CW: Descriptions of Female Genital Mutilation.
Female Genital Mutilation comprises all procedures involving the full or partial removal of the clitoris or other injury to assigned female genital organs for non-medical reasons.
A choreopoem based on Dena Igusti’s poetry about an Indonesian Muslim survivor of female genital mutilation navigating the loss of her people, body, and inevitable demise. She uses her body’s ghost, the internet, and webcams to realize what stays in a world shaped by what is and will be lost.
Dena Igusti (Playwright, Actor, and Producer, she/they) is a queer Indonesian Muslim poet, playwright, and producer born and raised in Queens, New York. She is the author of CUT WOMAN (Game Over Books). She is the co-founder of Asian multidisciplinary arts collective UNCOMMON;YOU and literary press Short Line Review. She is a 2018 NYC Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador and 2017 Urban Word Federal Hall Fellow. She is a 2019 Player’s Theatre Resident Playwright for her co-written Off-Broadway production SHARUM. She is a 2020 Ars Nova Emerging Leaders Fellow, 2020 Seventh Wave Editorial Resident, and part of Spotify Sound Up’s 2020 cohort. Her work has been featured in BOAAT Press, Peregrine Journal, and several other publications. She has performed at The Brooklyn Museum, The Apollo Theater, Lincoln Center, the 2018 Teen Vogue Summit, and several venues across the nation.
Ray Jordan Achan (Director, he/him) is a Brooklyn based theatermaker. Ray is the founding artistic director of Exiled Tongues, a theater collective that provides financial, artistic and collaborative support to artists of color centering diasporic consciousnesses. Ray is an Associate Member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation. He is the recipient of the Pet Project Grant sponsored by Jeremy O. Harris and the Bushwick Starr for his play, Free Fallin’. He has worked at the Park Avenue Armory and has helped advance shows such as Antigone and Judgment Day and events such as The Black Artists Retreat and Armory Iridescent and Culture in a Changing America: 100 Years/100 Women. Ray recently directed the Off-Broadway production of SHARUM written by Mohammad Murtaza and Dena Igusti at the Player’s Theater. Currently, Ray is directing his original play, Free Fallin’, set to premiere at the Hudson Guild Theater in Summer 2021.