B.O.B. (Best of Boroughs)

Performance Space 122 Presents B.O.B. (Best of Boroughs), a new, high-octane festival of theatre, dance and performance that’s pure NYC – and just as multi-faceted!

Show Descriptions

Peripherally Yours…With Love, Staten Island
Little Miss Big Mouth / Sara Valentine
Friday and Saturday, April 6 and 7 at 8:00 PM
Partner: Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island

Sara Valentine focuses her live-action, thriller talk show on Staten Island and exposes another side of what she calls, "New York’s forgotten borough – the one that gets a bad rap:" But as Sara will show you, S.I. is a most fascinating place with a history of embracing iconoclasts, nurturing uniqueness, and celebrating the divine.

Pent-up: a Revenge Dance
Okwui Okpokwasili
Wednesday, April 11 at 8; Friday, April 13 at 8; Saturday, April 14 at 3; Sunday, April 15 at 8;
Tuesday, April 17 at 8; Thursday, April 19 at 8; Saturday, April 21 at 8; Sunday, April 22 at 3.

Partner: 651 ARTS, Brooklyn

In the first full production of her original work, Bessie Award-winner and beloved downtown actress Okwui Okpokwasili spins a modern multi-character folktale. In it, she portrays a woman in exile who sees and seeks revenge as a way of reconciling her present impoverished condition with the belief that she’s a direct descendant of the sun. Interweaving legacy and the loss of old tongues, rituals and original songs, and a good old attempt to get a grip, the story sheds new light on traditional spells and third world brothels, and transforms every scratch & win ticket into a lucky one.

Momma
Edith Freni
Thursday, April 12 at 8; Saturday, April 14 at 8; Sunday, April 15 at 3; Wednesday, April 18 at 8;
Friday, April 20 at 8; Saturday, April 21 at 3; Sunday, April 22 at 8.

Partner: Queens Theatre in the Park, Queens

Momma is a new play about making sorry excuses for bad behavior. He was adopted; she developed young. Her mom was a yo-yo dieter; his dad cheated. Now they’re all grown-up, married and want kids of their own. It’s all fun and games until someone gets shot. Two couples–mirror images of each other–explore the effects of genetics, sexual dysfunction and recreational drug use in this darkly comic, totally non-linear take on American family life.

Hip-hop to da Head
Full Circle Productions
Thursday, April 19 at 7; Friday, April 20 at 7; Saturday, April 21 at 7; Sunday, April 22 at 5

Bronx

In celebration of its tenth year anniversary, Full Circle presents Hip-hop to da Head, a fusion of dance, song, rhyme and monologues emotionally driven by the multi-ethnic cast offering a unique palate of new and old school themes of urban theater. The work “…manages to educate and raise spirits sky high”- NY Times (4/10/06 Jennifer Dunning) and delivers a festival within the B.O.B. festival.

Let the Eagle Scream!
Nia Love / Blacksmith’s Daughter Dance Theatre
Thursday, April 19 at 9:30; Friday, April 20 at 9:30; Saturday, April 21 at 9:30; Sunday, April 22 at 7:30

Partner: Harlem Stage/Aaron Davis Hall, Inc., Manhattan

An ugly history of lynching becomes a powerful story of resilience. Nia Love looks squarely at lynching and the damage it causes. Her latest choreography, as well as her ongoing research into "body memory" and "genetic withholdings," scrutinizes privilege, superiority, dominion and conspiracy, and in turn, their affect on the American psyche.