This Winter Horse Trade and EXIT Theatre return to bring you a festival that is uncensored, unjuried and totally downtown.
Keep It Movin’ Productions
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This Winter Horse Trade and EXIT Theatre return to bring you a festival that is uncensored, unjuried and totally downtown.
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Una Aya Osato brings us her new one-woman show Recess, an impassioned response to her experiences attending and teaching in NYC's public schools. A performer whose presence demands attention and inspires audiences, Osato seamlessly uncovers stories, and weaves together the diverse voices of NYC youth to conjure a collective narrative of hope.
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Focusing on a group of 7-year-olds, Recess takes the audience into the hearts and minds of children navigating their way through the public school system. In the Bronx, we meet Sherita Johnson, the 7-year-old protagonist of the play whose tumultuous home life sets the stage for her daily battles at school. Recess shines light on the tense and unpredictable interactions of Sherita, her classmates, and her teacher Ms. White. Here struggles for power, criminalization of the youth and the effects of a suffocating bureaucracy are an every day reality. We witness how children encounter difficulties beyond their making and still find ways to prevail. Not just relevant to youth, or to those who work with youth, Recess is a story about how and where inspiration can be found if we take the time to listen to the voices of those who typically do not get heard. |
At the wake of one of Una’s closest friends, her 5-year-old daughter stood up and pronounced: "It's ok to cry everyone, crying's ok, but it's not gonna change nothing, it's not gonna bring my mommy back." Moved beyond tears, this got her thinking about the insight children have that we, as adults, usually fail to notice. Their perspective of the world, so often filled with compassion and different ways of understanding, is readily written off. This experience was a seed that grew into the play Recess.
Having grown up in the NYC public school system and having taught in them for several years now, Una has witnessed first hand what is happening to our youth. Seen through "No Child Left Behind" practices, we are telling children that their role is to be seen and not heard instead of to actively develop their minds and persons in preparation for participating, critically examining and changing the world. Also, through working with the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) she began to be concerned about the ways young people are being treated in schools and what the implications of such treatment is. This concern compelled her to action and this play is one of those steps in bringing light to these issues and questions.
The writing of the show began at Pan Asian Rep in a workshop with the renowned Ernest Abuba. Then shortly after, while living in South Africa, Una began working with the brilliant South African director and performer Lindiwe Matshikiza, and together they finished developing the show. Since then she has had the pleasure of working with Nelson Eusebio who also helped with the expansion of this show. She is currently working with Moises Belizario, who is aiding in the progression and direction of this piece.
Over the past year and half Una has had the privilege of performing this show in addition to leading workshops about the issues it raises in an array of venues: from theaters to classrooms to universities to community centers to a prison, nationally and internationally.
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Born and raised in NYC, Una Aya Osato is a performer, writer and educator. She has worked professionally in television, theater and dance since a young age and continues today by performing her latest original work. In 1989, she began her performance career as the youngest dancer with the world renowned José Limon Dance Company, touring throughout the U.S. and Europe. As a youth, she was a repertory member of The CityKids Foundation, where she appeared on network television, led workshops across the country relating to issues effecting youth and performed at the Presidential Summit of 1996. She is the recipient of the level one prize in the U.S. Arts Recognition Talent Search and was named a finalist for the Presidential Scholar in the Arts. Invited to participate in the 2001 Sundance Theater Laboratory, she performed in Julia Cho's 99 Histories. At the 2005 U.S. Mixed Race National Conference Osato was the keynote performer where she showcased Keep It Movin', her first original piece born from her experience growing up the daughter of a Japanese father and a white mother. This performance led to invitations to perform at universities across the U.S. including Yale, Wesleyan, Oberlin, Brown, Princeton, Middlebury and N.Y.U. She left New York for South Africa in 2007 where she performed Keep It Movin' in a variety of venues. While there she completed her second original work Recess and was selected to participate in the South African National Arts Fringe Festival at Grahamstown where the play debuted to critical acclaim. She then returned to New York City where she premiered this newest work to sold-out audiences. Since then she has been performing Recess at universities, schools, theaters and community organizations across the country. |
| Moises Belizario (director) |
Moises Belizario is a first generation Dominican born and raised in East New York, Brooklyn. For the last two decades he has worked professionally as a writer, director and actor in film, television and theater. He is currently the Artistic Director of the nationally acclaimed CityKids Repertory Company, in New York City. Belizario has had extensive experience working with youth in leadership development and performing arts. In addition to his work on Recess, and at The CityKids Foundation, he is also currently working on a Broadway musical that is set to premier in the coming year. |
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