“I felt liberated to giggle, despite the weighty undercurrent.” —Forbes
What happens to our bodies after we die? Ashes pollute rivers. Buried bodies take up real estate. Bringing video and performance into intimate conversation, MukhAgni is an automythography about a relationship in process. In a bedroom in Brooklyn, in a Calcutta charnel ground, two queer colored lovers play dead.
Co-created and performed by writer/director Shayok Misha Chowdhury and video artist/designer Kameron Neal, MukhAgni was originally developed through the support of Ars Nova’s Makers Lab, with additional residencies at Vox Populi, Vineyard Arts Project, and Williams College. We now have the exciting opportunity to share it with audiences at The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival in January 2020. Under the Radar is “widely recognized as a premier launching pad for new and cutting-edge performance.” We have been curated alongside groundbreaking artists from around the world who are re-visioning what it means to make live theater. With your support, we will be able to put this next, fully-realized production of MukhAgni on its feet.
MukhAgni takes its name from the Hindu crematory practice of putting fire into the mouth of the dead. The audience bears witness as we attempt to live inside the fleshy proximity of our deaths. We think we have ideas. We think we can build shit. But we’re just meat. We’re just so soft.
WHERE YOUR MONEY GOES
The Public Theater is presenting MukhAgni at Under the Radar, which means they are providing the venue, the lighting, sound, and video equipment, and creator fees for the two of us. We, the artists, are responsible for securing rehearsal space, purchasing, constructing, and transporting all scenic elements, and paying our production and creative team. That’s where you come in. MukhAgni is a design-driven performance. Kameron’s video work and Misha’s language are brought to life in collaboration with a stellar design team, including scenographer Peiyi Wong, lighting designer Abby-Hoke Brady, and sound designer M. Florian Staab. Your contribution will allow us not only to realize our collaborators’ artistry but also to pay them a living wage, approaching what they actually deserve.
We need your help to make this show a reality. We have received in-kind donations of rehearsal space from Ars Nova and the Urban Arts Partnership. We have also applied for a grant from the Foundation for the Contemporary Arts to cover the cost of hiring a shop to build our scenery. We need an additional $10,000 to pay our team and purchase materials.
WHO WE ARE
Shayok Misha Chowdhury and Kameron Neal are a Brooklyn-based performance duo. They create through 3D writing: a muscular process rooted in the tactility of materials and the expressive contours of the body. They are currently making work in The Public Theater’s Devised Theater Working Group and, recently, as Resident Artists at Ars Nova. Together, they have also created and shown work at New Orleans Film Festival, New York Theatre Workshop, Detroit Art Week, Digital Graffiti, Deep Water Literary Festival, Soho Rep, Joe’s Pub, Playwrights Horizons Theater School, Vox Populi, the Vineyard Arts Project, the CATWALK Institute, and the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance at Williams College.
Misha is a queer Bengali writer and director. He is currently in residence at BRIC and The Drama League, and was recently a New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Fellow, a member of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, and a Resident Director at The Flea. Recent collaborations: SPEECH (BRIC) with Lightning Rod Special; Beast Thing (The Drama League) with Aleshea Harris; How the White Girl Got Her Spots and Other 90s Trivia (Joe’s Pub) with Laura Grill Jaye; rasgos asiaticos (Soho Rep) and Your Healing is Killing Me (PlayMakers Rep) with Virginia Grise. Misha has also made work at SPACE on Ryder Farm, Playwrights Horizons, NYMF, HERE Arts Center, Clubbed Thumb, Signature Theatre, and the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics. A recipient of fellowships from Fulbright, Kundiman, and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Misha has been published in The Cincinnati Review, TriQuarterly, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and elsewhere. He has taught and directed at Stanford, Brown, CalArts, Fordham, Syracuse, and Williams. MFA: Columbia. shayokmishachowdhury.com
Kameron is a queer Black video artist and designer. He is a 2019-2020 CultureHub NYC Resident Artist. His video self-portrait Liquid Love was awarded Best of Show at Digital Graffiti Festival 2017. As a 2018 artist-in-residence at Digital Graffiti, Kameron developed his diptych Groundwater Vol. I & II, which was also featured in the New Orleans Film Festival. His solo exhibition, HotHouse, in Detroit Art Week was described by Forbes as “an absurd escape that simultaneously provokes and entertains.” Recent and upcoming video design credits: Nia Witherspoon’s The Messiah Complex (La MaMa); Jillian Walker’s SKiNFOLK: An American Show (The Bushwick Starr); Grill and Chowder’s How the White Girl Got Her Spots and Other 90s Trivia (Joe’s Pub). His video work was featured in Rufus Wainwright’s latest music video Sword of Damocles. Kameron has also developed and shown work at BAM, The Bushwick Starr, Signature Theatre, Williams College Museum of Art, Blue Balls Festival, Outlet, the Type Director’s Club, and Yale’s CCAM. kameronneal.com
OUR TEAM
Live performance always comes with risks, but the line-up for the Under the Radar Festival has already been announced, so this show is happening! On January 12th and 15th, 2020, barring any major emergencies, we will be performing in the Shiva Theater at The Public. Our major challenge is fundraising. We need to make a minimum of $10,000 in the next 30 days in order to cover our costs, and that’s why we’re reaching out to you. Thank you for supporting our artistry. It means a great deal.