Summer Sparks New Works Festival
June 8-9, 2012
Friday & Saturday at 8 p.m.

At The Sterling Houston Theater at Jump-Start in the Blue Star Arts Complex

$10 general admission.

The first annual Summer Sparks New Works Festival is a fun two-day exploration of new works by local and regional artists that aims to become an important showcase for theater groups, dancers and performers in South Texas.

This unique festival will host the world premiere of 13 new pieces and will showcase the work of over 38 performers during two full evenings of back-to-back 10-20 minute short performances.

All types of performance will be presented, including drama, comedy, live animation, modern dance, olfactory performance art, documentary-style storytelling, and conceptual burlesque.

Summer Sparks’ 38 plus performers include: Topher Sipes & Samantha Beasley of ARTheism, Atta Girl Productions, Aaron Aguilar of Proxy Theater Company, S.T. Shimi & Erik Bosse, Amanda Silva, Lisa Suárez, Annele Spector, Erica Wilson-Perkins and Erison Dance, Marisela Barrera & Laura Varela, Anna de Luna, Aaron Richmond-Havel, Dino Foxx, Christina Casella & Sara Means and many more!

Subjects and settings differ wildly: A Mad-Max-styled sci-fi border story of drug runners, gangs and a mysterious chupacabra; a summer tale of college flirtation staged as a keen dance number; physical comedy about online-dating, gay sex and the art of the threesome; sultry multimedia burlesque; conceptual live animation with structured improvisational movement; personal testimony of abortion and counter-protests of Planned Parenthood protesters; and the unsophisticated and sometimes comedic experiences of gender, religion and the everyday life in the Middle East as seen through the eyes of a naïve yet eager tourist.

“Summer Sparks was imagined as a showcase of new and exciting work, never seen in San Antonio before, created by individual Jump-Start company members as well as some of the city’s most talented and interesting artists,” said Artistic Director S.T. Shimi.

Festival Schedule

06.08.12

ARTheism (Topher Sipes & Samantha Beasley)
Atta Girl Productions
Aaron Aguilar of Proxy Theater Company
S.T. Shimi & Erik Bosse
Amanda Silva
Lisa Suárez
Annele Spector

06.09.12

Atta Girl Productions
Aaron Aguilar of Proxy Theater Company
Erison Dance (Erica Wilson-Perkins)
Marisela Barrera & Laura Varela
Anna de Luna
Aaron Richmond-Havel
Dino Foxx
Christina Casella & Sara Means

Jump-Start Performance Co. is generously supported by the City of San Antonio’s Office of Cultural Affairs, Kronkosky Charitable Foundation, the National Endowment of the Arts, a grant from the Ruth Lang Charitable Fund of the San Antonio Area Foundation, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and theFund.

For more info or to purchase tickets please call (210) 227-5867! Check back regularly for updates to the festival schedule!

Jump-Start Performance Co. & the San Antonio Dance Umbrella present:

W-I-P Créme
May 30. 2012
7 p.m.

$10 general admission and $8 for students, seniors and SADU members.
No reservations are necessary.

W-I-P Crème will fill you up with a delicious evening of polished work! We depart from the usual format of laboratory-style performances and feedback to celebrate the best that local and local-area artists have created through our unique and highly regarded process. The program will be followed by a tasty post-show reception of finger foods and the opportunity to meet the performers.

Selected artists are Erik Bosse (film & live performance), SA Dance Fringe (contemporary), Zombie Bazaar (gothic bellydance), Erison Dance Co. (modern) Xavia Perkins (hip-hop/spoken word), and ARTheism (live dance/animation).

W-I-P (Works-In-Progress/Wednesdays-In-Performance) is a long-running collaboration between Jump-Start Performance Co. and San Antonio Dance Umbrella.

W-I-P returns on June 27, 2012 with a special site-specific showcase!

Jump-Start Performance Co. is generously supported by the City of San Antonio’s Office of Cultural Affairs, Kronkosky Charitable Foundation, the National Endowment of the Arts, a grant from the Ruth Lang Charitable Fund of the San Antonio Area Foundation, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and theFund.

