THEATER WORK

CREATOR/ACTOR
Supported by MAXmachina, the Petri Project Residency with The TEAM, the Piper Theater Residency, and the BRIClab Residency in Performing Arts.

Mercedes (a work-in-progress) is a multidisciplinary work inspired by Modesto "Flako" Jimenez’s grandmother Mercedes and the legacy of Latine individuals she helped migrate to the country. After immigrating to America as a kid, Flako was raised by his grandmother in Brooklyn. As an adult, he served as her main caregiver as she battled dementia. In the process of taking care of his “mama," he uncovered years of letters, receipts, and papers that documented her impact on the Latine community.

This multidisciplinary art experience deals with our relationship to aging, dementia, and inherited trauma through a series of components: a theater piece based around Mercedes’ life, including her own migration to the U.S., her experience with dementia, and the ways in which she used art and writing to express herself at the end of her life; art therapy workshops for older adults in ‘The Mercedes Healing Room’; a gallery of artwork and photography created by workshop participants; and a documentary, which will depict the entire project to share with wider audiences.

CREATOR, DIRECTOR, AND PERFORMER
A co-production of ¡Oye! Group, New York Theatre Workshop, and The Bushwick Starr in association with The Tank.

TAXILANDIA, originally created and written by Oye Group’s Modesto “Flako” Jimenez, immerses its audience in the flavors, sounds, sights and dynamic history of a neighborhood confronting social stigmas and the realities of gentrification. Weaving a dramatic, performative ‘tapestry’ that interconnects generations, social classes, races and cultures, TAXILANDIA complicates our notion of what it means to be a local, an immigrant or a resident of a place, challenging us to answer: “What is my personal roadmap of home?”

Originally developed in Jimenez’s own neighborhood of Bushwick, Brooklyn, the piece was inspired and drawn from his nine years driving a taxicab and his documentation of conversations with passengers, residents, locals, and immigrants to the neighborhood. Flako and ¡Oye! Group are now working with presenters all over the country including New York Theatre Workshop and La Jolla Playhouse to develop local versions of TAXILANDIA specific to each city.

PERFORMER

• New York Live Arts, New York, NY (2019)

• Walker Arts Center Out There Festival, Minneapolis, MN (2019)

• REDCAT, Los Angeles, CA (2018)

• BAM Next Wave Festival, Brooklyn, NY (2018)

• Lumberyard Contemporary Performing Arts, Catskill, New York (2018)

• TBA Festival: PICA (Portland Institute of Contemporary Art) Portland, OR (2018)

• Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL (2018

• On the Boards, Seattle, WA (2018)

• Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH (2018)

JACK & considers re-entry into society after prison; focusing not on the time one has served, but the measure of one’s dreaming that is given to the state. “Jack” works the night shift at an industrial bakery. He returns home to bake a cake for his wife “Jill.” “Jack” ends up whirling through a dance – part dream, part ritual – re-entering his own internal life. The performance draws on aspirational class stories like those in The Honeymooners and Amos & Andy; the paintings of Agnes Martin, Ellen Gallagher and Ruth Azawa; tigers in Harlem; real and imagined entering society ceremonies like Cotillion balls; and markers of transition from John Canoe traditions, to the mirroring and mimicry found in African American dance pageantry of the late 19th Century.

Creative Team: Christopher Myers, Cornell Nate Alston, Rucyl Mills, Stacey Robinson, Modesto Flako Jimenez, Cheyanne Williams, Clarissa Ligon, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Megan Lang, Naomi Saito, Rachel Silverman, Jane Jung, Daphne Gaines, April Matthis, William Hyman, Robert Chapelle, Ashley Vellano.

PERFORMER
Lead Artists: Victor Morales // Jason Batcheller

Key Collaborators: Kevin Cunningham // Skye Morse-Hodgson

Created By: Victor Morales

Produced By: 3-Legged Dog

Principal Cast: Christine Schisano // Modesto Flako Jimenez // Nikki Calonge

Esperpento (“monstrosity” in Spanish) is a visually charged universe of decadence inspired by Francisco Goya’s Los Caprichos paintings. Rather than the “monster” critiquing societal ills, Morales embraces strangeness and deformity in order to challenge conventions of beauty, familiarity, and normalcy.

