Film still from RECKONING (in development), a Psychic Wormhole Film (Stacy Lynn Smith and Alex Romania). Image of Nia Joseph-Donnelly. Courtesy the artists.
*** This program was originally scheduled for Thurs, October 26 at 7pm, but has been rescheduled due to COVID-19.
Tickets $0-$25, pay what you can
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In addition to your ticket, or if you are unable to attend the event, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Psychic Wormhole between $25-$1,000 (or more!) to support the work of Psychic Wormhole.
CPR presents a special evening with Psychic Wormhole – the creative partnership of Stacy Lynn Smith and 2023 Artist-in-Residence Alex Romania. The evening will feature an invited work-in-progress screening of Psychic Wormhole’s film, RECKONING, a conversation with the film’s cast and co-creators, a performance by Speaker Music aka DeForrest Brown, Jr., and celebration.
The gathering also serves as the launch of Psychic Wormhole’s fundraising campaign, as the duo works towards the film’s premiere in 2024/2025, with proceeds from the event supporting the project.
In RECKONING, co-created by Smith and Romania, we journey through Smith’s abstract memoir, featuring an incredible intergenerational cast including the legendary Charles Dennis and rising phenom Nia Joseph-Donnelly. Through poetic visual storytelling in stunning locations across New York and New England, the film excavates Smith’s experiences of trauma and somatic memory as a means to reclaim embodiment.
RECKONING
Fragments of the Self journey through the
curvatures of time, holding space for
each Other as They mine shame,
extending lifelines to the Exiles.
Out in the swamps, strange bodied flares
give way to undoing visions.
Reckoning with trauma is a full time job.
View the Program
Psychic Wormhole (Stacy Lynn Smith and Alex Romania) embraces a multidisciplinary, collaborative approach to filmmaking informed by dance forms – improvisation, somatics and butoh – melded with experimental visual design and object creation filtered through genres of Horror, Afro-futurism and Arthouse Cinema.
Stacy Lynn Smith is a neurodivergent, mixed race/Black performing artist, choreographer, director and Green Circle Keeper at Hidden Water (by and for those affected by childhood sexual abuse (CSA)), whose fifteen-year professional practice incorporates a lifetime of diverse movement training; especially synthesizing various lineages of improvisational forms, somatics, experimental theater and butoh. Fiercely dedicated to collaboration, Smith creates, devises, improvises and performs across disciplines and genres with an array of talented artists including: DeForrest Brown Jr., Anna Homler, Karen Bernard, Thaddeus O’Neil, Rakia Seaborn, Vangeline Theater (2008-2017), Michael Freeman (2010-2016), Saints of an Unnamed Country, Salome Asega, GENG, Bradley Bailey, Donna Costello, Michele Beck, Jasmine Hearn, thinkdance, mayfield brooks, Kathy Westwater, Josephine Decker, Emily Johnson, Peter Born, Okwui Okpokwasili and more. Member of jill sigman’s artist/activist cohort, Body Politic. Selected by Eva Yaa Asantewaa as part of the curatorial board for Black Womxn Summit. Smith is a 2022-24 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence.
Alex Romania is a multidisciplinary filmmaker, performing artist, and improviser. A 2023 CPR Artist-in-Residence, Romania has also held residencies with MacDowell, Djerassi, Movement Research, Old Furnace, Tofte Lake Center, Chez Bushwick, and Brooklyn Arts Exchange. Romania’s upcoming projects include Face Eaters premiering at the Chocolate Factory Theater in May 2024, (co-directorship of) the experimental documentary Patch the Sky with Five Colored Stones conceived by choreographer Daria Faïn, a short film with Daniela Fabrizi and the Re Hecho community in the LES, and the film The Philosophy of Whatever featuring their father Arthur Romania. In addition to creating original work which has been presented internationally at spaces such as Grace Exhibition Space, Abrons Arts Center, Encuentro, Casa Viva, UV Estudios, and Sub Rosa Space, Romania has performed in works by Kathy Westwater since 2013, has been featured in the work of Simone Forti, Éva Mag, Eddie Peake, Andy de Groat, Catherine Galasso, and danced early on with George Russell and De Facto Dance who extended practices of the improvisational choreographer Richard Bull. Romania has had several designs featured within the works of Antonio Ramos, and has worked in various filmmaking roles with Marin Media Labs, TAAMAS / Sarah Riggs, Trixie Films / Therese Shechter, Christopher “Unpezverde” Nuñez, Martita Abril, and Sarah White-Ayòn. Romania received a B.F.A. from Tisch School of the Arts in 2013.
DeForrest Brown, Jr. is an Alabama-raised, Ex-American rhythmanalyst, writer, and curator. As Speaker Music, he has released three albums on Planet Mu; 'Of Desire, Longing' (2019), 'Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry' (2020) and 'Techxodus' (2023). His written work explores the links between the Black experience in industrialized labor systems and Black innovation in electronic music. Brown's debut book 'Assembling a Black Counter Culture' was released on Primary Information in 2022.