No Name Players will present the sixth annual SWAN Day Pittsburgh at 8 p.m. this Saturday, March 29 at the New Hazlett Theater, 6 Allegheny Square, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In previous SWAN Day Pittsburgh events, the company’s artistic directors, Tressa Glover and Don DiGiulio, have asked artists to create new songs, dances, short plays, films, and visual works based on the lives and words of Pennsylvania women.
This year they have added a new twist inspired by a line from Maya Angelou, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” They have asked each artist to create a work “based on a story they have never told before.”
SWAN Day Pittsburgh will be an evening of short performances by many of Pittsburgh’s best musicians, dancers, theater artists, filmmakers, poets, comediennes and visual artists. This year’s featured artists will include Kahmeela Adams, Lissa Brennan, Camelia Road, Kathryn Carr, Gab Cody, Continuum Dance Theater, Cynthia Croot, Tiara Dinkins, fireWALL Dance Theater, Elizabeth Fortunato, Cara Hertneky, Christina McNeese, Chloe J. Newman, Bridgette Perdue, Reed Dance, Texture Contemporary Ballet, Kristin Thomas, Anqwenique Wingfield, Marci Woodruff, Kira Yeversky, and more. The preview video at the bottom of this post introduces some of the artists.
Glover and DiGiulio added SWAN Day Pittsburgh Junior last year as a way of encouraging teenage girls in the arts. This Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. at the New Hazlett Theater, they will offer the second annual junior SWAN event featuring performances by Pittsburgh girls aged 12 -18. The program will feature Rayquila Durham, Rachael Ferraco, Sydney Wolff, and students from Act One Theatre School, Alumni Theatre Company, The Ellis School, Hill Dance Academy Theater and Hope Academy.
They have also partnered with two other arts organizations this year to create a SWAN Week in Pittsburgh featuring women artists. Their partners are the American Jewish Museum, which is hosting an exhibit by Micaela Amateau Amato through April 25, and the Toonseum, which is offering $1.00 off admission for women and girls during SWAN Week to their exhibit, Wonder Women: On Page and Off, an exploration of the role of women in the comics industry.
For more information, check the No Name Players website and their Facebook page. They have also posted the SWAN Day Pittsburgh 2014 preview video below.