WADE into ACTIVISM is a Virtual Event Series made up of performances, conversations, and interviews by artists and activists, centered around gender-based violence, reproductive rights, trafficking, toxic masculinity, erasure, identity, and power. This event takes on global and multifarious perspectives, our participants’ voices hailing from Argentina, Canada, China, Colombia, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Iran, Italy, Mexico, Tobago, Trinidad, and U.S.A. WADE is joining the UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign organized by the UN. The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign invites us in galvanizing actions around the world to take a stand against sexual violence in all contexts and spark a global conversation about what it will take to prevent and end rape.

Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance is thrilled to be presenting excerpts of Tales of Hopper in this event. Tales of Hopper is the fruit of a collaboration between choreographer Cherylyn Lavagnino and composer Martin Bresnick inspired by the work of American painter Edward Hopper. This theater-dance work casts the dancers as figures plucked from selected Hopper paintings, illuminating human connections through gestural movement steeped in subtext, as Bresnick’s original composition for piano, violin, and cello brings emotional undercurrents to the surface. Transparent set pieces reference Hopper’s environments, contextualizing each of the eight vignettes as they unfold. Tales of Hopper marks a departure for Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance, asking each of the dancers to step into the new roles of actor and collaborator in the company’s most character-driven work to date.

In these excerpted vignettes, dancer Justin Faircloth embodies painter Edward Hopper as present, yet disconnected. Through Lavagnino’s research and Faircloth’s performance, Hopper faces the dichotomy of emotional repression and sexual yearning. We find a disaffected, lonely, misogynistic man unable to balance his need to dominate women with his dependence on them. He is revealed to be searching for an exciting intimacy while realizing the stability of the relationship with his wife, Josephine, is something he cannot relinquish. This trio is, of course, driven by biography but created with imaginative license. 

This festival is free and available to all. This work will be shown Thursday, December 3 2020 at 8:00pm EST. Visit facebook.com/wia20 for more information and subscribe to WADE’s YouTube channel to view the festival: https://youtube.com/channel/UCiFI1DE1DJTcenkitANJn5A