An evening for your inner child.
Jan 31 | 7:30pm-8:30pm | Pay-What-You-Can
MAY I DESCEND THE STAIRCASE is both monstrous and tender, a fantasia that roves through fragmented nostalgic memories and futuristic hopes and dreams. It comes alive through translations of favorite music videos, quotable family dinners, and defying childhood experiences that shape the trajectory of character and beliefs. MAY I is an experience motivated by inner child veneration; play, make believe, what ifs, playground rules, scribbling on the walls, dress up, parental groundings, singing diddies while holding hands with your best friend, fragmented glimpses of the past present and future, mom’s lullaby, dad’s teachings, mom’s defenses, dad’s stupor, drawing outside the lines, maneuvering, masking, living phantasmically.
This performance of MAY I culminates after a weeklong residency at the intersection of devised dance theatre and drama therapy. Together, the performers co-author a brand new ensemble creative practice, inspired by each individuals artistry. The result is an original devised performance that lets loose the inner child and allows us to relive and/or reimagine pivotal moments from childhood to now: hitting the winning run at your high school baseball game while your dad is drinking a Natty Light in his pickup truck, honking as you run to first base and your older brother slides into home plate; the first time you learned your mother could lie; running into the street, into knee-deep snow, while your sister screams with pure joy from the porch; first love; last betrayal; and anywhere in between. In this format, in which we recollect our best and worst memories and translate them into experiential performance, we create simultaneous opportunities for personal inner child veneration and community healing - informed by our past(s) to (in)form our future.
more about the residency & the ensemble:
MAY I is led by Very Good Dance Theatre (VGDT) ensemble members William Acker MFA and Emily P. Faith MA, LPC, RDT. VGDT ensemble members along with the resident artists explore devised performance, community care practices, and generative improvisational techniques will work together to bridge past experiences into collective memories. Our hope is that this project can inspire chain reactions of mutual healing throughout the arts ecosystem that continue far after this residency, and its culminating performance, ends.
Very Good Dance Theatre is a queer led, BIPOC centered, performance art collaborative working at the intersection of “good” art and social good, founded in 2018 in Dallas, TX. We make performance work that gives voice to lived experience(s) of those most impacted by oppression, with an intersectional lens, and lend space - if only for an evening - to manifest the worlds we want to see into our futures. We devise work that blends the genres of dance, theatre, and performance art and trends toward “gathering” or “communing” over “entertaining” or “reciting” (the ensemble has asked to include here that we are still very entertaining).
VGDT relies on grant funding, festivals & residencies, and individual donations to further our work. VGDT credits include: Festival of Independent Theatres (Dallas, TX) in 2019 and 2020, AT&T PAC’s 2020/21 Elevator Project Season, Artists In Residence at Arts Mission Oak Cliff in 2021, Cannonball Festival (Philadelphia, PA) in 2023 and 2024, and Conjuring Joy at The Bride Artists in Residence at Painted Bride Art Center in 2024.
For more information, or to get involved with our work, please visit verygooddt.com, follow us on socials at @verygooddt, or reach out to us at info@verygooddt.com.