. And Nile Harris was the first artist I saw since the start of the pandemic that really cracked open my brain and heart, creating new pathways for those organs to travel. These 2 nights at Domino Park are a summoning, a celebration, an excavation. I am honored to be included.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
NILE HARRIS is a performer and director of live art. He has done a few things and hopes to do a few more, God willing.
LISA FAGAN is a choreographer, performer, and theater maker based in NYC whose work has been dubbed “The High Weird” by critics. She is the director/choreographer and a practicing member of the experimental performance collective CHILD, a company of 14 multidisciplinary artists. Recent works include: Friday Night Rat Catchers (with collaborative partner Lena Engelstein and performer Marianne Rendón) at New York Live Arts (Live Feed Artists in Residence), Deepe Darknesse (NYC at Live Artery and The Collapsable Hole, The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at UMD, and upcoming at ODC/San Francisco), Nature Theater of Oklahomas’s No President (dancer), HILMA (choreographer), June 2024 at Tony-award winning theater The Wilma, Open Throat (choreographer) at Little Island, and many others across NYC and abroad. She has taught physical practice, choreography, and dance related forms at Barnard College, The Celebration Barn, Gibney, and others. On-screen choreography credits include the TV pilot THESE DAYS, premiering at Sundance 2021. 2025 Recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists for dance. Recipient of a Baryshnikov Arts Center residency, NYSCA Individual Artist grant, Fisher Center LAB. LisaFaganDanceProblems.com.
LENA ENGELSTEIN is a dancer, performer, and choreographer. Her work has been dubbed “The High Weird” by critics and lauded as “subtly campy and hilariously queer” by the Brooklyn Rail. Recent Choreography/Direction: Friday Night Rat Catchers at New York Live Arts (forthcoming March 2025) and Deepe Darknesse at New York Live Arts’ Live Artery 2024 with collaborator Lisa Fagan. Engelstein is a member of the interdisciplinary collective CHILD whose performance 1-800-3592-113592, directed by Fagan, was described as a"hypnotic dance-theater acid trip" (Helen Shaw, The New Yorker: Best Theater of 2024). Engelstein currently works with choreographer Joanna Kotze and musician Teeny Liberson's band Lou Tides. Recent Performance credits: Alexa West, Barnett Cohen, Brendan Drake, Faye Driscoll, Falcon Dance, Isa Spector, Jo Warren, Owen Prum + Lili Dekker, Miguel Alejandro Castillo, and Third Rail Company’s Then She Fell (company member, 2019-2020). She has taught at SUNY Brockport, Colorado Mesa University, and The Field Center. Lena holds a B.A. in Mathematics from Colorado College.
THERESA BUCHHEISTER is a theater artist from Manhattan, Kansas, known for their work as a director, writer, producer, performer, and curator. They founded Title:Point, an experimental theater company, and The Exponential Festival, a January performance festival showcasing avant-garde artists. Buchheister also co-founded Vital Joint, a venue celebrated for hosting alternative comedy, experimental dance, and unconventional film screenings. They served as the Artistic Director of The Brick Theater in Brooklyn, New York, leading the venue to receive an Obie Award during their tenure. After two decades in New York, Buchheister returned to Kansas in 2024 and currently lectures at the University of Kansas.
