We invited Florencia Lozano to share her thoughts with us about her appearance on June 10th, for which she will read "Found Objects," one of the stories from Jennifer Egan's forthcoming book, A Visit From The Goon Squad. When I first read this story, I heard Florencia's voice and I knew she would bring the necessary passion, complexity, and humor to the story. And when we brought the wonderful director, Lisa Rothe, on board, she couldn't have agreed more. What follows is Florencia's response to the story, and then an excerpt from the opening of "Found Objects." Thanks so much for reading, and we look forward to seeing you at the Emelin on June 10th.

-- Anna Becker, Producer, The Insights & Revelations Performance Series

I'm changing I'm changing I’m changing: I've changed. Redemption, transformation—God how she wanted these things. Every day, every minute. Didn't everyone?

These words hit me hard as I read them and consider my own therapy appointment just hours from now. How I can relate to the desire to feel, to know, to believe that I am moving forward: away from old, destructive, painful, twisted ways of being towards love, towards freedom, towards connection, towards enlightenment, towards LOVE. Doesn't everyone?

The narrator, Sasha, mentions her father in this story--and not wanting to "go there"--in thinking about him, in considering with her therapist: the implications of her own relationship to her father and how that primary relationship impacts her relationship to other men, and to herself. This resonated deeply with me and I suspect that much of what lies behind Sasha's "toughness" is connected to her vulnerability when it comes to her now deceased Dad.

I also so related to Sasha's description of her NYC apartment--a place she had considered a way station for a time, until--perhaps without her noticing it--it had become a place in which she felt both stuck and lucky to be in. I recently moved out of my rent stabilized one bedroom railroad apt in the east 20s, which I had been in for many years and which I now affectionately think of as my "beloved shithole".

I have known Lisa Rothe for many years and was kinda blown away with her as an actress when we were both in the graduate acting program at NYU together. She was one of those women whom I met and I thought: I wanna be strong like her. Confident like her. Beautiful and unapologetic like her.

Malcolm Gets substitute taught for my singing teacher once at NYU, and taught me more in that one class then I learned during two years of singing classes with my regular teacher. I was terrified to sing and I remember being down on the floor, with Malcolm next to me, smiling reassuringly, playfully--encouraging me to tell a story with my song.

I am so tickled to be working and playing and telling these particular stories in their company....

-- Florencia Lozano

Found Objects

It began the usual way, in the bathroom of the Lassimo Hotel. Sasha was adjusting her yellow eyeshadow in the mirror when she noticed a bag on the floor beside the sink that must have belonged to the woman whose peeing she could faintly hear through the vault-like door of a toilet stall. Inside the rim of the bag, barely visible, was a wallet made of pale-green leather. It was easy for Sasha to recognize, looking back, that the peeing woman's blind trust had provoked her: I live in a city where people will steal the hair off your head if you give them half a chance, but you leave your stuff lying in plain sight and expect it to be waiting for you when you come back? It made her want to teach the woman a lesson. But that wish only partly camouflaged the deeper feeling that Sasha always had: that fat, tender wallet, offering itself to her hand. It seemed so dull, so life-as-usual to just leave it there rather than seize the moment, accept the challenge, take the leap, fly the coop, throw caution to the wind, live dangerously ("I get it," Coz, her therapist, said)...

No, I am not listening to The Cars as the title of this entry might lead you to believe. I am actually listening to Sia's cover of Under the Milkyway (and yes, I did download this after seeing the Lincoln commercial). But this is besides the point. What I really want to talk about (and the inspiration for the title of this entry) is the new ArtsWestchester website.

When I first started working at the Emelin, I had very little experience with Westchester county. One of the first things I did was to search the internet for a place to find things to do in the arts. I wanted to get a feel for the arts as a whole in the community. What I found was...nothing. Sure, I located a bunch of individual sites for arts orgs and a few media outlets that had listings, but there was nothing comprehensive. Those listing sites that did exist were hard to navigate, lacking in content and not very user-friendly.

This morning I attended a press conference for the launch of ArtsWestchester's brand new website. This site really accomplishes something great. Users can register an account and set their arts preferences, which then filters through the site to give them custom recommendations. So not only does the site have an incredibly powerful calendar (which users can search in a variety of ways), but it remembers you and helps guide you to things that are more suited to your interests.

From an organizational stand-point, the website does something really special for the Emelin. One issue arts organizations are always grappling with is how to reach NEW audiences. Having a great website helps, but really, the bulk of the people looking at your site are people who already know about you. We love our website, emelin.org. It does what we want it to do, looks nice, has rich content to compliment our events and information, is easy to navigate and we get very positive feedback from users. (And I'm not just saying that because I designed the site and maintain it ). But the new ArtsWestchester site has the potential to really give us great exposure to arts lovers who may not know about us. By having a "one stop shop" for the arts, all Westchester arts organizations are going to start seeing some new faces walking through their doors.

There is a whole lot more the site does and I really encourage everyone to check it out and set up an account (it's quick and painless, I swear). Over the next few months you will start to see a whole lot more stuff going up on that site and it's set up in such a way that new content, media and events will be constantly flowing in, so you'll probably want to add it to your bookmarks in your browser!

The new ArtsWestchester.org: not only "What I Needed" but what all of Westchester needed.

-Adrien Goulet
Marketing & Creative Director
Emelin Theatre

Guy Davis put on an incredible show this past Saturday, wowing the audience with deep, gravely bluesman voice, nimble finger picking and virtuosic harmonica playing.

Just for you, we have prepared a little video/photo montage featuring Guy's incredible live performance of Limetown.




Click here to check out more photos from the show!

I have subtitled Bronx Kiss "a day in the life of NYC". A 24 hour cityscape. From morn-to-midnight. The triumphs and travails of the concrete jungle. Seven works with a wide range of humanity, as diverse as the city itself.

Sex, violence, guilt, retribution, fantasy, religion, redemption, hate, and above all, Love.

Comprehensible, incomprehensible Love. Everything at once as incomplete as these sentences. And then, suddenly, as in the nature of the City, everything explodes into mad rhythms.

And though it is NYC, it is also anywhere and everywhere. Even right here, right now, as your read.

-Benard Cummings
Director
Bronx Kiss: A Celebration of John Patrick Shanley

For tickets and more info on Bronx Kiss, click here.

On Jan 23rd, I will have the pleasure of returning to Mamaroneck, where I went to High School, to perform with my company Misnomer Dance Theater at the Emelin Theater. Having toured in 11 countries, at 250 theaters, it's exciting to return to past memories, and friends whom I haven't seen for quite some time.

Mamaroneck High School is where I discovered dance, in the PACE performing arts program. At the time, I didn't realize that it would become my life. I remember fondly seeing shows at the Emelin at that time, just ten minutes from school.



The dances that I will be sharing on the 23rd are a cross-section of the years of my work, including pieces developed as far back as 1998 to a new piece developed during these past few months.

I look forward to sharing the art with new faces and hopefully to seeing some old friends. If you want to linger after the performance to say hello, I'd be delighted.

You can get a taste for our work at misnomer.org or at aeplatform.org.

Looking forward,

Chris Elam
Artistic Director
Misnomer Dance Theater