Dreams in Blk Major

About

An Afrofuturist celebration of dreams and all things Blk.

Using biomythogaphy to document one's past, present, and future, Dreams in Blk Major creates a ritual space where dreams are unconditional and possible through action.


Production History:

  • Stephen F. Austin State University, The Multicultural Ensemble (Texas), 2023

  • Berliner Festspiele’s Theatertreffen Stückemarkt (Berlin), 2021

  • Ars Nova ANT Fest (NYC), 2019

  • National Black Theatre / NYU Tisch Drama (NYC), 2019

Credits (Theatertreffen Stückemarkt):
Creators: Ta-Nia (Talia Paulette Oliveras & Nia Farrell)
Scenic Arrangement: Ernest Allan Hausmann
Co-Director: Katrice Dustin
Dramaturgy: Hannah Schünemann
Design: Anne Laure Jullian de la Fuente
Featuring: Amina Eisner, Victoire Laly, Alina Sokhna M’Baye, Abak Safaei-Rad, Barbara Saltman

Credits (Ars Nova ANT Fest):
Writer: Nia Farrell
Director: Talia Paulette Oliveras
Environmental Designer: Cati Kalinoski
Muralist: Jacqueline Brockel
Costume Designer: Carla Posada
Sound Designer: Renee Yeong
Marketing: Bianca Rogoff
Stage Management: Ava Novak & Roy Lightfoot
Featuring: Nia Farrell, Nile Harris, Christen Dekie, Marissa Stamps

Credits (National Black Theatre/NYU Tisch Drama):
Writer: Nia Farrell
Director: Talia Paulette Oliveras
Environmental Designer: Cati Kalinoski
Marketing: Bianca Rogoff
Stage Management: Roy Lightfoot
Featuring: Nia Farrell, Soma Okoye, Jordan Hughes, Christen Dekie, Marissa Stamps

Photography:

  • Eike Walkenhorst (Berliner Festspiele’s Theatertreffen Stückemarkt)

  • Danny Bristoll (Ars Nova ANT Fest)

  • Jeff Lawless (National Black Theatre / NYU Tisch Drama)

“…and let me make this clear. / I’m not in heaven. / This place is real.”

What People Are Saying…

“The joyful celebration Ta-Nia presents in Dreams in Blk Major is a journey through popcultural references and narrations whilst it reflects the unspoken, the taboo. The invisible. It dismantles what theatre basically is and was: a white institution and once a ritual.

A ritual that helps to cross boundaries, break taboos, disrupt narrations and sometimes creates communities. Offering irritation, maybe frustration, but also empowerment as a first step towards change.”

— Sarah Yawa Quarshie, Schauspiel Dortmund

“The power of [Ta-Nia’s] theoretical rigour and the incision of their thought as a means of critiquing power was maybe developed at NYU, but there is no arid or academic crust to the work that Ta-Nia first developed there: the visceral, playful, humane, angry, Afrofuturist theatre event Dreams in Blk Major.”

— Simon Stephens, Royal Court Playwright’s Podcast

“Dreams in Blk Major celebrates collaboration, communal practice. Its intimate form of address, along with its political thrust, allows it to speak directly to each individual in the room, as well as to the collective in the audience and beyond.

The text is grounded in reality, directly interacting with audiences, yet simultaneously evoking a poetic dream world. It lays bare struggles and hopes shared among the Afro-diasporic community in a transnational context, while offering reflections on individual dreams, and thus proposes politics that challenge concentrations of power.

We find honesty not bound with reality and poetic thoughts that are still grounded with the audience as part of direct reality. Throughout, it speaks directly to the present moment with its unique set of urgencies while also attempting a dream of new futures.”

— Laila Soliman, Playwright + Dramaturg + Director