The UNC Process Series: New Works in Development presents its 13th season, “Remembrance and Renewal.”
Dedicated to the development of new and significant works in the performing arts, the UNC Process Series features professionally mounted, developmental presentations of new works in progress. All performances are free and open to the public.
After an interrupted spring season, the series is ready to take on the performance challenges of the COVID-19 era by presenting a virtual fall season.
This season’s theme, “Remembrance and Renewal,” invites artists to explore everything from imagined conversations about race and sexuality with James Baldwin to an interactive map-making event about gerrymandering. A highlight of this season will be a five-day storytelling and folklore festival featuring the national poet laureate, Joy Harjo, and a lineup of diverse voices to provide commentary on this pivotal moment in American culture.This marks the inaugural season of the Faculty Performance Series, an exciting new initiative created by producer Heather Tatreau to showcase faculty collaboration and innovation in the arts on campus.
THE PROCESS SERIES 2020-2021 FULL PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE:” REMEMBRANCE AND RENEWAL”
They Do Not Know Harlem: In Communion with James Baldwin
Created, choreographed, and performed by Tristan Parks Directed by Kathy Williams
September 25th & 26th @ 7:30 p.m.
James Arthur Baldwin. A son. A brother. A seer who has seen much and transatlantic commuter. Baldwin’s tour de force canon of writing – The Fire Next Time, Go Tell It on the Mountain and Notes of a Native Son – traverses his familial life, his profound relationship to his father and the community that raised him – Harlem. They Do Not Know Harlem: In Communion with James Baldwin imagines how one comes to shape home for themselves when met with the neurosis of familial dynamics, race and coming-of-age. Baldwin’s voice is a guide through this individual and collectivized exploration.
Packing and Cracking
Created by Joseph Amodei and Rachel Gita Karp
Oct. 23rd & 24th @ 7:30 p.m.
Do we choose our politicians, or do our politicians choose us? Packing and Cracking is an interactive mapmaking event about gerrymandering: the pervasive practice of politicians choosing their voters rather than the other way around. Through digital drawing and map- drawing games, Packing and Cracking uses critical cartography, gerrymandering history, and interviews with politicians and reformers today to show how easy and disenfranchising gerrymandering can be and ask what, if anything, we should do about it.
Masters Falls: An Immersive Descent into the Divided American Soul
A play written by Mark Perry, Department of Dramatic Art
November 13th and 14th @ 7:30 p.m.
The setting is a massive, indoor commercial and entertainment complex attached to a diversion dam along the Potomac River. The time is the near future, not quite a full generation from now. American life is quite different after the Agitation, but recognizable–the way a person who has been through a serious, life-altering accident is recognizable.
Caroline and David are strangers destined to meet tonight at Masters Falls, a diabolical place they both despise. Morningstar, the all-seeing impresario figure who lords over Masters Falls, seems deeply invested in their actions, as if his survival depends on them. After a harrowing night, the two leave together determined to find the loved one they share in common. Masters Falls burns behind them. Or does it? There’s really no way to know.
Dear Baldwin: A Podcast
Created and written by Sharon P. Holland and Delores Chandler
January 29th & 30th @ 7:30 p.m.
“Dear Baldwin” Podcast, hosted by Sharon P. Holland, chair of the department of American studies and local activist Dolores Chandler, will take the form of a live taping of a podcast exploring the intersection of race and LGBTQ issues. This podcast imagines a conversation between call in guests and James Baldwin as a Dear Abby for the digital age.
Storytelling/Folklore Festival: Remembrance and Renewal
February 17th – 21st
Recognizing the power and potential of storytelling in its many forms at this pivotal moment in American culture and politics, the UNC Process Series in partnership with the department of American studies, will present a Storytelling Festival. Drawing on the skills of some of the nation’s most prominent and diverse storytelling practitioners, the series will feature eight, diverse, nationally known storytellers, as well as faculty and student storytellers.
Cascade
Written by Jim Grimsley
March 25th – April 10th
Cascade is a world premiere, full production that takes us to the not-so-distant future where the climate crisis before us now is in the rearview mirror. Society is breaking down, resources are scarce, and people are on the move. Only Grimsley could find both terror and tenderness in this strange new world.
Survival, Economies, Music
Written by Toshi Reagon and Comm 655
April 30th & May 1st
Written by Artist-in-Residence and Mellon DisTIL Fellow, Toshi Reagon, this new musical works with communication students in Professor Renee Alexander Craft’s and Joseph Megel’s “Performance, Politics, and Culture” class. Based on Ta Nehesi Coates’ book, The Water Dancer, this work is part of a series focusing on migration and immigration as a way we engage with survival, economies, and music.