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LUCKY STAR: superstar is a  Cosmic-Queer Dance-Theatre Film by Pioneers Go East Collective

(super powerful, supernatural, superhuman)

What does it take to be a star? A Meta creative journey

The collective - credits

Featuring performance artists Daniel Diaz (performer/ writer); Bree Breeden (performer/choreographer); Ori Flomin (choreographer/ performer); Shaina and Bryan Baira (choreographers/ writers); Beth Graczyk (performer); cameo video appearance by downtown icon and Stonewall witness Agosto Machado (narrator / writer). Creative director & writer Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte; Cinematography by Kathleen Kelley and Jon Burklund; Production design & writer Philip Treviño; Sound design Ryan William Downey.

Project description

LUCKY STAR: superstar  is a queer and cosmic theatre film by radical collective Pioneers Go East Collective. Part underground club inspired by the famed Club 57, part performance art. Borrowing superstardom fabulousness to celebrate queer bodies, the objectification, creative endurance, and pursuit of artistic fame, LUCKY STAR: superstar is trippy and irreverent, with performers cast as supernatural and alternate-universe superstar versions of themselves. A transmedia creative wonderland, we create a fluid interconnected queer space for supernatural experiences. In 4 episodes, artists Bree Breeden, Daniel Diaz, Ori Flomin, Shaina and Bryan Baira, and Agosto Machado bring their unique combination of cosmic-queer storytelling to the virtual space.

Photo: Lucky Star (Art Like Love 3) featuring Agosto Machado, Bree Breeden, Daniel Diaz and Beth Graczyk. Photo by Janessa Clark. Film by Kathleen Kelley. Creative director Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte. Production design Treviño.

 

History – Pioneers Go East Collective. 

Pioneers Go East Collective is an award-winning radical Queer performance video-art group based in New York City. We examine LGBTQ stories of vulnerability and   courage combined with popular culture to facilitate communal meaning and advocate for cultural integrity. Since 2015 the collective is led by BIPOC artists and LGBTQ advocates Daniel Diaz, two-times Bessie recipient Philip Treviño, and NYSCA and FCA recipient Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte. In residence at La MaMa ETC and Judson Church, the collective explores contemporary performance and multimedia storytelling to portray same-gender-loving experiences, memory, and marginalization, that resonate with contemporary lives. 

The collective’s recent collaborations in New York City include: Virgo Star addressing Cowboy iconography and toxic masculinity in a site-specific environment, presented at Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance and at La MaMa (2019) which received a New York Magazine’s Bedford + Bowery Performance Pick; CowboysCowgirls performance in an activated environment which featured the story of the downtown icon and drag performance artist Agosto Machado, and was presented in New York City at JACK, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, and in Toronto at Rhubarb Festival, and hailed by CULTUREBOT “a strong gesture about collective queer yearning on a deeply microscopic, personal level”; Gemini Stars/ Scorpio a performance and video-interview project addressing LGBTQ social media entries about coming out stories, presented at La MaMa and Exponential Festival (2017), hailed by Eva Yaa Asantewaa/ InfiniteBody as “with poignancy enhanced by spirited presentation”; and Hildegard (Vision) addressing Hildegard Von Bingen’s same-sex love, presented at Governors Island/ Process Space Residency and St. Ann’s Warehouse (2015) which received a Time Out New York Critics’ Pick. www.pioneersgoeas.org


The Collective - Bios 

Daniel Diaz (performer & writer) is a NYC-based performance artist. Daniel creates works from a queer male perspective to inform audiences and bring clarity on social-political injustices through storytelling, burlesque, choreography and video projects. Daniel joined Pioneers Go East Collective in 2013. With a focus on modern and interpretive dance, Daniel has performed at various New York City venues including La MaMa, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, PS1 MoMa, Brooklyn Museum, The Coney Island Sideshow, Joe’s Pub, Dixon Place, Performance Mix/ New Dance Alliance.


Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte (writer & creative director) is a NYSCA Individual Artist recipient (2019), Foundation for Contemporary Arts’ Emergency Grant in Performance (2019); and he was finalist for the Jerome Foundation’s 2019-20 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship in Theatre. Gian Marco Riccardo is a NYC-based writer, director and video-maker dedicated to performance and installations that reflect queer perspectives and vulnerability. He founded Pioneers Go East Collective in 2010 - a company in residence at La MaMa and Judson Church. Gian Marco’s projects presented in NYC at La MaMa, Dixon Place, Galapagos, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, The Exponential Festival, JACK, Incubator Arts Project/ Ontological Hysterical, Chez Bushwick, HERE, Governors Island/ LMCC, Art on Air - Clock Tower Gallery, Galapagos Arts; and he collaborated with The Foundry, Great Jones Repertory, and Ellen Stewart. He designed at Biennale of Venice and toured in Europe. LMCC (2011-19); New Vic Artist Associate (2015); Process Space Residency - LMCC (2014), Opera America Director Award (2010); MFA Tisch - New York University.


Agosto Machado (writer, performer, activist) - Agosto Machado - Performer, Artist, Activist and Witness, is best known for his work with Ellen Stewart's La Mama ETC, and his association with Jack Smith, Mario Montez, Jackie Curtis, Holly Woodlawn, Candy Darling, Marsha P Johnson, Ronald and Harvey Tavel, Ethyl Eichelberger and Peter Hujar. Agosto appeared in over 30 Off-Off Broadway plays by Ken Bernard, Jackie Curtis, Al Carmines, Harvey Fierstein, H.M. Koutoukas, Megan Terry, Jeff Weiss. A member of John Vaccaros' 'Playhouse of the Ridiculous'.


Philip Treviño (production designer, writer) is a 2010 recipient of a New York Dance and Performance Award (BESSIE) for his lighting and scenic design for Pam Tanowitz’s Be In The Gray With Me. He is also the scenic designer for Camille A. Brown and Company’s Mr. Tol E. Rance, which won a 2014 BESSIE for Outstanding Production. Recently, he designed lights for Jenn Freeman/Freemove Dance ...it's time... at 14th Street Y, Catherine Cabeen/Hyphen Give Me More at Theater for the New City, and Pioneers Go East Collective's Gemini Stars/Scorpio Stars at La MaMa and  CowboysCowgirls  at JACKSome of his other credits in lighting and scenic design can be seen in works by Brian Brooks Moving Company, Pam Tanowitz Dance and Chris Tanner/Brandon Olson’s Ravaged by Romance at LaMaMa. His work has toured nationally, internationally and at such notable venues as BAM, The Joyce, Joyce Soho, DTW, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, The Kitchen, La MaMa ETC., New York City Center and Jacob’s Pillow. He is a proud alumnus of San Francisco State University where he received a BA in Drama and a Minor in Music. Philip is Technical Director for the Dance Department at Marymount Manhattan College where he teaches Stagecraft for Dance. Complete details available at www.philiptrevino.com


Bree Breeden (performer/ choreographer) is from Cheraw, S.C. Currently, she is a dancer and the Managing Director for Proteo Media + Performance, the Operations Associate at Movement Research, Production Manager for Sidra Bell Dance New York, and dances with VON HOWARD PROJECT and Michiyaya DANCE. She also choreographs and performs her own work which has been presented at Embodied Spaces Festival, Montclair State University, Danceworks, ACDFA, and at Earl Mosley Institute of the Arts dance talk series. She was awarded the Choreographic Excellence Award in 2015 and Outstanding Performer Award in 2016 from Montclair State University.


Shaina and Bryan Baira (choreographers/ devised writers) are life-partners and co-directors of BAIRA / MVMNT PHLOSPHY, a dance-theatre company committed to understanding the human experience and sharing their perspective through the movement arts. Born in TX and MI respectively, the two found each other 8 years ago in NYC and have since been sharing their work and engaging communities throughout the U.S.A. Their work is known for its bravery, vulnerability and intricately athletic movement language. The couple is currently based out of Detroit where they are Artists-in-Residence at the Music Hall and Wayne State University's Department of Theatre and Dance.


