PAST PROJECTS

Javier Antonio González re-imagines Arístides Vargas’s work of political theatre, encountering the ghosts of his ancestors emerging from the rupture of authoritarian violence.

  • A man enlists the town madwoman to help him recover his memory at the seashore. He encounters the ghosts of his ancestors emerging from the rupture of authoritarian violence, inviting him to dream again.

    Artistic Director Javier Antonio González re-imagines Arístides Vargas’s celebrated work of political theatre in its first English translation. The ensemble production is infused with original compositions by Puerto Rican composer and ethnomusicologist Pilli Aponte.

    2019 August Target Margin Theater, Brooklyn, NY

  • Producers Jenny Tibbels and Yaremis Félix
    Translation by Aurora Lauzardo
    Original music by Pilli Aponte
    Set by Jian Jung
    Lights and Projections by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew
    Costumes by Cristina Fitch
    Sound by Keenan Hurley
    Additional Original Music by David Skeist
    Stage Manager Alejandra Maldonado

    Cast
    Brooke Bell • Laura Butler Rivera • Yan Collazo • Yaraní Del Valle Piñero • Tania Molina • Pelé Sánchez Tormes • David Skeist

Inspired by a box of letters from Javier Antonio González’s grandfather in New York to his grandmother in Lares during the first wave of Puerto Rican migration.

  • The story of an underdog military postal officer, his ex-wife, her sister, his lover, her friend, his son, the playwright René Marqués, and el Grito de Lares. With live video and movement.

    Inspired by a found box of letters from the author’s grandfather in New York to his grandmother in Lares during the first wave of Puerto Rican migration, Zoetrope is a playfully polyphonic work about several generations of a leftist working class family on an island without political agency. Performed in both English and Spanish with supertitles.

    2023 September Abrons Art Center, Lower East Side, NY 2019 December Festival Pueblos-Escena, Camagüey & Ciego de Ávila, Cuba
    2015 January     Pregones / PRTT, Bronx, NY
    2014 October     Encuentro Festival, Los Angeles Theater Center, California (Premiere Zoetrope Part 1)
    2014 July     Pregones / PRTT, Bronx, NY (Workshop Zoetrope Part 2)
    2013 December     Pregones / PRTT, Bronx, NY (Workshop Zoetrope Part 1)

  • Written and Directed by Javier Antonio González

    2019 Cast
    Laura Butler Rivera • Javier Antonio González • Susannah Hoffman • Alejandra Maldonado • Tania Molina • Pelé Sánchez Tormes • Veraalba Santa • David Skeist

    Producer Jenny Tibbels
    Set by Jian Jung
    Lights by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew
    Sound by Elizabeth Rhodes and Keenan Hurley
    Stage Manager Alejandra Maldonado

    The text of Zoetrope was developed during Javier’s time in the Emerging Writers’ Group at the Public Theater (2010-2011). 

    Zoetrope was developed in part with the support of Artist Space at Pregones (ASAP) and in residency at the LOISAIDA Center.

SENTINEL is an interdisciplinary dance and film project created in direct response to 2016 post-election discrimination and violence.

  • Grappling with issues of surveillance, profiling, and alienation, SENTINEL originated with five site-specific dance solos which were recorded in politically-charged public landmarks across the city boroughs. Spotlighted in magenta clay from head to toe, each dancer shares a personal story akin to the history and political underpinnings of each site.

    The live performance of SENTINEL is an installation resembling a surveillance room with films of the site-specific dance solos alongside live performances of each solo impounded by a large-scale Plexiglass box. Audiences are provided with headphones and an audio guide playlist composed of personal testimonies from each performer, related data, and reports. Witnesses are invited to move at-will through the exhibition, experiencing the work from multiple perspectives.

    Inspired by the Trumpian election, the questions of SENTINEL remain relevant: Am I an active bystander? How can my actions incite change? 

    SENTINEL was developed in part by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs administered by the Brooklyn Arts Council and the Foundation for the Contemporary Arts Emergency Grants.

