Diane Exavier

4.3.24 - 4.6.24

Cats for change

4pm & 7pm | Professional Performing Arts School (map)

After leaving the big city, Getty has made a new life for herself and her daughter Acca in the Pacific Northwest. But life in the great outdoors has not quite lived up to its promise. A chance (and smelly) meeting with a cat who happens to be a god unlocks a world of creatures, deities, and a few catchy songs that make Getty and Acca question everything. From retired feline gods to instigating squirrels, Cats for Change is a play that reflects on what we are meant for in this life, what is required of us in this world, and who we relate to along the way. Directed by Josiah Davis, this premiere features the Waterwell Drama Program Class of 2024.

Tickets and more info available here.

11.17.23

Wind is in the Cane…book launch

7:30pm | Brooklyn Artery, 1004 Cortelyou Road (map)

Marking the 100th anniversary of Jean Toomer’s Cane, The 3rd Thing has published a new critical edition, complete with companion guide and oracular deck. Join project contributors Nissy Aya, Andrew E. Colarusso, Gabrielle Civil, Dr. Elijah Heyward III, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Dominique Rider, Sheree Renée Thomas, and more for an evening of literary celebration and reflection. RSVP for free here.

8.9.23

good Blood @ Mixfest

7pm | Atlantic Theater, 330 W 16th Street (map)

MixFest, the annual free reading series exploring and celebrating the abundance of diverse stories in the theater, announces (Writ)ual Mix: Traditions of the Diaspora MixFest, a series of readings of new work co-curated by theater artists Daaimah Mubashshir, NSangou Njikam, and Awoye Timpo. RSVP for free tickets here.

5.4.23 - 6.4.23

Bernarda’s Daughters

Pershing Square Signature Theater Center

In an Off-Broadway world premiere co-produced by The New Group and National Black Theatre, this world premiere follows the Abellard sisters as they take refuge in their family home amid gentrifying construction, street protests, and a sweltering summer in Flatbush. Simmering in the losses of their father and their neighborhood, they clash over how to contend with the legacy of their parents in a city that is no longer theirs. Tickets and more info available at www.thenewgroup.org.

3.11.22

LOST In the LeTTERS: Reading & Conversation with Sean Avery Medlin & Diane Exavier

6:30 - 7:30PM EST | Live on Zoom (REGISTER HERE)

Celebrating the launch of Sean Avery Medlin’s debut poetry collection, 808s & Otherworlds, Lost in the Letters is hosting this reading and conversation between the two writers. Visit Lost in the Letters for more info.

2.4.22

Beauty in the abyss

8PM EST | Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse at Lincoln Center

How do perceptions of beauty and desirability shape one’s existence? What does it mean to be beautiful? These questions and more are examined by playwright Nissy Aya, poets Mahogany L. Browne and Diane Exavier, vocalist and librettist Joshua Banbury, and performance artist Nia Farrell. Conceived and directed by Dominique Rider as part of a special collaboration between The New York Philharmonic and The National Black Theatre.

12.16.21

REHEARSALS AND REMAINS: A READING AND CONVERSATION

7PM EST/4PM PST | The New Group & Nō Studios | Livestream at Nō Studios (REGISTER HERE)

In collaboration with The New Group & Nō Studios Offstage projects, a genre bending conversation that crosses into the world of theater. Exavier is joined by writers Kyla Searle and Korinn Annette Jeffries for an interdisciplinary conversation that invites viewers to reflect on how language creates space for intimate and communal encounters.

12.8.21

New Works: Mathing Memory

7pm | Cave Canem | Live on Zoom (REGISTER HERE)

Cave Canem gathers a slate of wonderful poets to share poems from recent books on introspection, memory, and personal and familial histories. Exavier joins Shanta Lee Gander, author of GHETTOCLAUSTROPHOBIA and Chet'la Sebree, author of Field Study for this offering of language and reflection.

