IRL PERFORMANCE + LIVE BROADCAST 10-11, 16-18 & 23-25 MAY 2024 @ 7p (EST)

J. BOUEY DANCE PROJECTS × THE VANDERBILT REPUBLIC proudly present SATURN: A REVELATION — INTRODUCING THE INTER-DIMENSIONAL TIME-TRAVELING DISCO SPACE OPERA DANCE BAND: “THE LIVING ANCESTORS” at JACK

SATURN: A Revelation — introducing the Inter-Dimensional Time-Traveling Disco Space Opera Dance Band: “The Living Ancestors” is a reverse time capsule broadcast introducing The Living Ancestors from the 2200s, when humanity is at the precipice of abolishing all systems of oppression.

Join this space opera dance band — led by j. bouey and featuring Quilan Arnold, Tyrone Bevans, Nubian Néné, Junada Petrus & Jayson P. Smith — as they embody songs of liberation and conjure the wisdom of their ancestors from the 2020s who honored their responsibility to leave behind a healthy global ecology for their descendants.

SATURN: A Revelation is an immersive dance performance installation, direct action for community support, and multi-camera live broadcast exploring the question: what are we responsible for once we abolish all systems of oppression? This hologram-like radio show, with environmental projection mapping and multiple points of view, is magically performed in real-time through the Live Performance Camera Obscura, designed by George Del Barrio.

SATURN will also feature an astrological forecast and a fabulous Full Moon Disco Ball in the Sky Party joyfully celebrating the destruction of every oppressive construct.

Tyrone Bevans is dancer, choreographer, Illustrator and printmaker. He is currently dancing for The Fabulous Waack Dancers and Joya Powell’s Movement of the people. In the past Tyrone has performed and collaborated with artist such as Christal Brown, Chafin Seymour, Maya Orchin, Vessels, FunkanometryNY, Synead and Karla Garcia. As a mover Tyrone investigates space, risk, and play with one’s physical vernacular in order to access a personal freedom.

J. is a 2023 Bessie Award Outstanding Performer recipient, the founder of The Dance Union Podcast, initiator of the NYC Dancers COVID-19 Relief Fund and The Dance Union Town Hall For Collective Action to support the dance community through numerous world-changing events.

As a creator, J. is a recent 2021-2022 Jerome Fellow and is a 2022/2023 Movement Research Artist in Residence. J. Bouey was also recently a Gibney 2021 Spotlight Artist, Artist-In-Residence at CPR – Center for Performance Research, and 2021 Bogliasco Fellow. J. was also a 2018 Movement Research Van Lier Fellow, and 2018 Dancing While Black Fellow. 

J. is currently a collaborator with nia love. They were also a former performer with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, danced with Germaul Barnes’ Viewsic Dance, Maria Bauman’s MB Dance, Dante Brown, Antonio Brown Dance, Christal Brown’s INspirit Dance, and apprenticed with Emerge 125 (formerly Elisa Monte Dance) under the artistic direction of Tiffany Rea-Fisher. 

Born 1976 in New York City and raised with the global immigrant community of Queens, George Del Barrio is the Founding Creative Director × Executive Producer of The Vanderbilt Republic (est. 2008) & MIDHEAVEN Network + Studio (est. 2020), as well as Creative Director × Executive Producer at Universe City NYC (2021-present), Space for Arts (2023-present) & Madhura Studios (2024-present).

As a 1st-generation American and all-media Creative/ Technical Director deeply versed in photographic physics, immersive curatorial design and all phases of production, Del Barrio's practice is concentrated on archetype expansion. Every site response is architected by a resolute humanism; every invention, design, & transformation is in search of duende — meaning is not a discovery, it is a creation. Clients include The Keith Haring Foundation, Rutgers University, Textile Arts Center, MADERA, On The Revel, PALISSIMO, Cardistry-Con & the dawning sunlight of an awakened mind. 

Jayson P. Smith (b. Bronx, NY. 1992) is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, & curator, currently living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Jayson has received support from New York Foundation for the Arts, The Poetry Project, Poetry Foundation, and The Conversation Literary Festival. Their writing appears in html.review, West Branch, boundary2, The Poetry Project’s Recluse, Gulf Coast, & The Offing, among others.

