On October 23–25, 2026, after more than five years of development, we will premiere [ ] here in Brooklyn, our creative home.
Performances are October 23–25 at the Doxsee Theater at Target Margin in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and tickets go on sale September 1!
Alongside the performances, we are planning conversations, workshops, and community gatherings that open our creative process to people of all ages.
We have come a long way since beginning this project through BRIClab in 2021, during the height of the pandemic. When BRIC called to offer us our inaugural residency, it was April 2020 and everything had just shut down. We chose the date farthest into the future, thinking surely things would be back to normal by then.
Little did we know that those ten days in April 2021 would mark the first time any of us had returned to work together, in person, in more than a year. And so began the long and fruitful journey of bringing [ ] home to its NYC premiere.
This intimate, image-rich work combines dance, music, live camera work, lighting and projection within an interactive sonic sculpture, weaving personal and ancestral memory into a mirage-like environment. Through sweat, breath, and shadow, the work physically reclaims stories of invisible labor, ultimately asking: What is long ago, but still right now?
[ ] is co-created by me, Adrienne Westwood, and composer Angélica Negrón, and brought to life by a powerhouse cast of eight femme performers and a visionary design team.
The title itself is an act of physical resistance. Rather than a written word, [ ] is announced through the body—by framing one’s head with deeply curved arms—or by speaking the phrase “the empty space between brackets.” By refusing to be neatly captured by the English language, the title manifests the gaping, felt absence of femme labor in dominant historical narratives.
Along the way, this work has been made possible by you—the people who believe in it. And we still need your help.
Since 2021, we have developed [ ] through residencies at Lincoln Center, MOtiVE Brooklyn, Harvestworks, Barnard Movement Lab, Slippage Lab at Northwestern University, and Groundworks in the Catskills. This fall, we will have our final residency at BAM, just ahead of the premiere.
We are also incredibly fortunate to have lead commissioning support from John C. Robinson and meaningful grant support from the Howard Gilman Foundation, Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, Charles and Joan Gross Family Foundation, Brooklyn Arts Council, and NYSCA.
Now, we have just 15% of the project's $60,000 budget left to raise.
As a small nonprofit, we rely on the generosity of individuals who share our conviction that interdisciplinary performance can be a force for connection, reflection, and transformation.
Target Margin’s Doxsee Theater is the perfect canvas for this work to come to life. But [ ] is highly technical, and creating its integrated, immersive environment will require us to bring in significant rental equipment and resources.
Your support fuels the daily, often invisible labor of bringing this ambitious project to fruition: rental equipment to round out Target Margin's gear; artist fees for eight performers and four designers; rehearsal time; the crew who will run the show; and our ability to offer affordable and sliding-scale tickets to performances and workshops.
The work itself celebrates caretaking, and over the course of its development we have witnessed that care firsthand. We have welcomed new babies and marked the transition of dear elders into ancestors. The lives of the people making this work have changed over these five years, and those changes have become part of what [ ] carries with it to the stage.
Now, as we prepare to share and celebrate all that has been poured into this endeavor, we hope you will help us bring it home. Every gift—$25, $50, or whatever feels meaningful to you—moves us closer to the premiere.
And thanks to a generous anonymous donor, the first $2,500 we raise will be matched dollar for dollar—so your gift will have twice the impact.
Thank you for being part of this journey and for helping us bring [ ] to life.
Adrienne and the [ ] artistic team
[ ] in development over the past five years at ODC Theater (preview performances), Mercury Store and Barnard Movement Lab.