11.29.21

gather at the integer: The Math of Saint felix

7:30pm EST/4:30pm PST | Greenlight Bookstore | Live on Zoom (REGISTER HERE)

A celebration of the release of The Math of Saint Felix hosted by the incomparable Angel Nafis. Shayla Lawz, author of the new poetry collection, speculation, n. and Carlos Sirah, author of The High Alive: An Epic Hoodoo Diptych, join Exavier to hold space for language and characters emerging from between the lines in this offering of poetry and performance.

11.11.21

The Math of Saint Felix: book Launch

6:30pm EST | Café Con Libros | Live on Crowdcast (REGISTER HERE)

The Math of Saint Felix launches in conversation with Desiree C. Bailey, author of What Noise Against the Cane, in collaboration with Café Con Libros, a Black-owned feminist bookstore in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Moving across Black Diaspora, from the Caribbean to New York City and beyond, Exavier and Bailey both explore intimate histories, the legacy of home, and the question of nation, with womanhood at the center of their interrogations and poetics. Join the authors as they reflect on each other’s work and read selections from their titles.

3.4.21-3.5.21

Bernarda’s Daughters (work-in-progress) @ BRIC Arts

7pm | Online

Bernarda’s Daughters (work-in-progress) is an interrogation of where grief and joy reside in our bodies, in our sounds, in the streets we traverse daily. Part of the BRIClab Performing Arts residency at BRIC Arts. Directed by Dominique Rider

Hotline Sing - Thu, Mar 4

Reach the Abellard sisters by phone. Each entry leads to a sound of joy, grief, pleasure, wonder, frustration, or freedom. Experience Bernarda’s Daughters via telephone through a self-guided series of audio selections with excerpts from the play, sonic interventions, readings from related works, and more (standard voice and text message rates apply).

Mo(u)rning Call - Fri, Mar 5

Listen to the world of Bernarda’s Daughters in this digital EP with guest appearances from music artists L’Rain and Anaïs Maviel.

RSVP here.

9.20.20

What Comes from the garden @ old Stone house

1-2pm | 336 3rd Street (map)

Inspired by the Old Stone House gardens, this self-guided meditative art/writing workshop invites participants to spend some time in the green spaces surrounding the Old Stone House while reflecting on life in Brooklyn at large. Participants will meet at the entrance of the Old Stone House where they will be offered a blank sheet of paper that they will transform into a small garden journal through an instant bookmaking exercise. Generative writing and sketch prompts, as well as reflective questions will guide participants through the gardens at their own individual pace. The event will end with a gathering of imaginings for Brooklyn future(s). FREE, but RSVP is required.

8.21.20

Health and Justice for all @ The Human Impacts institute & old stone house

12-1pm | (NYC) Zoom Webinar (RSVP Here)

Join the Human Impacts Institute and Old Stone House for this FREE, youth-led conversation about health, justice, and creative communities in NYC.  Learn from policy, health, and education experts on how we can keep our families safe and healthy, while leading the way for an equitable and fair “new normal.” All ages are welcome.  All NYC-based attendees will receive a voucher for FREE water and soil testing from the Human Impacts Institute (quantities are limited).  

8.20.20- 10.18.20

Each body remains a miracle @ old stone house

6-7pm | (Brooklyn) Virtual Opening (Instagram Live @oldstonehousebklyn)

Brooklyn Utopias: 2020 addresses Brooklyn’s past, present and future by inviting artists to consider differing visions of an ideal Brooklyn, or imagine their own. Participating artists also explore how Brooklyn has continued to change over the past 10 years, and if/how it can serve as a model for urban and American living on a national scale as we navigate a global pandemic in a time of unprecedented social, political and environmental turmoil. Each Body Remains a Miracle asks, “How do we care for our neighbors when the amenities of new construction seduce tenants into exceedingly more private life?” On view online and in person (by appointment) August, 20 - October 18.

7.16.20

Art After Work @ The Center for Intuitive And outsider art

6-7pm EST, 5-6pm CEN | (Chicago) Zoom Video Conference

Hawkins Bolden was known for his found object sculptures made of everything from bottles, cans, and fabric scraps to saucepans, hubcaps, and license plates. Blinded by a childhood injury, Bolden worked with his hands most of his life, feeling for texture and shape as he cut, bent, and wound discarded materials into being.

