Photo: Julieta Cervantes

 

Following the critically acclaimed, Obie Award-winning first installment of Jay Scheib's performance trilogy Simulated Cities/Simulated Systems, The Kitchen presented the world premiere of part two, Bellona, Destroyer of Cities, a work based on Samuel R. Delany’s celebrated science fiction novel Dhalgren. Scheib combined passages from Delany’s novel with original written material, movement sequences, and live video to trace several intertwining plotlines driven by a group of characters with shifting identities. Set in a city after a cataclysmic event, Bellona, Destroyer of Cities drew on the labyrinthine world imagined by Delany to express the intricate and at times abstract delineations of race, gender, and sexuality today. The cast of Bellona included Sarita Choudhury, Caleb Hammond, Mikéah Jennings, Jon Morris, William Nadylam, Tanya Selvaratnam, April Sweeney, and Natalie Thomas. This theatre work featured scenic design by Peter Ksander, costume design by Oana Botez-Ban, sound design by Catherine McCurry, lighting by Miranda K. Hardy, and video and photography by Carrie Mae Weems.