Jayson’s performance work has been featured in numerous venues throughout the U.S., such as Guggenheim Museum, MOMAPS1, Loft Literary Center, The Home School, & Ace Hotel NYC.

J founded & curates NOMAD Reading Series in Brooklyn, & elsewhere.

Junauda Petrus (she/they) (Writer and Member of “The Living Ancestors”) is an abolitionist, writer, filmmaker, runaway witch, soul sweetener and performance artist born on Dakota land of Trinidadian and Crucian descent. Petrus’ work employs poetics and experiences re-membered via research and ancestral dreaming. Her first book, The Stars and The Blackness Between Them, received the Coretta Scott King Honor Book Award. This year she released her first children’s book, Can We Please Give The Police Department to the Grandmother’s? based on an abolitionist future. She is the co-founder with Erin Sharkey of Free Black Dirt, an artist collective based in Minneapolis, creating space for the literary artists’ community. In all her artistic forms she explores diaspora, the erotic, the speculative, ancestral magic, stories of queerness and femmehood, wildness, laughter, sweetness, spectacle and shimmer.

Nubian Néné (she/her)  (Member of “The Living Ancestors”) is a Montreal native and a New York-based dancer/choreographer who weaves Street & Club dances to create her unique captivating style. Her resilience and hard work stem from her Haitian roots, enabling her to expand into a producer, creative director, curator, visual artist, teacher, and a reliable asset to the innovative Montreal-based multidisciplinary collective: FRGMNT. Nubian Néné performs with Bboyizm Dance Company's In My Body, Passion Fruit Dance Company's Trapped (2021), and Dimensions (in progress). Signature Verses Liberation (2022), an ode to architecture, dance, and drawing, is her first visual art installation, and proof of harmony. A hybrid context, with an amalgam of texture, layers, and patterns examined and imagined by the artist.  She's the creator of Waack Bazaar, The Essence Experience, Glasses & Laces, and choreographer and artistic director of A Lady in The House Dance Company. Her mentors, some of the pioneers of the Street & Club dance cultures, support, encourage, and inspire her to identify cultural references, to be involved and engaged in the community, and through pedagogy help carry the weight of her legacy.

Quilan “Cue” Arnold (he/him) (Member of “The Living Ancestors”) Quilan “Cue” Arnold (MFA) is a movement artist based out of Union City, NJ, who uses his God-given gifts to create systems that advocate for the liberation of all people. As a performer Quilan has been a member of companies such as onCUE Chronicles (NJ), Camille A. Brown and Dancers (NY), Rennie Harris Puremovement (PA), Netta Yerushalmy Dance Company (NY), Abby Z and the New Utility (NY), and Enzo Celli Vivo Ballet (NY). Quilan’s most recent choreographic works, Grandbuelo’s Quarter and The Third Rail, were presented at DancePlace (DC) and New Jersey City University (NJ) respectively in 2023. He is a 2023-24 CUNY Dance Initiative awardee, a 2022 New Directions Choreography Lab Artist-in-Residence at Alvin Ailey, and a featured artist in the ALL ARTS documentary, Alvin Ailey New Directions. Quilan is the founder and CEO of onCUE Chronicles, a kinetic storytelling company that uplifts historically oppressed demographics through performance and education. As an educator Quilan has served numerous dance institutions by foregrounding the value of Street/Club Dance philosophy towards dance technique, U.S. history, antiracism, humanitarianism, and more. View Quilan’s work at www.cue4christ.com and onCUE Company’s work at www.oncuechronicles.com.

MIDHEAVEN NETWORK is a brave, generative space of healing and for the building — not “rebuilding” — of a fully inclusive society. MIDHEAVEN exists in paradox: FROM many, one.

THROUGH live arts programming from A GLOBAL phalanx OF performance, visual art, social justice, human development and cinema/ digital/ VR voyagers, MIDHEAVEN will ADVANCE COURAGEOUS, loving & possibility-driven VISIONS to the world.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR × EXECUTIVE PRODUCER GEORGE DEL BARRIO

ART DIRECTOR AL-KHABIR RICHMAN

DIRECTOR OF AUDIO ADRIAN MARTINEZ

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY BRIAN GONZALEZ

A-CAMERA + KEY GRIP IAN CHEN

COMPOSER + ASSOCIATE PRODUCER BANDIT LU

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