Created by Helga Davis
Directed by Michael McQuilken
Music by Helga Davis, Adam Klipple, and Shara Worden

Performances: April 24 – 27, 2014

It’s Monday. She knows, has known for a long time, that today she will die. These are not just the ramblings of a paranoid, pre-apocalyptic, post-black African American woman. Her name, after all, is…Cassandra.

Cassandra is the first full-length music and theater work by legendary and dexterous performer Helga Davis (Philip Glass’ Einstein on the Beach). Cassandra was inspired by the Greek myth of cursed seer Cassandra. A semi-autobiographical work that merged Davis’s own experience of otherness in contemporary America with the iconic myth, this raw new work crashed classical legend into the 21st century to weave a prescient and fiery account of our culture’s possible demise. Cassandra included performances by actor Maximilian Balduzzi and Unconscious Minds, the band, featuring cellist Jeff Zeigler (Kronos Quartet), bandleader and keyboardist Adam Klipple, multi-instrumentalist Aaron Roche, percussionist Brian Wolfe and guitarist Ben Butler. Video by Masha Froliak, sound design by Studio Indefinit, set design by Neal Wilkinson and costumes by Baille Younkman.

Fireworks is BRIC’s residency and commissioning program for collaborative teams of artists who are interested in developing new, large-scale multidisciplinary work. Fireworks provides resources to develop large-scale creative projects that cross—or erase—artistic boundaries.

Supported by the Rockefeller Foundation’s NYC Cultural Innovation Fund.

BK Live 4/18/14: Cassandra segment from Brooklyn Independent Media on Vimeo.

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