This edition of After Work draws inspiration from Hawkins Bolden's art and practice. Using found and discarded objects from our own daily lives, we will create sculptural portraits that activate senses other than (or in addition to) sight.

2.9.20

Solange and Frankie Rite Love Songs in the Mourning @ FiveMyles Gallery

3-6pm | 558 St. Johns Place (map)

Part of Haiti Cultural Exchange’s Diaspora NOW Series. Solange is full of rocks. Frankie’s arm has gone missing. And there’s a baby on the way. In connection with the Red and River Plays (Good Blood, Chelsea and the Planters, Sisters and Saints), Solange and Frankie Rite Love Songs... explores how people build new worlds in the face of environmental disaster, personal trauma, and historical violence. This experiment in poetry and performance is directed by Dominique Rider and will be presented as a work-in-progress. No RSVP necessary, $10 suggested donation.

11.8.19

Bernarda’s Daughters: A staged Reading @ The Lark

2pm | 211 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor (map)

The Lark Barebones Studio. Part of The Lark’s Playwrights’ Week. It’s summer in Flatbush and the Abellard sisters are in the heat of mourning their father, their neighborhood, their lives. Flames in the forms of desire, longing, and family secrets slowly burn in their mother’s house, where it seems there is no one to cool it in this play inspired by Federico García Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba with poetic and literary cues from Kamau Braithwaite, Louise Glück, Mary Ruefle, Toni Morrison, and more. Directed by Dominique Rider. Tickets are free, but must be reserved here.

11.4.19

Meet the Writers @ The Lark

8pm | 311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor (map)

The Lark Barebones Studio. As part of The Lark’s Playwrights’ Week, a panel conversation with this year’s participating playwrights: Diane Exavier, Shayan Lotfi, Omar Vélez Meléndez, Jaymes Sanchez, and Ren Dara Santiago. The evening will feature excerpts from each play, read by the playwrights themselves. The event is free, but tickets are required.

6.1.19-6.23.19

(after)care @ Kings County Hospital

Wed - Sun, 12 - 7 pm | 451 Clarkson Avenue (map)

Organized by No Longer Empty’s Curatorial Lab in partnership with Kings County Hospital, (after)care re-envisions a former emergency waiting room as a creative community space of remembrance, possibility, and celebration of care within and beyond hospital walls. (after)care features works by artists working in a variety of media, including video, installation, writing, painting, photography, printed matter, and mixed media: Pamella Allen, Bobby Anspach, Quinci Baker, Chloë Bass, Damien Davis, Diane Exavier, Kearra Amaya Gopee, Charlie Gross, Kathryn Ko, Taja Lindley, Jenny Polak, Malik Roberts, Sol Sax, Tattfoo Tan, Larry Weekes, and Ezra Wube.

4.24.19

photo Prose—Your Mirror: Portraits from the ICP Collection @ ICP Museum

6:30pm | 250 Bowery (map)

NYC: An evening of dynamic poetry readings featuring direct responses to photographs in Your Mirror: Portraits from the ICP Collection. This event is co-curated with the Poetry Society of America. Participating poets include Angel Nafis, Matthea Harvey, Christopher Soto, Robert Polito, Diane Exavier, Desiree C. Bailey, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, and Paolo Javier.

12.18.18

Starr Reading series @ Bushwick Starr

8pm | 207 Starr Street (map)

Brooklyn: The Starr Reading Series celebrates explorations of the plays of the city's most exciting playwrights, featuring new work from artists approaching theater in unexpected ways. Always at 8, always free!

In HOTFIREPOETICS, a winter whiter than most forces a man to venture to the land of the dead to bring back his wife, whose spirit has other plans all while the next door neighbor is watching in this ghost story/elegy/spiral into the erotics of grief. Directed by Whitney White.

