“Ever We Build Our Houses: The Story of Kea and Her Ark” (a work in progress)

Sunday, May 14, 2023
2:00 p.m.
Matrix
All ages
FREE

In conjunction with the exhibition Kea Tawana: I Traveled into the Future in a Dream, artist Sebastienne Mundheim, founder of White Box Theatre, will share a multidisciplinary performance she is developing on Kea Tawana. Mundheim was commissioned to explore Tawana’s life and work by ArtYard, in Frenchtown, New Jersey. In collaboration with dancers, actors, and music makers, Mundheim has developed a work integrating puppetry, installation, live music, and storytelling. Ever We Build Our Houses is still in-process and evolving. Sunday’s performance is an opportunity to see and think. There will be talk back, hands-on making, and moving sessions on Tuesday, May 16.

White Box Theatre is a project-based visual and performing arts company founded by artistic director Sebastienne Mundheim, whose multidisciplinary work integrates puppetry, dance, storytelling, and installation.

ArtYard supports the incubation of new work and commissioned White Box Theatre to engage with the mystery of Kea Tawana, a social activist, self-taught engineer, and ark-builder who made an eighty-six-foot-long, three-story-high ship from salvaged wood, stained glass, and other materials from abandoned buildings in Newark’s Central Ward.

Early ideas for Ever We Build Our Houses were developed in residencies at ArcheDream for Humankind, Theatre Exile, and The Painted Bride. Currently, White Box Theatre is in residence at the Latvian Society of Philadelphia.

Collaborators include Daniel de Jesus, Ain Gordon, Kennedy Candra, Harlee Trautman, Payton Smith, Peter Jacobs, Christianne Ebel, Elizabeth Jacobs, Eppchez Yes, and Caitlin Thompson.