Liverpool <–> Trading has reached its Kickstarter campaign goal and in now in REHEARSAL for its first performance showing on October 20th 2011 at Dixon Place at 9:30 pm. Purchase tickets here:

https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pe/9205025

Take a look at our new Wix website designed by cast member Nathan Willis

www.liverpooltrading.com

Our first read through was at the Player’s Club in New York City founded by Edwin Booth. What a thrill to be sitting around Mark Twain’s poker table as we read through the basic story actions.

photograph by John R Diehl Jr.

Keep checking in here for information about upcoming shows and dialogues.

Anita Gonzalez

Liverpool Trading  (Liverpool <-> New York) is a new play about Black and Irish performance exchange. After two years of research and travel in London, Liverpool, Ireland, and New York’s Lower East side, a multi-national company of actors, singers, dancers and writers present their first performance exchange.

Performance Date: October 20^th, 2011, 9:30 pm  at Dixon Place, New York City

Purchase Tickets here:

https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pe/9205025

THE STORY

In Liverpool Trading  (Liverpool <-> New York), a Black Caribbean woman from New York City travels to rediscover her roots. Black and Irish entertainers trade Pub culture and lost lives. Patricia Kelly searches for her personal history amid minstrels and scousers trying to eek out a living around the ports and pubs of Liverpool and Manhattan. From Irish Ceilli to Beatlemania to African tea gardens Pat, in a swirling landscape of time traveling phantoms, learns to accept a new kind of love

PLEASE SUPPORT OUR KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN HERE!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/680728396/liverpool-trading-liverpool-new-york

THE ARTISTS

Written and Directed by Anita Gonzalez with Richard Aellen, Annette Storckman, and Renee Rankin

Music Compositions and Lyrics: Tiye Giraud

Sound Design: Gerard Haughian

Lights: Kia Rogers

Costumes: Koni Rui

Video: Maduka Steady

Stage Manager: Yvette Steinman

Performers: Jenny Green, Beverly Prentice*, James Edward Becton*, Nathan Willis, Jason Jacoby, Anna Frankl Duval, Tracy Willet

DTW Workshop July 2011

It’s been a busy summer for the Liverpool Trading project.

New choreography for the Pub Dance section was developed by Anita Gonzalez at DTW’s Choreography Laboratory under the leadership of Gwen Welliver.June saw summer development workshop at the Dance Theatre Workshop studios with composer Tiye Giraud and a cast that included Beverly Prentice,* James Edward Becton III,* Jenny Green, Theresa Burns, Nikki Golde, Ian Brodsky, and

Nathan Willis. Irish Sound Designer Gerard Haughian added voyage soundscapes and ceilli music to the process. The Public Showing was on June 24th and in attendance were director Trazana Beverly, playwright Richard Aellen, and NYFA award winning choreographer Hejin Jang.

July events are even more sizzling as Irish director Shane Dempsey arrives from London on July 7th. Anita Gonzalez, Tiye Giraud, and Shane Dempsey are collaborating on a series of NYC workshops that promise to bring the sounds and movements of Ireland, Liverpool, and New York to life.

Wednesday through Friday, July 13 through 15th are movement workshops at DNA Dance New Amsterdam.

http://www.dnadance.org/site/page-02permanent-classespermanent-classes/workshops/theatre-movement-movements-in-space-workshop/

Thursday and Friday night July 14th and 15th are sounding and vocal workshops at Dance Theatre Workshop Studios.

Hunter College Intro to Theatre students will share bi-national performance work with Anita and Shane on Thursday July 14th.

And the big news is the Liverpool Trading will see its first public performances at Dixon Place’ new theatre in October 2011. Look for more information here.

http://www.dixonplace.org/index2.html

DNA Workshop with Shane Dempsey

Website: www.anitagonzalez.com

Gonzalez is a writer, director, and choreographer whose work has appeared on PBS, at Lincoln Center Out-of Doors, and Dance Theater Workshop. She recently completed Le Hot Blu, an American Syncopated Musical – Book/Music/Lyrics by Gonzalez and composer-writer Ken Lauber (2007). Her play Ybor City has been read in New York, Florida, and Italy. Recent NYC directing projects include “Finding the Way”(2010) “Junk Mail”(2009) (Estrogenius Festival) and “Nobody” (Playground Development Series) by Antonio Disla, all at Manhattan Theatre Source. At SUNY New Paltz – “Blood Wedding” (2009) by Garcia Lorca, “The Promise Keeper: a new translation of the Brazilian play by Alfredo Dias Gomes” (2008), “Urinetown: The Musical,” and Tony Kushner’s “The Illusion”(2006). Other projects include “The Anarcha Project” with Petra Kuppers (2008) “Migrant ImagiNations” at the Joyce Soho Theater in New York City (1999), Tiye Giraud’s “Sugar Tit” (1998), and the musical “Hola Ola” written in conjunction with Dolores Prida (1996).

Gonzalez was a founding member of the Urban Bush Women. She has choreographed for Ballet Hispanico, taught theater in Central America, given professional and educational workshops in Caribbean and African American dance and lectured about the process of developing new plays. For her individual scholarship and teaching, she has been awarded a residency at Rockefeller’s Bellagio Center (2003) and three Senior Scholar

Fulbright grants. Writings include essays for Modern Drama, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Dance Research Journal, and the Community Performance Reader (Routledge). Her book Afro-Mexico: Dancing Between Myth and Reality is published by the University of Texas Press (2010).

Gonzalez earned her Ph.D. in Theater/Performance Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1997). She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theater at the State University of New York at New Paltz where she teaches directing, movement, and theater history courses. Anita Gonzalez is an Associate Member of the Society of Directors and Choreographers, and the Dramatists Guild, and a member of the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab (2003).

Collaborating Producers:

Joel Bassin

Veronica Claypool

Manhattan Theatre Source

Dixon Place

Carol Ruthberg

Collaborating Artists:

Tiye Giraud http://www.tiyegiraud.com/main.php

Gerard Haughian

Shane Dempsey – Fragments Theatre Company http://fragmentstheatre.ning.com

Annette Walker http://www.annettewalker.co.uk/

Liverpool Trading Blog

This public blog is a recounting of some travel experiences by Dr. Anita Gonzalez in the United Kingdom during Spring 2011. The journeys were designed to research and explore intersections of Black African and Irish performance histories; particularly histories that involve transatlantic journeys. Gonzalez is a theatre historian and theorist whose interests lie in the translation and transformation of ethnic identities through dialogic performance.