11.29.18-1.19.19

hold(ing) Tight @ Woskob family Gallery

146 South Allen Street (map)

Guest-curated by Mark Joshua Epstein and Stina Puotinen, Hold(ing) Tight is a group exhibition about both the physical space of a waiting room and the sensation of waiting itself. In a time of political and social uncertainty, the artists ask their audience to hold tight to their beliefs, to each other, and to a vision for a bright future. The exhibition includes works by Mark Joshua Epstein, Diane Exavier, Ruth Freeman, Hein Koh, Alison Kuo, Stina Puotinen, and Denise Treizman.

11.2.18-11.4.18

Building Brave Spaces @ ICA Boston

25 Harbor Shore Drive (map)

Boston: Ten years after the first-ever national Teen Convening, this fall, the ICA will host Building Brave Spaces: Mobilizing Teen Arts Education, an unprecedented gathering to reflect and build upon the knowledge and field-wide progress made in teen arts education over the past decade. Panel: Where Are They Now? Exploring Long-term Impacts of Teen Programs in Art Museums (Sat, Nov. 3, 10:30am)

5.12.18

Cosmic Commons @ Alpha Space

6pm | 1467 Bedford Avenue (map)

Brooklyn: A You Are Here happening featuring an immersive installation, performance, visual/video art, healers, live music, DJs, dancing, and more.

5.12.18

Open Engagement @ Queens Museum

3pm | New York City Building, Flushing Meadows Corona Park (map)

Queens: Part of the Open Engagement Conference, Haiti Cultural Exchange will present on Lakou NOU – OUR Yard: Artist-led Community Sustainability and Social Engagement.

4.21.18

Publicly Complex @ Ada Books

6pm | 717 Westminster Street (map)

Providence: Reading w/ Rachel Hughes and Kathline Carr in the latest installment of Publicly Complex at Ada Books, hosted by Kate Schapira.

3.25.18-3.26.18

End to Avoid Damage @ Westmont College

7:30pm | Westmont College (map)

Santa Barbara: The premiere of a specially commissioned play at Westmont College featuring students from the Theatre Arts Department.

3.15.18

Atis Angaje @ Haiti Cultural Exchange (Five Myles Gallery)

6pm | 558 St. John's Place (map)

Brooklyn: Marking the launch of this series, the Atis Angaje Panel discussion features Haitian and Haitian-American artists who discuss their experience building their artistic practice and engaging with social justice and socially engaged work.

Panelists include Monvelyno Alexis, Jessica St. Vil Ulysse, and Michèle Voltaire Marcelin. The conversation will be moderated by Lakou NOU 2017 artist Diane Exavier.

12.9.17

Reportage (Each Body is a Miracle: Part 3) @ Brooklyn Fete

7pm | 1515 Nostrand Avenue (map)

Brooklyn: The culmination of Each Body Is a Miracle. A celebration of Good Blood and the 2017 Lakou NOU residency with more floral crown making, snacks, and excerpted readings from Good Blood. 

9.29.17

FLEA FRIDAYS @ The Flea Theater

5:30pm | 20 Thomas Street (map)

NYC: Flea Fridays is a monthly happy-hour cabaret series before the 7pm curtain. Look for musicians, solo performers, and alternative theater artists all exploring a single question per show. First up: What does home mean to you? Featuring performances by Diane Exavier, Rebecca Rad + Starr Busby, Julia Anrather, The Lobbyists, and the Fridays.

9.19.17

Teaches of Peaches @ The Atlas Review

Anytime | Anywhere

Online: Teaches of Peaches is now available for pre-order at The Atlas Review. On Teaches of Peaches: "Exavier encourages us to fall through that grief chasm with her. And grief is a funny thing in this collection. Grief is a disavowal. Grief is a cat named Peaches." Free shipping throughout September.

Writers in Action @ New Dramatists

2pm | 424 West 44th Street (map)

NYC: The Flea Theater/Brown University Project Residency presents brief excerpts from Good Blood by Diane Exavier + The Utterances by Carlos Sirah.

2.24.17-2.25.17

Explosions from the Other Canon @ Brown University

8pm | 154 Angell Street (map)

Providence: Presenting Rehearsing Remembers, a response to Adrienne Kennedy's An Evening With Dead Essex, in collaboration with Marcel Mascaro as part of Explosions from the Other Canon.