The San Antonio Dance Umbrella is funded in part by the Office of Cultural Affairs, the Texas Commission on the Arts and by its members who represent the best in the San Antonio Dance Community.

For more info please call (210) 227-5867 or visit www.jump-start.org!

For well over two decades, Jump-Start Performance Co.’s Arts Education Program has been working with predominately Mexican-American and-African American youth in low-income urban areas, bringing visual, literary & performing arts to about 8,500 students, educators, parents and local residents every year.

Jumping off the Walls
Student Art Show

Opening receptions:
Thursday, April 5, 2012 | 6 -8 p.m.
First Friday*, April 6, 2012 | 6 – 9 p.m.

*Bring your family and come participate in fun art activities led by Jump-Start’s educators as well as pose for fabulous creative photos taken by GlamMugs! Light refreshments will also be served.

Jumping off the Walls features artwork from our students at Bonham Academy, Douglass Elementary, Forbes Elementary, Kelly Elementary, Japhet Elementary, Austin Elementary, Fairweather Lodge, Calderon Westside Boys & Girls Club, and Seton Home for Girls.

The walls of the Jump-Start Art Gallery will come to life with student-created recycled book art, crazy yarn art, fun origami, wild papier-mâché art, colorful Keith Haring inspired transparency art and much more!

FREE. Donations will be graciously accepted for participation in the First Friday art activities. GlamMugs prints will also be for sale for $5. Cash only!

The 2011-12 Jump-Start Performance Co. Season

Welcome to our 2011-12 season! We are excited to share our mix of returning favorites, brand-new works and social events with a theatrical twist. Take a walk on the fantastical side with fire-eating carpa performers, sexy Sumerian goddesses and charming Slovakian visitors. And if you missed (or had a great time at) Lisa Suárez’ amazing play I’ll Remember for You or Alicia Fernandez’ Big, Bad & Beautiful, you’ve got a chance to see them again. We make it easy for you this season with longer runs, lower prices for opening weekends and our eclectic, accessible programming. Keep checking back regularly because we will be updating our listing with more details and extra events all year long. See you at the theater!

- S.T. Shimi, Artistic Director

What Comes Out of Chittlins
Written and performed by Kitty Williams
Directed by Steve Bailey
September 16-17, 23-24, 30-Oct 1st 2011
Friday and Saturday at 8p.m.

Miss Charlene Hughes is back with further ruminations about her love/hate relationship with those “never-clean-enough” chittlins. In this sequel to The Great Chittlin Debate, she is joined by a cast of characters including the inventor of the chittlin stew, her great-great-great grandfather, and the ever-judging Reverend DK, as they traverse the intersection of comedy, race and eatin’ higher up on the hog.

Featuring Kitty Williams, Pamela Dean Kenny, Chuck Squier & SkuDr Jones.
Opening Weekend: $12 general admission, $10 students & seniors
Final Two Weekends: $15 general admission, $12 students & seniors

Día de los Muertos Ball
Presented by Rene Roberts
November 2, 2011
Wednesday at 7p.m.

An adult social dance-party fundraiser benefiting Jump-Start Performance Co. and the San Antonio AIDS foundation. Special entertainment by local talent. Guests are asked to arrive in costume with skeleton face.

$75 Table Seating
$45 General

Stranger
Written and performed by Divadlo z Pasáže & Jump-Start Performance Co.
Directed by Viera Dubacova
November 18-19, 2011 at the Sterling Houston Theater @ Jump-Start
November 20, 2011 @ Salvage Vanguard in Austin
Friday – Sunday at 7p.m.

