The Re/Emergence Collective 

The Re/Emergence Collective is a group of diverse theater-makers and artistic collaborators who work in Western Massachusetts. Our inaugural outdoor immersive performance, Re/Emergence: A Post-Apocalyptic Performance Meditation for Hope and Healing, was a response to the many transformations of the pandemic and received funding from the New England Foundation for the Arts New Work/New England program. With this project we galvanized our commitment to collective working structures, community care, sustainability, and innovative storytelling. Our work invites our audiences to engage with, reflect upon, and respond to current challenges in society, both individual and systemic. 

Up Next: New Work-in-Progress

Premiering in Amherst, MA      Spring 2024

Always creating work in conversation with the contemporary moment and concerned with community care, the Re/Emergence Collective is working on a new project responding to current social fractures. 

Vessels: The Sea is Gone

Bromery Center for the Arts, Amherst, MA    October 2022

Vessels: The Sea is Gone explores a time in the future, near an archaeological site called The Wreckage, in a world impacted so heavily by climate change that rain ceased to form. Our story follows the narrative of a young child who encounters some energetic beings one day while play-acting with a toy ship. He learns these beings are water spirits, bearing tidings from an earlier era. He befriends an archaeologist who is surveying The Wreckage and shares stories of ancient technology such as phones and washing machines. The child is just starting to learn how to communicate with the water spirits, who are trying to get him an important message.

Vessels: The Sea is Gone was inspired by the news of five ancient ships unearthing themselves from deltas and seafloors across the globe during 2022. The performance work was created as a response to the contemporary climate crisis. Vessels received a workshop performance at the Bromery Center for the Arts in Amherst, MA, in 2022. 

Vessels was supported in part by a Massachusetts Cultural Council Recovery Grant.

CREATIVE TEAM:  

Script Writers: Tatiana Rodriguez, Jana Pickart

Performers:  Gabriel CiFuentes, Deveir Cockett, Abuzar Farrukh, Olivia Holcomb, Sabine Denise Jacques, Claudia Nolan, Jana Pickart, Tatiana Rodriguez

Additional Devising Team:  Urgyen Joshi, Polina Kasyanova, Jeff Olmsted, Jen Onopa, Afrikah Selah, Darius Taylor

Re/Emergence:

A Post-Apocalyptic Meditation on Hope and Healing

Park Hill Orchard, Easthampton, MA     June 2021
photos by nikki lee and Sage Orville

RE/EMERGENCE: A Post-Apocalpytic Performance Meditation on Hope and Healing was a performance that examined grief, initiation, envisioning, and healing as a community after a year of unprecedented upheaval. Looking to nature and its transformative powers, audience members were invited to reflect, meditate, and nurture a new vision of the future.

CREATIVE TEAM:

Co-Director/Producer: Jen Onopa 

Co-Director/Choreographer: Darius Taylor

Dramaturg and Scriptwriter: Tatiana Rodriguez

Dramaturg and Marketing Manager: Afrikah Smith

Dramaturg and Producer: Claudia Nolan

Scenic Design: Xinyuan Li

Costume Design: Christina Beam

Production Manager: Olivia Holcomb

Stage Manager: Achaetey Kabal

Performers: Nadia Alves, Jayda Aponte, Faolain Bobersky, Gabriel CiFuentes, Abuzar Farrukh, Elisabeth Goncalves, Hero Hendrick-Baker, Olivia Holcomb, Sabine Jacques, Urgyen Joshi, Callum LaFrance, Cassie McGrath, Jimmy Murphy, Carolyn Parker-Fairbain, Dr. Ayshia Mackie-Stephenson, Darius Taylor

Musicians: Alpha ‘Bisko’ Kaba, Jeff Olmsted, Will Smith, Lucas Espinal Solorzano

Music Consultant: Frank Newton

Scenic Builders: Brandon Hall, Andrew Todd

Costume Builders: Sami Brzozowski, Jessica Haswell, Mikayla Reid

Stage Crew: Conor Gregersen, Jay Winter


Re/Emergence was made possible with funding by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ New Work New England program, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, Seedlings Foundation, the Fund for the Arts at NEFA, and individual donors.

This program was also supported in part by a grant from the Easthampton Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.

Re/Emergence was co-produced with CloudSpotting.

Who are we?

The Re/Emergence Collective was co-founded by a group of theater-makers and frequent collaborators who gathered in artistic community during the height of the pandemic to devise performance honoring the challenging feelings and transformations of the time. We have leaned heavily on more collective ways of art making rather than the traditional hierarchical theater model in order to practice the kind of inclusive systems in theater that we hope to see more of in the future. 

Image left to right: Jennifer Onopa, Xinyuan Li, Claudia Nolan, Afrikah Selah, Olivia Holcomb, Tatiana Rodriguez, Darius Taylor and Christina Beam

Our Artistic Family

We are grateful to collaborate with so many talented, hardworking and dedicated artists.

  • Awotunde Iya Judyie Al-Bilali

  • Nadia Alves

  • Jayda Aponte

  • Faolain Bobersky

  • Sam Brzozowski

  • Gabriel CiFuentes

  • Deveir Cockett

  • Abuzar Farrukh

  • Brandon Hall

  • Hero Hendrick-Baker

  • Tim Holcomb

  • Sabine Denise Jacques

  • Urgyen Joshi

  • Alpha 'Bisko' Kaba

  • Ach Kabal

  • Polina Kasyanova

  • Callum LaFrance

  • Xinyuan Li

  • Dr. Ayshia Mackie Stephenson

  • Cassie McGrath

  • Jimmy Murphy

  • Jeff Olmsted

  • Priscilla Page

  • Carolyn Parker-Fairbain

  • Jana Pickart

  • Will Smith

  • Lucas Solorzano

  • Andrew Todd

DONATE

As an independent, self-producing theater collective we need your help! Below you will find a link to our GoFundMe page. This will help us reach our financial goal and make this project possible. Please take a moment to reflect on this past year. If you can make a contribution we will be filled with gratitude and belief. It takes a community to raise a theater.


GRIEF

The past year has generated collective trauma.

How have you acknowledged and navigated this trauma?


If you wish to donate in honor of grief click the box below.


INITIATION

When life knocks you down, there is energy in the ether that exists to pick you back up.

How do you access that energy?


If you wish to donate in honor of initiation click the box below.


ENVISION

When you decide to free yourself from being bound by trauma, it is your vision that keeps you hopeful for the expected to end.

What choices have you made to move forward during this last year?

If you wish to donate in honor of envision click the box below.


NURTURE

Starting anew is not always easy, but with the right support what seems impossible can be made possible.

What intention must you set to make your vision a reality? 

If you wish to donate in honor of nuture click the box below.
DONATE

What is your vision for the future?

"Is art resistance? Can you plant a garden to stop a war? It depends how you think about time. It depends what you think a seed does, if it’s tossed into fertile soil. But it seems to me that whatever else you do, it’s worth tending to paradise, however you define it and wherever it arises." - Olivia Laing

Please email us, we want to hear from you!





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Thank you to our Sponsors!

Re/Emergence was made possible with funding by the New England Foundation for the Arts' New Work New England program, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, Seedlings Foundation, the Fund for the Arts at NEFA, and individual donors.

AND

Supported in part by a grant from the Easthampton Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.