SUMMER AT THE FACTORY
Rehearse at the Factory:
Summer Edition
Chelsea Factory’s yearlong Rehearse at the Factory program offers free, daylong rehearsal space to artists. From jazz to butoh theater to physically integrated dance, Rehearse at the Factory welcomes artists with a wide range of projects and across access needs.
Learn more about the artists and organizations who will join us throughout August to not only rehearse, but create, collaborate and experiment!
Raquel Almazan (they/she/her)
Project being workshopped at Chelsea Factory:
The Hopefulness or La Esperanza (Dominican Republic) and La Paloma Prisoner (Colombia)
‘22 Resident Artist Raquel Almazan returns to workshop two theatrical pieces that are a part of the Latin is America, bi-lingual cycle of plays dedicated to countries and dependencies in Latin America.
About the artist:
Raquel Almazan is an interdisciplinary artist, facilitator and activist (M.F.A. – Playwriting, Columbia University). Her eclectic career spans original multi-media solo performances, playwriting, new work development and dramaturgy; featured in New York City, Off-Broadway, throughout the United States and in Greece, Italy, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala and Sweden. Recipient of The Map Fund, NYC Womens Fund and NALAC Grants. Artistic Executive Director, La Lucha Arts.
Website: raquelalmazan.com
Troy Anthony
Project being workshopped at Chelsea Factory:
Pericles, presented by the FIRE ENSEMBLE
’22 Resident Artist Troy Anthony returns to develop his new musical adaptation of Shakespeare's Pericles, commissioned by The Public Theater, which will include two cold table reads.
About the artist:
Troy Anthony is a composer, director, and choir leader that has presented music at Joe’s Pub, 54 Below, Prospect Theater Company and the Musical Theater Factory. Commissions include the Atlantic Theater Company, The Civilians and The Shed.
Troy has been seen in the Public Theater’s Hercules, Twelfth Night and As You Like It, as well as Prospect Theater Company’s Tamar of the River. He leads the Public Theater’s Public Works Community Choir and focuses on the intersection between art and social justice at the DreamYard Art Center.
Instagram: @troyanthonymusic
Buglisi Dance Theatre
Project being workshopped at Chelsea Factory:
The Table of Silence Project 9/11
Buglisi Dance Theater returns to Chelsea Factory to rehearse and reconstruct The Table of Silence Project 9/11—a multicultural prayer for peace, realized through a transcendent site-specific ceremony on Lincoln Center Plaza for 100 dancers swathed in white. Conceived and choreographed by Jacqulyn Buglisi, and presented by Buglisi Dance Theater and Lincoln Center as a project of the Arnhold Dance Innovation Fund, the project commemorates the loss and bravery of all those impacted by the 9/11 attacks and celebrates the belief in freedom for all humanity.
About the organization:
The award-winning Buglisi Dance Theatre is celebrated for magnificent dancers, sublime theatricality, and cutting-edge collaborations on the human condition that expose social and environmental injustices and reveal the heroic spirit, strengths and vulnerabilities of humanity. Founded in 1993 by Artistic Director Jacqulyn Buglisi, Terese Capucilli, Christine Dakin and Donlin Foreman, former principal dancers of the Martha Graham Dance Company, BDT is based in NYC and has been presented at New York Live Arts, The Joyce Theater, Ailey Citigroup Theater, LMCC/River to River Festival, nationwide at Jacob’s Pillow, Vail International Dance Festival, Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, Kennedy Center, UC, Santa Barbara, and international festivals in Australia, Czech Republic, Israel, Italy, and Mexico.
Website: Buglisidance.org | Tableofsilence.org
Quaba Venza Ernest (he/him)
Project being workshopped at Chelsea Factory:
Paradox
A work in progress, Paradox explores the dual nature of home as both an intimate personal experience and a universal human aspiration
About the artist:
Quaba Venza Ernest, a St. Lucian-American from Brooklyn, NY, is an accomplished alumnus of Dance Theatre of Harlem, Fiorello H. LaGuardia Arts High School, and SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance, where he received the Adopt-A-Dancer Scholarship and the Thayer Fellowship in the Arts for Dance and Choreography. He began his career at Ballet BC in 2019 and has since worked with Doug Varone and Dancers, Dual Rivet, the Metropolitan Opera, and Sleep No More NYC. Named an Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellow at Jacob’s Pillow in 2021, Quaba has showcased his work at various local and international festivals and taught at esteemed institutions such as Juilliard, Barnard/Columbia, NYU, Marymount, and SUNY Purchase.
Website: venzadance.org
Instagram: @Quaba_ernest | @Venzadance
Flamenco Arts International
Project being workshopped at Chelsea Factory:
LA TORMENTA: Songs From A Sinking Ship (Part 1)
This evening-length flamenco production bridges technology with immersive experiences to bring a new interdisciplinary approach to the art form. LA TORMENTA: Songs From A Sinking Ship (Part 1) is a cautionary tale that uses allegory to explore the existential crises we face, and ultimately reveals the irresistible power of delusion.
About the organization:
At Flamenco Arts International, we want people to experience flamenco like never before. We’re a women-founded, 501(c)(3) organization with roots in San Francisco, NYC, and Spain. We create transformative, innovative experiences that celebrate the legacy of flamenco and expand the possibilities of the art form. By combining unexpected technology with a diverse community of impassioned artists, our goal is to not only honor where flamenco came from – but also look to the future of where it is going.
