RECESS
RECESS is a monthly public performance series where both works-in-progress and established pieces can be shared in an intimate setting. Innovation. Experimentation. Deep dives. Creative reviews. It’s all welcome here! RECESS is a safe space for exploration and forging new artistic connections. We offer a public program, performance series, network, platform, and ongoing opportunity to engage performers, patrons, artists, and audience members in a night of performance and creative dialogue. RECESS continues to promote and celebrate the work of diverse artists, in solidarity, throughout 2026 and onward.
Monday, April 13th, 2026
7:30pm
Chez Bushwick branch of JBAF
304 Boerum Street #23
Brooklyn, NY 11206
Map Link Here
PROGRAM
”Neighbors / Plastic”
Concept, Choreography, Dancers:
Regina Nejman & Despina Sophia Stamos
Live Music, Composer:
Jullian Rozzell, Jr.
Costumes:
Regina Nejman & Despina Sophia Stamos
Regina Nejman collaborates with Despina Sophia Stamos in Neighbors/Plastic, their ninth site-specific dance collaboration. The work unfolds as a tactile, physical dialogue with large sheets of yellow plastic, exploring distance and proximity through the lens of their real-life relationship as next-door neighbors. Performed with live music by Jullian Rozzell Jr., the piece generates striking images that evoke the suffocating ways women’s bodies are marketed and commodified—bound to ideals of youth and desirability—while also referencing oceanic pollution and the slick, seductive packaging of consumer goods.
CREDITS
Regina Nejman grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and is based in New York City, where she has been creating her own choreography since 1993. She founded Regina Nejman & Company in 1997. Her work has been presented at La MaMa Moves (twice), Jacob’s Pillow, Joyce SoHo, Dixon Place, Symphony Space, DTW, Danspace Project, Merce Cunningham Studio, Dança em Foco, and the NY Fringe Festival, where she received the Outstanding Choreography Award. The Company has toured to Brazil twice, performing in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo to standing ovations. Regina has received support from The Greenwall Foundation, Puffin Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, LMCC/Creative Communities, MCAF, Meet the Composer, and MFTA, as well as space grants from the 92nd Street Y, Queens Museum of Art, Abrons Arts Center, and chashama/Anita’s Way. She has been an Artist-In-Residence at Joyce SoHo and DTW Outer/Space, and has received commissions from Princeton University Program in Theater/Dance (twice), New Jersey City University, The Yard, and Dixon Place (Mondo Cane Commission). She holds an MFA in Dance from Hunter College and a BA from SUNY Empire State College. Regina has taught dance at Princeton University, Wesleyan University, Harvard Summer Dance, NYU, and LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts. She is a co-founder of Neighbors and works as a Dance Teaching Artist, bringing dance to communities throughout New York City. https://reginanejman.com/
Despina Sophia Stamos is a dancer, choreographer, and Pilates instructor based in New York City, where she has lived and worked since 1989. Her choreography has been presented at Dance Theater Workshop, PS122, and MoMA PS1, and internationally in Brazil, Greece, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Puerto Rico, Senegal, and Italy. Since 2006, Stamos has collaborated with refugees and local dancers in Athens, Greece on her ongoing project passTRESpass. Beginning in 2016, the project has produced an annual transnational dance dialogue performed for and with refugee communities in both New York City and Athens, live-streamed to Times Square. Stamos has an extensive performance history with numerous dance companies and, in 2019, co-created Displaced Herstories and the Persistence of Bodily Memory, a work examining displacement and embodied memory. She is a founding member of the Modern Dance Awareness Society (tmdas.org), a co-founder of Chashama, and continues to perform with the Hungry March Band.
Jullian Rozzell Jr. is an acclaimed actor, writer, visual artist and composer. He is originally from Virginia, and lives in Brooklyn. This is his second collaboration with Neighbors.
Photo Credit:
Rodney Zagury 2025
