Works

writing and performance by:
Jessica Weinstein

with:
Eamonn Farrell – Video
Tiappa Klimovitsky – Composer
Lucrecia Briceño – Lights
Rebecca Lustig – Costumes

A continuation of a series of semi-autobiographical “tall” performances written and performed by AnEn member Jessica Weinstein. The solo performance is an intimate live-film experience for the audience as they move through an image-scape of personal yet fantastical anecdotes, working with themes of healing and rebirth from a serious illness.

The Owl and The Flowers was made possible by the support of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the Strengthening NYC Theatres Grant, a program of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (A.R.T./New York).

Anonymous Ensemble has conceived of Body of Land as a project that we will adapt for each green space in which it is presented in collaboration with the human community associated with that particular body of land.

Anonymous Ensemble’s Body of Land: Westbrook Memorial Garden is an organic/technological performance that features the plants of the Crown Heights garden, voiced by the community that sustains them. The play focuses on a contested strip of land that is currently a vibrant pollinator garden, but is actually owned by the adjacent property and is now at risk of being sold to developers. The plants have something to say about this and invite you to listen.

Premiered on Sunday October 8th, 2023

Featuring:
Snakeroot – Abigail Welhouse
Lavender – David Hodorowski
Rose of Sharon – Eucklyn McCrae
Sunflower – Khalil
Peppermint – Lauren Rosenfield
Black Eyed Susan – Melly Denizard
Spearmint – Olivia Vadnais
New England Aster – Paula Young
Sedum – Rasheem Williams
Butterfly Bush – Rosendo Baizar
Sage – Timicia Jacobs
Performance – Jessica Weinstein
Music – Liz Davito
Lights – Lucrecia Briceño
Video – Eamonn Farrell

Body of Land was made possible by the support of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the Broadway Green Alliance

Featuring the song-poems of Quechua poet and activist Irma Alvarez-Ccoscco, Anonymous Ensemble’s Llontop celebrates indigenous Andean culture and language. The piece is an interactive installation of Peruvian objects and a live film performance for both in-person and virtual audiences followed by a lively conversation with the artists about the work and about Quechua empowerment.

Photos by Paola Vera

The Llontop installation features a display of illuminated Peruvian heirlooms including some purportedly pre-Columbian Moche pottery. The installation invites each audience member to use a mobile device to frame and “see” the cultural artifacts using cloud-based machine learning technologies. Moments of digital recognition cause sound clips to stream to the audience member resulting in an individualized audio journey through the installation that helps to contextualize Irma’s poetry in the second portion of the work.

Irma’s Quechua song-poems present perspectives of various Andean women and are set in specific moments in history–from the brutal invasion of the Andes in 1532, through centuries of cultural survival despite harsh colonialist oppression, and on up to the present-day burgeoning of Quechua pride and advocacy. The poems are sung and spoken by Irma and supported by Anonymous Ensemble’s signature “live film” aesthetic with multiple camera feeds, projections, a musical soundscape, and a simultaneous trilingual live stream of the performance to online audiences throughout the world. Each performance is followed by a conversation between the Llontop artists and audiences in real space and throughout the Andean diaspora via Zoom. Ultimately, Llontop is a powerful community experience that bridges divides between North and South America and honors the people of the Andes, their language, their culture, their history, and their future.

For the development of Llontop, the core members of Anonymous Ensemble (Lucrecia Briceño, Eamonn Farrell, Liz Davito, and Jessica Weinstein) are joined by director Ashley Tata, composer Paul Pinto, technologist Adrian Cameron, and poet Irma Alvarez-Ccoscco. Irma is a Peruvian Quechua language poet and digital language activist who came to the United States via a fellowship at Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.

Download Full Llontop Info Sheet

Llontop was made possible with funding by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Theater Project, with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and additional support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, by NALAC, by Net/TEN, and by the A.R.T./New York Small Theatres Fund with Production design support provided by the Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Design Enhancement Fund, a program of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (A.R.T./New York). The production has been developed through generous residencies at Royal Family Theater, Coffey Studios, Mayday Space, Eastern Mennonite University, The Princeton Quechua Workshop, The Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology at Connecticut College, and two ASAP Residencies at Pregones/PRTT.

With Flight, Anonymous Ensemble creates a new form of theatrical space that is live, interactive, and global in scope. Flight brings together performers and audiences in real space and from anywhere in the world with internet access in order to investigate expansive global issues and tiny revelatory moments in real time. Within a stylized visual and narrative framework, we visit people around the world, in their own homes, with their own worldviews and their own words. Carefully blending reality and fiction, Flight creates an experience that is both engaging and transformative. Flight is a performance, a community event, and a conversation.

