The Ocean gets the chance to tell its side of the story in this new music theater experience from Obie Award-winning theater company PearlDamour.
Ocean Filibuster is a performance that explores the intimate, critical relationship between humans and the ocean. Set in a future Global Senate, performer Jenn Kidwell embodies two rivals: Mr. Majority– who introduces a bill to end the ocean as we know it–and The Ocean, who arrives in human form to filibuster the bill. Using large-scale projection, music, a locally cast “ocean ensemble” and augmented reality technology, the performance immerses audiences into an epic battle of wits and wills, smarts and sass, facts, and anthropocentric fiction.
Originally commissioned by American Repertory Theater in collaboration with Harvard University’s Center for the Environment, Ocean Filibuster draws from myth, stand-up, and science to plunge audiences into the most heated debate of our time.
Stay tuned for more touring dates!
WHERE WE’VE BEEN:
American Repertory Theater (MA) March 2022 (Premiere)
University of Houston (TX) March 2022
Live Arts Miami at Miami Dade College (FL) November 2022
Wesleyan University (CT) May 2023
Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans (LA) June 2023
Duke University (NC) November 2023
University of Utah (Salt Lake City) March, 2024
Want to bring Ocean Filibuster to your community? Click HERE for more information about the tour.
Meet the Team
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PearlDamour is Katie Pearl (director) and Lisa D’Amour (writer). Their collaboration began in Austin, TX in 1997 and Ocean Filibuster is the 15th project they’ve made together over the years since.
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Jenn performs the dual role of Mr. Majority and the Ocean. They are the Philly-based co-creator of the Obie Award-winning Underground Railroad Game, and make and perform art things.
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Sxip is a composer, producer, and performer specializing in innovative music that is often used for circus, dance, and theater. Recent projects specialize in large community choirs passing tones and words over the heads of the audience. He began collaborating with PearlDamour in 1997.
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Jian is a New York based set designer for theater, opera, and dance. Her work has been seen in many theaters in New York, and outside of the US in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Venezuela. She teaches at NYU and Sarah Lawrence College.
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Olivera was born and raised in Serbia, and began living and working in the United States in 1999. She has designed over 150 theater, opera, dance, and film projects. Ocean Filibuster is her fourth collaboration with PearlDamour.
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Thomas designs lighting throughout the US and abroad as both a sculptural medium and a facet of stage design. Thomas’ work appears in venues that range from Broadway to small experimental venues, and is joining PearlDamour for the first time.
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Jeff Becker is a designer, director and sculptor who specializes in audience interactive performances and outdoor spectacles. His work focuses on issues surrounding racism, abuse of power and environmental justice. Jeff is the co-founder of Catapult, a performance laboratory in New Orleans dedicated to the development of original theater and innovative design.
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Lisa specializes in stage managing non-traditional projects, such as PearlDamour’s 8-hour performance installation How To Build A Forest. This is her second project with PearlDamour, and her fifth project with Jenn Kidwell.
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Marina provided much of the animated content for our under-ocean sequences. As a media and participatory artist, she uses life science, bio materials, dinners, animation and software technologies to invite more intimate connections between people and non-human agents.
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(Augmented Reality stations)
Agatha is an AR/VR creator who makes immersive experiences for education, arts and culture. As a new media artist, she creates projects about her experiences as a woman, migrant and digital native.
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Rosane is an animator and motion designer who created Mr. M’s marketing pitches. Her projects include the documentaries Estamos Aqui (Danken Got), The Human Microbiome, and The Lost Print. As choreographer and filmmaker, she has earned a Guggenheim Fellowship, Best Experimental Film Award/Brooklyn Film Festival, and the Jury Award at the Dance on Camera Festival at Lincoln Center.
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Evan Spigelman (they/them) is an actor, cabaret artist, drag mess, party producer, DIY filmmaker and theater technician based in Brooklyn, New York. When not performing, they are continuing their journey to fulfill their lifelong aspiration: to become an agitprop surrealist anti-fascist clown. This title is exactly as pretentious as it sounds. Evan is a proud nonbinary performer, as they are no longer comprised of zeros and ones. Find them on Instagram: @evspig
Special thanks to Tal Yarden for the Original Projection Design
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Stivo Arnoczy is a video designer from New York. Recent work includes: Cabaret (Hangar Theatre), untitled danceshowpartything (Virgin Voyages). Broadway: The Rose Tattoo (as Asst.), Be More Chill (as Asst.), The Band’s Visit (International Tour, as Assoc.)http://stivo.video
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Matthew Deinhart is a New York based multidisciplinary designer. Recent design credits include the scenic design for URL vs IRL (Andy’s Summer Play- house) and Sweat (Brooklyn College), the lighting design for La Folie (Premiere - Brooklyn College), Blackbird (New Ohio), The Sandwich Program (Premiere - The Public), and Tongue Depressor (Premiere -The Public), and the projection design for El Amore Brujo (La Mama) and ANIMUS ANIMA//ANIMA ANI- MUS (Premiere - The Public).