Part of Immersive Stage at New Frontier Central via the Sundance Institute 2018

The Last Hipster in Brooklyn

PERFORMER
Written by Nick E. Finn

Directed by Modesto Flako Jimenez

The Bushwick Starr, 2018

A gentrification love story.

CREATOR/ACTOR
Written & Performed by: Modesto Flako Jimenez

Directed by Artem Yatsunov

“Listen to the beats / The rhythm of my Bushwick streets.” Brooklyn impresario Modesto Flako Jimenez conjures his beloved borough in this bilingual elegy, told through poems, projections, and music. With lyrical brilliance and irreverent play, ¡Oye! For My Dear Brooklyn complicates our perceptions of race, language, and gentrification and calls us to be truly present to ask the question: “What is my moral worth?”

PERFORMER
Director: Kate Valk

Set: Elizabeth LeCompte

Lighting: Jennifer Tipton & Ryan Seelig

Costumes: Enver Chakartash with Naomi Raddatz (2014-16) & Christine Stevenson (2014)

Sound: Bobby McElver, Max Bernstein (2014-2016) & Eric Sluyter (2017-)

Production Manager: Emily Rea (2014-2015), Bona Lee (2016-)

Stage Manager: Erin Mullin

Technical Directors: Bill Kennedy (2014-April 2015), Eric Dyer (May 2015-October 2016), Jacob Bigelow (2017-)

Assistant Director: Jamie Poskin & Matthew Dipple (2017-)

Assistant to the Director (2014): Eleanor Bishop

In EARLY SHAKER SPIRITUALS, The Wooster Group channels the 1976 LP of the same name recorded by the Sisters of the Shaker Community in Sabbathday Lake, Maine, giving a new live rendering to their songs and finding inspiration for a series of dances.

EARLY SHAKER SPIRITUALS returns to an artistic practice that the Group has used throughout its history: working with record albums as source material for original productions, among them HULA (1981) and L.S.D. (…JUST THE HIGH POINTS…) (1984). The piece also expresses the Group’s long-standing interest in the Shakers, a millenarian, celibate, communitarian sect. In 1980, Elizabeth LeCompte, Kate Valk and other members of the company visited the Sabbathday Lake Shaker community and met with Sister R. Mildred Barker. Around that time, the company first began listening to the record album that forms the basis for this piece.

With Cynthia Hedstrom, Elizabeth LeCompte, Frances McDormand, Bebe Miller, Suzzy Roche, and Max Bernstein (2014-16), Matthew Brown, Gareth Hobbs (2017), Modesto Flako Jimenez, Bobby McElver, Jamie Poskin, and Andrew Schneider

PERFORMER
By Richard Maxwell, directed by Sarah Benson

Set Design by Louisa Thompson
Costume Design: Junghyun Georgia Lee
Lighting Design: Matt Frey
Sound Design: Palmer Hefferan
Props: George Hoffmann and Greg Kozatek
Fight Director: J. David Brimmer
Choreographer: Annie-B Parson
Production Stage Manager: Rachel K. Gross Assistant Stage Manager: Joanna Muhlfelder Design: Studio Usher

On the fringes of the frontier, a messenger embarks on an arduous journey to collect a debt from a man he’s never met. Friends set out to atone for a mistake that can’t be undone. Strangers look for a little bit of comfort wherever they can find it.

Featuring Becca Blackwell, Vinie Burrows, Steve Earle, Roy Faudree, Ivan Goff, Modesto Flako Jimenez, Matthew Korahais, Paul Lazar, Jasper Newell, and Anna Wray

PERFORMER AND CO-TRANSLATOR

By William Burke and translated by Modesto Flako Jimenez and Mariela Regalado

Performed by Modesto “Flako” Jimenez and Olander “Big O” Wilson

Production design by Jeanette Yew

Costume design by Ásta Bennie Hostetter

Lighting design by Megan Lang

The English version of FURRY! was originally performed at JACK in 2013.

In a reworking of his 2013 work for one actor and a dirty Sesame Street Army, playwright and director William Burke is joining forces with Modesto “Flako” Jimenez and Brooklyn Gypsies Collective in a new and explosive Spanish/Spanglish/human translation of FURRY!/LA FURIA depicting the struggle of a pan handling Time Square Elmo. In order to care for his ailing son, a man dressed in his street Elmo best, attempts take over the blocks of 42nd - 46th street, using The Art of War, an army of Elmos and his deepest and most violent self. Naked Cowboy beware. When Elmo Close…Elmo appears Far. The army gathers.

