Join us on YouTube Live for a screening of LA MEDEA.

Declared as "mythology's 'Nasty Woman'” by VICE, LA MEDEA re-imagines Euripides’ myth into a Latin-disco-pop-feminist variety show. The pervasive figure of the dangerous immigrant woman who vengefully murders her own children is shattered in this genre-bending multidimensional dismantling that rejects the limited gaze imposed on her for centuries. At once a made for camera live streamed film and an immersive musical, LA MEDEA was originally performed, shot, edited, and simulcast in real time. In-studio audiences and at-home-viewers, commenting in the live chat, acted as the "Greek chorus," bringing the live vulnerability of theater to the screen. 

Written, directed, and conceived by Yara Travieso with an original score and libretto by Sam Crawford, LA MEDEA's screening with #BRICxHome will allow viewers to live chat with the performers and creators of LA MEDEA while the film streams on BRIC's YouTube channel. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Rena Butler (playing the role of La Medea), Sam Crawford (composer and librettist), and Yara Travieso (writer, director, and creator).

LA MEDEA 2017 - OFFICIAL TRAILER from Yara Travieso on Vimeo.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS PARTICIPATING IN THE Q&A

Rena Butler comes from Chicago, IL and has danced in companies such as Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, David Dorfman Dance, Manuel Vignoulle/M-Motions, and The Kevin Wynn Collection. She has also collaborated with artists including Yara Travieso, Carrie Mae Weems, Nick Cave, and Carrie Schneider. Butler trained at The Chicago Academy for the Arts, studied overseas at Taipei National University of the Arts in Taiwan, and received her BFA from SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance. Also a choreographer, Rena has presented her work at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, The New Orleans Museum of Modern Art in collaboration with Academy Award-winning jazz composer, Terrence Blanchard, CHTV Stories in Switzerland, and more. Butler also served on the consortium for Chicago Dancemakers Forum, and in 2019, was the recipient of the Prince Grace Award for Choreography.

Sam Crawford completed degrees in English and Audio Technology at Indiana University in 2003.  Crawford’s recent compositions and sound designs have included works for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company (Venice Biennale, 2010), Kyle Abraham (Pavement, 2012), Camille A. Brown and Dancers (BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play, 2016), and David Dorfman Dance (Aroundtown, 2017). La Medea, Crawford’s live multi-media collaboration with director Yara Travieso, premiered at PS122’s Coil Festival in January of 2017.

Yara Travieso is a Latinx Brooklyn based writer, director, filmmaker, choreographer and educator. She is a 2019 United States Artist Arison Fellow, a Creative Capital awardee, a winner of The National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures Grant via The Ford Foundation, and a YoungArts alumni. Her genre bending productions have been featured in NYC’s Park Avenue Armory, Lincoln Center, Performance Space NY, Joe’s Pub at The Public, The High Line Park, Madison Square Garden, Opéra National de Lorraine France, and Vizcaya Museum amongst others. Her film works have been featured at Film Society of Lincoln Center, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Miami Film Festival, SXSW, Museum of The Moving Image and commissioned by Hermes of Paris, GQ, Glamour, I Am An Immigrant, Conde Nast among others. Travieso co-founded the Borscht Film Festival in 2005 and named “the weirdest film festival on the planet” by IndieWire and received the prestigious Knights Arts Grant. VICE describes La Medea, Travieso’s touring live film experience as “A modern-day Medea is mythology’s 'Nasty Woman’.” In 2018 another one of her live films, EL Ciclón took over half a Miami city block and soon after her production of Sagittarius A. reframed EMPAC’s concert hall in a 360 immersive film. She is currently a professor at The Juilliard School for an original new media and creative incubator course. Travieso is a speaker, leading conversations, masterclasses, or workshops, with The Ford Foundation, The Park Avenue Armory, MoMa, BAM, SXSW, MCA, National YoungArts Foundation, NYU, Fordham University, The New School, and Ghetto Film School, among others. Travieso received a Dance BFA from NYC’s The Juilliard School in 2009 and received a HSD from New World School of the Arts in Miami, FL.

LA MEDEA production credits:

Written, directed, and choreographed by Yara Travieso (co-producer).
Original music and libretto by Sam Crawford.
Producer, Company Manager, Brighid Greene. Production Manager, Sarah Lurie, Stacey Boggs 
Set designs by Brookhart Jonquil. Costume designs by Sue Julie., Lighting design by Tuce Yasak. Director of photography, Pamela Giaroli. Assistant Director and Associate Cinematographer, Liz Charky. Original illustrations and Mask Design by Ryan Hartley Smith.
Starring, Shayla Vie Jenkins or Rena Butler (double cast). Featuring, Catherine Correa, Tiffany Mellard, Erick Montes, Sol Koeraus or Niurca Marquez (double cast). Music performed by Jason And The Argonauts (5 piece band) Featuring: Vocals, Guitar: Liz de Lise, Vocals, Guitar: Zeb Gould, Reeds: Jeff Hudgins, Percussion: Timothy Quigley, Bass, Moog Bass Synth: Ian Riggs, Trumpet, Bass: Anthony Mascorro, Percussion, Arthur Solari (double cast).

LA MEDEA is a Creative Capital project, commissioned by Performance Space NY COIL Festival, presented with BRIC Arts Media House in partnership with Dance Films Association and AbelCine. The LA MEDEA film premiered with Lincoln Center for the Dance on Camera Festival. The project was also supported by The National Association for Latino Arts and Cultures Grant via The Ford Foundation and was the winner of SXSW Panel Picker.