Ori Flomin (choreographer/ performer) has been dancing, living, surviving and thriving in NYC since 1989. He holds an MFA in Dance from Tisch School of the Arts, NYU. His choreography has been presented in NYC and internationally. He has taught dance, Yoga and Shiatsu massage with prestigious festivals and schools across Europe, Asia and Australia in addition to colleges around NYC: PARTS, Impulstanz, London Contemporary School, Sasha Waltz, Circuit Est, SUNY Purchase, NYU, Movement Research, Gibney, among others. He’s performed in the works of acclaimed choreographers Stephen Petronio, Maria Hassabi, Neil Greenberg, and Molissa Fenley to name a few.  www.Oriflomin.com


Kathleen Kelley (cinematographer & editor) is an Associate Professor of Dance + Technology at Montclair State University. She is a 2019 Gibney Work Up resident artist, Chez Bushwick Artist in Residence in 2018 and a 2015-2016 LEIMAY Fellow, and her choreographic work has been shown at venues such as Theaterlab, Gowanus Loft, Triskelion Arts, Center for Performance Research, Chez Bushwick, Movement Research and others. Together they direct Proteo Media + Performance, an intermedia company that produces creative experiences that engage live performers, film, projections, installations and other forms of visual/digital data to explore the rich intersections between technology and the body.


Jon Burklund (cinematographer & editor) is a New York based video artist specializing in documentation and documentary video for performing artists and arts organizations. Since 2015, Jon has documented over four hundred performances and events for organizations including Arena Stage, American Repertory Theater, The Public Theater, La Mama ETC, New York Theater Workshop, 59E59 Theaters, Bushwick Starr, Parsons Dance, ART NY, and All for One Theater. Jon is resident videographer at The Exponential Festival, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, and Ma-Yi Theatre Company, and is the digital content producer at Musical Theatre Factory. Jon’s work has long focused on creating sustained partnerships with some of NYC’s boldest artists, especially those working towards social justice and representation. With this intention, Jon has developed video content in collaboration with Diana Oh ({my lingerie play}), Pioneers Go East Collective (Gemini Stars), Jomama Jones (BLACK LIGHT), Dan Fishback (Cheese on Bread), Rattlestick Playwrights Theater (Dael Orlandersmith’s Until the Flood). Jon is currently in production for his first full length documentary film, featuring dance artists Mina Nishimura and Kota Yamazaki.

Ryan William Downey (sound design) is an actor, playwright, and musician who serves as Associate Artistic Director of The Brick Theater and Co-Director of Title:Point, an experimental theater company that has been producing and presenting work in New York City for more than a decade. His most recent play, Sleeping Car Porters, was a New York Times Critic’s Pick and Biter (Every Time I Turn Around), which he co-wrote, was one of Helen Shaw’s 10 Best Plays of 2015. He has also written Periscope (featuring Richard Foreman and Mary Harron), Persistent Dream Body, The Assassination of Julius Caesar and co-written Post:Death, Never Odd or Even, Everything of Any Value, and SPACEtruck. He has performed at The Whitney Museum of American Art, La Mama, Incubator Arts Project, Dixon Place, The Brick, Invisible Dog, AS220, Silent Barn, the Gowanus River (in Jeff Stark’s The Dreary Coast) and many more venues in NYC and beyond. As a voice actor he has been heard on podcasts, audiobooks, in many plays and, most notably, on Pokémon film and television series playing a variety of characters.

Beth Graczyk (choreographer/performer/educator)  is a Brooklyn-based artist and scientist. She brings a decade of teaching nationally and internationally, working with populations spanning from non-dancers to advanced professionals. She recently began teaching movement practices to artists with developmental and cognitive disabilities through  Interact Theater  in Minneapolis and is commissioned to make a new dance work with their LGBTQIA artists in 2019. She has a collaborative partnership with John Gutierrez (G^2), in which they co-teach improvisation and create performance works together. In addition, Beth partners with  BAIRA  in Detroit as a teaching and creative collaborator and is a resident artist for NYC-based Pioneers Go East Collective. Graczyk has performed throughout the United States and internationally in Japan, Ecuador, France, China and India for the past 17 years. Concurrently, she has contributed to 10 science publications in the field of cancer research. Graczyk travels annually to India to work as an educator and choreographer with Kerala-based artists Sen Jansen and Arunima Gupta. In NYC, her solo works have been presented by Gibney, La MaMa, Judson Church, Jack, Triskelion, CPR, Movement Research, Oye Group, Kraine Theater, and through Pioneers Goes East Collective. She has been awarded residencies at Abrons Arts Center (NYC), The Marble House (VT) and through the NAP program (PA). She works part-time as a Research Specialist at Rockefeller University.