    2018 September Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, NY

  • Choreography & Direction Danielle Russo

    Producer Jenny Tibbels Film and Photography Luke Ohlson
    Technical Direction Joanna DeFelice
    Makeup Design Marc Witmer
    Costume Design Jenny Lai

    Performers // Collaborators
    Cesar Brodermann • Roya Carreras • Jason Collins • Kayla Farrish • Molly Griffin

The Strength in Us  (Irondale)

A benefit performance for The Freedom Theater, a theatre and cultural center in Jenin refugee camp, Occupied Palestine.

  • A benefit for The Freedom Theater of Jenin organized by 55B and Noelle Ghoussaini, presented by Irondale, and in partnership with The Friends of Jenin, New York Theatre Workshop, Noor Theatre, and Waterwell. Featuring Palestinian-American artists Fouad Dakwar, emceeing the event, Amel Khalil performing stand-up poetry, and Omar Ahmad sharing music. In addition, Amel and Fouad perform brand new material from The Revolution’s Promise - a collection of testimonies from artists across Palestine. Two cinematic shorts preview Alaa Shehada's The Horse of Jenin and his work with The Palestine Comedy Club.

    March 29, 2024, Irondale, Brooklyn, NY

  • Presented by Irondale

    Producers 55B and Noelle Ghoussaini

    Partners The Friends of Jenin, New York Theatre Workshop, Noor Theatre, and Waterwell

    Artists Fouad Dakwar, Amel Khalil, Omar Ahmad

A celebration of international literature Featuring 40 events with over 100 writers, translators, journalists, and screenwriters from 27 countries.

  • The PEN World Voices Literary Festival is the premier celebration of international literature in the United States, a landmark event on New York City’s, and now Los Angeles’s, cultural calendar.

  • PEN America

    2023 Festival Chairs: Ayad Akhtar, Marlon James, and Ottessa Moshfegh

    Producer: Jenny Tibbels

    Production Management: Q&A Events and Production

    Photo Credit: Beowulf Sheehan

My Father’s Daughter is an epic poem by poet and recording artist Ursula Rucker, accompanied by a live music score by Tim Motzer, that tells Rucker’s painful but victorious survival story.

  • My Father’s Daughter is an epic poem, accompanied by a live music score by Tim Motzer with video imagery created by Dejha Ti and Kipp Jarden, that tells Rucker’s painful but victorious survival story. The wounded life of her mother informs the daughter, creating the artist and woman Rucker is today.

    2015 February Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA

  • Written and Performed Ursula Rucker
    Produced and Directed Jenny Tibbels Music Tim Motzer
    Projection Mapping Dejha Ti
    Motion Graphics Kipp Jarden

A 5-week forum of performances and conversations examining the generational impact of state violence, in partnership with Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and the Schomburg Center.

  • If They Come for Me in the Morning examined the generational impact of state violence through five weeks of performances and conversations with Native American artists and activists, African American historians, Japanese American incarceration camp survivors, Holocaust survivors, and people who are today threatened with deportation.

    2018 October The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NY

  • Curator and Executive Producer Brian Tate
    Project Coordinator Jenny Tibbels
    Production Support Trevor Exter
    Audio Recording Adrian Taverner
    Social Media Holly Ajala
    Photography Ed Marshall & Shyanne Yellowbird

A week of public talks with communities targeted by the 2017 executive orders prohibiting travel and refugee resettlement for 7 majority Muslim countries, in partnership with Pop Culture Collaborative.

  • Held as White House lawyers pressed the U.S. Supreme Court to approve the second Muslim Travel Ban, We Won’t Back Down presented a week of public talks with an array of thought leaders who were directly impacted by the policy. Together they examined the historical, political, cultural context of the ban, as well as what it meant for America going forward. Presented at seven cultural spaces in seven neighborhoods over seven consecutive days.

    2017 November Pop Culture Collaborative, Judson Memorial Church, Museum of the Moving Image, Performance Project at University Settlement, Greenlight Bookstore, Weeksville Heritage Center, Brooklyn Historical Society, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, and Unbound Philanthropy, NY

  • Curator and Executive Producer Brian Tate
    Production Jenny Tibbels
    Production Trevor Exter
    Audio Recording Adrian Taverner
    Social Media Holly Ajala
    Photography Ed Marshall
    Photo credits: Ed Marshall