For three nights in April, the women of Theaterlab and some of our closest collaborators (including Artistic Director Orietta Crispino, Program Director Jolene Noelle, Studio Manager Gahlia Eden, special guests Kat Moore and Lanie Zipoy) will present their own miniatures. These slices of performance and segments of audio, visual and installation art works reflect our inspirations and aspirations as artistic creators. The women of Theaterlab will spend time in residence at Theaterlab, occupying our Gallery space and dedicating our resources to cultivating the work that keeps us fueled and on fire.

Each piece is rooted in an examination of the complex narratives and vocabularies used to describe and define the feminine experience, which paint women as both comforting mother and terrible monster with bodies that are at once fecund and ferocious. The mythology of women is often domestic and maternal, and yet, as Barbara Creed has written, “all human societies have a conception of the monstrous-feminine, of what it is about women that is shocking, terrifying, horrific, abject.” Aristotle saw women’s bodies as literally monstrous–as botched males lacking in basic essence. Here, women artists explore the muddy myths surrounding womanhood.