BOTTOM OF THE SCRUM (2016)

PERFORMER
The play had sound design by Mateus Falci, production management by Rebecca Robertson, and direction by Charles Quittner.

A dark comedy about a gardener who is invited to be part of the house staff of a mansion. While inside, he gets more than he bargained for while dealing with other members of the staff.

Bottom of the Scrum had a workshop production at Dixon Place on May 6, 2014 and premiered at Dixon Place in 2016.

The cast featured Theo Maltz, Modesto Flako Jimenez, Jacob Brandt*, Lloyd Mulvey*, Vasile Flutur, Lawryn LaCroix, & Adam Davenport. 

HOW TO MAKE IT IN BLACK AMERICA PT.1 (2015)

CO-CREATOR, PERFORMER, AND DIRECTOR
Created by Saroya Marsh & Modesto “Flako” Jimenez

A meditation on the history and current state of affairs of race relations in the U.S., featuring original poetry by acclaimed spoken word artists Modesto ‘Flako’ Jimenez and Saroya Marsh, who have interwoven historic video and audio with present-day text, surrounding it in a visual art landscape which is created afresh each night.

YOLEROS (2015)

PERFORMER
Written by Alex Vásquez Escaño, Directed by Martín Balmaceda

Stage Manager-Karina Paez
Lighting Designer-Dan Kent Technical Assistant-Kevin Torres; Supertitles-Fabian Gonzalez
Scenic Designer/Puppet/Object Design and Construction-Nehprii Amenii
Sound and Projection Design-Joshua Langman
Videographer-Bettina Hoffmann

Yoleros is an award-winning, original play created by the Teatrica Theater Company. The company was born in 2011 to continue the vibrant tradition of producing theater in Spanish in New York City. A journey through illusions toward a new beginning; Maximo gets through life by various trades: lottery vendor and guide of risky ventures through the Mona Passage between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, for those looking to escape reality with no future. Along with Demecio and Dinora, Maximo embarks on a journey across the sea, across numbers and dreams.

ACTOR
Presented at the Schapiro Theater, 2014

Cast: Lucy Kaminsky, Becca Blackwell, Sammy Tunis, Lindsay Hockaday, Modesto Flako Jimenez

A dance piece about brunch, death, and over-the-counter painkillers.

CREATOR AND DIRECTOR
Live graffiti: UR New York
Live DJ: Andre Mayes
Featuring:Bay Bryan, Deidrea Hamid, Merlin Whitehawk, Olander “Big O” Wilson, Claire Moodey, Nick E. Finn, James Allister Sprang, Marissa Metelica, Eric Acevedo, Ngoma Hill and JoAnnesta.

Produced by Brooklyn Gypsies Collective and 3LD Art & Technology Center.
Performed at 3LD Art & Technology Center
Directed by Modesto ‘Flako’ Jimenez, Associate Director Artem Yatsunov
Video/Film by Simon Harding & Kevin Torres
Light Design by Dan Kent
Set Design by Michael Minehan
Musical Direction by Lateef Dameer

Last Night at the Palladium is an interactive art installation and part immersive play set at an epic party. Accompanied by a live DJ and projections, Last Night At The Palladium tells the story of New York City’s transformative art scene – from Andy Warhhol’s famous Silver Factory to the closing of the Palladium Night Club. Actors, graffiti artists, musicians and poets take us through the decades, bringing to life Warhol, Basquiat, Ginsberg, Patti Smith, Fab Five Freddy, Edie Sedgwick, Patti Astor, among many other irreverent voices of the city.

PERFORMER
Original concept created by ALEXANDRA COLLIER & AUBREY SNOWDEN

Written by ALEXANDRA COLLIER

Directed by MEGHAN FINN

Produced by LAUREN RAYNER

Curated & Supported by the Incubator Arts Project

TAKE ME HOME is a site-specific live performance project in New York that takes place inside the mobile heart of the city: a taxicab. Transporting three audience members only, from a secret location, the Driver takes you on a radical journey through the city, along streets both familiar and strange. The windows to the cab become eyes to a vast theatrical landscape as the streets of New York transform into an unending performance installation. Integrating live performance, sound, video and street action, TAKE ME HOME offers a captivating, dark and irreverent view of the city through an intimate and innovative theatrical experience.