Jump-Start Performance Co. and Divadlo z Pasáže (an ensemble of profoundly mentally challenged performers from Slovakia) will collaborate on a new joint production. The play explores the feeling of being marginalized in society and what it means to experience sudden freedom, echoing the Slovak experience following the fall of the Soviet bloc. The piece uses the metaphor of the unexpected arrival of a “guest” into the lives of a group of people stuck in a sort of limbo, freeing them from their past constraints. How does sudden freedom affect their attitudes and actions? What is normal and what is strange?
$15 general admission, $12 students & seniors in San Antonio
Ticket information for the Austin show: www.salvagevanguard.org

Performance Party 27
January 7, 2012
Saturday at 7p.m.
(Various Artists)
Our annual marathon of entertaining acts from the Company & community artists.
$10 Suggested Donation

Big, Bad and Beautiful: Still Hungry
Written by Alicia Fernandez
Presented by Daddy’s Girl Productions
January 20-22, 27-29, 2012
Friday and Saturday at 8p.m., Sunday at 3p.m.

A touching, hilarious tribute to women of size. One of our most popular shows will be performed bigger and badder than ever in memory of visionary/creator Alicia Fernandez.
Opening Weekend: $12 general admission, $10 students & seniors
Second Weekend: $15 general admission, $12 students & seniors

I’ll Remember for You
Written by Lisa Suárez
Directed by Laurie Dietrich
March 9-11, 16-18, 23-25, 2012
Friday & Saturday 8p.m., Sunday 3p.m.

Back by popular demand! This funny, sad and courageously honest look at Suárez’ experiences as the primary caregiver for her mother with Alzheimer’s was listed as one of San Antonio’s Best of 2010 on Stage by the San Antonio Express News.
Featuring Lisa Suárez and Veronica Rogers.
Opening Weekend: $12 general admission, $10 students & seniors
Final Two Weekends: $15 general admission, $12 students & seniors

NEW WORKS FEST
June 8-9, 15-16 2012
(Various Artists; more details TBA)

In the spirit of Short Sparks, New Moves and Electric Performance Lab, Jump-Start invites you to a mini-festival of short new pieces by a rotating line-up of Company and selected community artists. Anything and everything from multi-media experiments, improvised dance pieces, staged stories and possibly some audience participation. Come and be surprised, charmed and inspired!

Hetaerae/A Carpa, Maybe
Written by Laurie Dietrich/Billy Muñoz
September 14-15, 21-22, 28-29, 2012
All shows 8p.m.

A double-bill of new works about “entertainers” – who they are, why they are, and the passion (and price) of “show-biz”.

Hetaerae (Dietrich): When the curtain rises and the lights come on, who do you see onstage? Are they stereotypes or archetypes, goddesses or whores? How do they serve your needs? From Sumerian goddesses to Greek priestesses to modern-day sex workers & stage performers, Hetaerae uses ritual theatre, live music & other experimental forms to explore performance and voyeurism on a whole new level.

A Carpa, Maybe (Muñoz): El Payaso, an old performer, tells the story of the downfall of a carpa, along with the eccentric denizens who populated it: A controlling ringmaster, a gentle mind reader, manipulative triplet acrobats, a strong man, and a captured mermaid.
Opening Weekend: $12 general admission, $10 students & seniors
Final Two Weekends: $15 general admission, $12 students & seniors

Windows Series
Produced by Laurie Dietrich & Dino Foxx; featuring various artists.
Performance times TBA
Free!
This popular series of free, First Friday performances returns to grace the front window at Jump-Start with short, visually-rich, diverse performance work.
October 7, 2011
December 2, 2011
March 2, 2012
May 4, 2012

W-I-P
Produced by S.T. Shimi & Amber Ortega-Pérez; featuring various artists.
All performances at 7p.m.
$5 general admission, $3 students & seniors
An eclectic monthly lab space for new, in-progress dance and movement-based performance works, accompanied by a facilitated post-performance discussion.
September 28, 2011
November 9, 2011
December 21, 2011
January 11, 2012
February 1, 2012
March 28, 2012
April 18, 2012
June 27, 2012

W-I-P Créme
May 30, 2012
Wednesday at 7p.m.
$10 general admission, $8 students and seniors

This one-night event showcases the best new works from the W-I-P 2011-12 season.