Website: flamencoartsinternational.org
Instagram: @flamencoartsinternational
Facebook: /Flamenco-Arts-International
Keeping People Connected (KPC)
Project being workshopped at Chelsea Factory:
KPC - Keeping People Connected: Pathway to Wellness through Movement
About the organization:
KPC - Keeping People Connected is a multidisciplinary collective of Performing Artists who tell stories examining social injustices and stigmatized subject matter through dance, music, and conversation.
Believing in Movement as our Pathway to Wellness, KPC creates groundbreaking dance musicals that center and celebrate disenfranchised people, offering opportunities to process and cope with challenging lived experiences.
The commonality of KPC's artists' lived experiences with addiction and mental health disorders, combined with the commitment to reduce stigma, cements the urgency and need for KPC's Pathway to Wellness through Movement throughout the Recovery community and beyond.
Website: keepingpeopleconnected.com
Instagram: @keepingpeopleconnected
Rose Xiu Yi Kow (they/them)
Project being workshopped at Chelsea Factory:
xtr/dnry: solo mixtape
A strings and electronics piece.
About the artist:
Rose is a classically-trained violinist corrupted by the burning desire to do, have, and know it all. Graduating into the pandemic with a master’s degree in contemporary performance, it was only a matter of time before Rose’s performer-composer-producer title began to show its teeth and bear fruit in realms unlimited to jazz, pop, and the avant-garde. Rose is now all about electro-acoustic music that moves people.
Instagram: @roze.kow
Franny Kromminga (she/her)
Project being workshopped at Chelsea Factory:
Venus Retrospectives
What happens when a coincidence becomes a quest? While traveling, an artist accidentally stumbles across two versions of a famous painting, and is suddenly consumed with the need to see the third and final piece. This sparks an internal exploration of the meaning and purpose of “Beauty,” and why it's been a human obsession for all of history. Told through a range of multimedia including film, theatrical techniques, and painted animation, Venus Retrospectives is a semi-surrealist portrayal of what it feels like to find and follow inspiration.
About the artist:
Franny Kromminga is a multifaceted theatre worker and artist currently based in NYC. A frequent Venue Coordinator for Chelsea Factory, she's thrilled to be bringing some of her original artistic work into the space. With career experience equally split amongst performance, theater technology, and creative leadership, she will be fusing these skills and more for the making of “Venus Retrospectives.”
Website: Frannykromminga.com
Instagram: @frannykromminga
Musical Theatre Factory
Project being workshopped at Chelsea Factory:
Paradise Ballroom by Princess Lockerooo and Harold O’Neal
About the organization:
Musical Theatre Factory (MTF) is a 501(c)3 non-profit artist service organization committed to developing change-making new musicals in a joyous, collaborative community free from commercial constraints. We are committed to dismantling oppressive ideologies toward collective liberation, centering artists of excellence who exist in the intersections of underrepresented groups.
Website: mtf.nyc
Calvin Osorio (he/him) & Sammy Rivas (he/him)
Project being workshopped at Chelsea Factory:
Pesadilla Perfecta
An immigrant father and American-born son attempting to meet their expectations of the other in a miscommunicated absurdity of power and puppets. Alongside this performance, three short-length pieces involving puppetry will follow from other up-and-coming performance artists.
About the artists:
Sammy and Calvin are actors, writers, directors, and puppet-makers based out of Brooklyn, NY. They both graduated from NYU Tisch and enjoy creating art that combines multiple mediums and genres as well as showcases their backgrounds as Latine artists. After several years of freelance puppeteering and puppet-making in the New York area, they are now founders of Sewn Chicanery Puppets, focusing on original works intersecting puppetry with other art forms to promote introspection and innovation.
Instagram: @sewn.chicanery.puppets
Soles of Duende
Project being workshopped at Chelsea Factory:
’23 Resident Artist Soles of Duende will lead creative sessions to develop new work for the 2025-2026 season.
About the artists:
A Brooklyn-born Puerto-Rican from New Haven, a Mexican Puerto-Rican Jew from the Lower East Side, and a Bengali Indian from Jersey walked on to the wooden floor & the rest? History. Bonded by their deep love of music, their crafts, and true connection, Soles of Duende is on a lifelong mission to elevate the joy and music of true collaboration across disciplines and the celebration of the forms they practice. Based in the sounds of Tap (Amanda Castro), Flamenco (Arielle Rosales) and Kathak (Brinda Guha), Soles of Duende’s fire is the spirit that lives within each of these women to celebrate their connection given their beautiful differences and to uplift the forms that made them.
Website: solesofduende.com
Stars of Tomorrow
Project being workshopped at Chelsea Factory:
Unheard Quilted Voices and Writers on the Block
Unheard Quilted Voices is a stage presentation of a compilation of original pieces created by alumni and staff of The Stars of Tomorrow Project, Inc. The project illuminates our perspectives on the enduring themes from the beginning of time to the present day.
Writers on the Block is a staged reading festival that showcases four, 10-minute plays.
About the organization:
The Stars of Tomorrow Project, Inc. is a FREE youth development organization that gives the youth of New York City the opportunity to discover the world and the tools to navigate it. It actively uses the art of acting to help students develop while mentoring and nurturing them in safe spaces. The Stars of Tomorrow provides young people with places to express themselves while supporting them as they develop into productive world citizens and tomorrow’s leaders.
Website: starsoftomorrowproject.org/