Live Flight Webcasts:
Nov. 3, 2019 @8:30PM ET – NYC, Melbourne, Chicago, Baltimore
Dec. 8, 2019 @1pm ET – NYC, Melbourne, Athens, Paris, Charlottesville
Feb. 2, 2020 @2pm ET – NYC, Melbourne, Barcelona, Charlottesville, Allentown
March 1, 2020 @4pm ET – NYC, Melbourne, Beirut, Charlottesville
March 22, 2020 @5pm ET – NYC, Melbourne, Marin, Columbus, Pittsfield, Harrisonburg
May 3, 2020 @5pm ET – NYC, Melbourne, Tokyo, London, Lima, Rabat
June 14, 2020 @11AM ET – NYC, Melbourne, Lima, Mumbai, Singapore
September 19, 2020 @10AM ET – NYC, Singapore, Harrisonburg, Clermont-Ferrand, Dar es Salaam, Melbourne, and Ann Arbor.
October 16, 2021 @1PM ET – with HERE in NYC, Bogota, Melbourne, and Copenhagen
January 22, 2021 @5PM ET – with Pregones in The Bronx, San Juan, and Santiago
March 20, 2021 @1PM ET – with University of Buffalo, Kitwe, London, NYC, and Harrisonburg
April 23, 2021, @7PM ET, Bogota, Lima, London, and NYC
March 6, 2022, @11AM ET, Dar es Salaam, Harrisonburg, and NYC
June 8, 2022, @9PM ET, with FiveMyles, Brooklyn, Hong Kong, Los Angeles

Flight was made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and by the New England Foundation for the Arts.

In a tall room with a tall desk, a tall chair, and tall moving image windows, a very tall singer-songwriter, whimsical and in her pajamas, reflects on past and present moments.
Audiences will be seated outdoors looking in. Created and performed by Jessica Weinstein
In collaboration with Eamonn Farrell, Lucrecia Briceño and Anonymous Ensemble
Featuring musicians Tiappa Klimovitsky and Mojo Lorwin

Performed:
Friday September 10, 6pm
Saturday September 11, 6pm
Sunday September 12, 4pm

FiveMyles, 558 St. John’s Place, Brooklyn NY

Songs from a Tall Room was made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

LIEBE LOVE AMOUR! is a live film love affair with an audience. The show’s star, Tall Hilda, draws the audience into a cinematic adventure framed by the gorgeous imagery of silent film director, Erich Von Stroheim. With an original score and virtuosic real-time video and sound editing, LIEBE LOVE AMOUR! seamlessly combines the performances of Golden Age Hollywood personalities such as Gloria Swanson with live performers and even select audience members. Presented at The New Ohio, Duke University, Wesleyan University, The New Orleans Fringe, and The Center at West Park.

In current repertoire
The Center At West Park, NYC, Performances, January, 2018
NC Stage, Asheville, Performances July, 2014
Wesleyan University, Performance and Workshops, September, 2012
Duke University, Performance and Workshops, September, 2012
New Orleans Fringe Festival, Performances, November, 2012
New Ohio Theatre, NYC, Premiere, August, 2012
HERE Arts Center, NYC, Workshop Performances, March, 2012

Turing is an opera about the life of Alan Turing as imagined by a digital mind that his work engendered. With music is by Willian Antoniou, the opera depicts Turing’s intelligence work during World War II as he masterminds a machine that becomes capable of decoding nearly every piece of intercepted German intelligence. It also dramatizes Turing’s brief love affair that lead to his conviction for homosexual acts and his subsequent suicide. The meta-digital form of the work celebrates Turing’s vision for the future of machine intelligence

National Sawdust, NYC, Concert, October, 2017
National Opera of Greece, Athens, Performances, June, 2011
Current repertoire

A collision of puppetry, movement, and live vocals with an electric political charge, Ship of Fools reflects and distorts the supposed relationship between women and madness. Drawing inspiration from poignant words and powerful moments ranging from Marilyn Monroe’s diary entries to acceptance speeches by female celebrities, and with only 20 seats available per night, Ship of Fools is a uniquely intimate, topsy-turvy journey that unabashedly spotlights powerful women’s voices. Presented at HERE Arts Center the month running up to the 2016 Presidential Election.

HERE Arts Center, NYC, Premiere, October, 2016
HERE Arts Center, NYC, Workshop Performances, 2013-2016

Performing on stilts as Ellipsa MG, a ten foot tall singer-songwriter alter ego who was revealed to her in a dream, Jessica uses her narrative to investigate the intersection of biography and the fiction we create.

FiveMyles, NYC, Installation and Performance, February, 2016
NC Stage, Asheville, Installation and performance, July, 2015
Montgomery Gardens, NYC, Workshop Performance, June, 2015