[Performance]
SOAPBOX: Emma Jaster, To Know a Veil

About This Event

To Know A Veil: Peeling back the layers of our cultural femininity.

To Know a Veil is an immersive exploration of the personal and cultural implications of how women veil and reveal themselves. It is presented at Soapbox as a fashion event including burquas, bikinis, and six scandalous ways to wear a sari. The piece is an ongoing project that employs installation and sound, draws on personal interviews and research, and comes to performance through dance. To Know a Veil is conceived and directed by Emma Jaster, audio installation by Matt Pearson, beats by Unown, and performed by Kate Folsom, Neelam Patel, Naima Ramos-Chapman, Selomé Samuel, and Anastasia Wilson.

Visit www.emmajaster.com/veil for more background and up-to-date information about the project.

SOAPBOX performance art series at Hillyer Art Space is a platform which increases exposure to the uneasy form in DC, providing space for emerging and established artists to complete experimental projects. $5 at the door

Emma Crane Jaster started onstage when she was 6. She has performed in NY- where she held an artist residency at HERE Arts Center- and around the world including Paris, India, and Taiwan. She earned her BA in Theater and Dance from Amherst College and studied physical theatre at the Lecoq School in Paris. She collaborates regularly with a variety of artists to create original physically compelling theatrical events.This project is supported in part by a fellowship from the DCCAH.

The performers:
Kate Folsom is from the Blue Ridge Mountains and subsequently loves bluegrass music, reading on the porch, and swinging in hammocks. You can find her again at Dance Place (Washington DC), with Stephanie Miracle and other like-minded dance artists, at the end of January.
Neelam Patel loves sharing through dance and anything movement related. She loves staring up at the sky too, and does it often. She hopes every woman will create a place to rest inside of herself, veil or no veil, a place from which to share herself.
Naima Ramos-Chapman seeks through any medium at her disposal to create a fluid dialogue about the collective cross-cultural memory that binds us all. Current mantra: suspend comfort and complacency-- it is only once you've reached the dangerously uncomfortable tipping point of vulnerability that one discovers a freedom that doesn't come at the cost of others'.
Selomé Samuel is infinitely curious and almost always lost, but music and food help her make sense of the world.
Anastasia Wilson lives by the gypsy's code and thrives trading tales for shelter or food. By trade she massages reality to ease hearts and start ruckus.