Arts House Listening Program

At the intersection of theatre, dance and visual art installation, Bronx Gothic gives palatable force to the charged relationship between two girls on the verge of adolescence in 1980s outer-borough New York City. Their world emerges through the clandestine and sometimes sex-saturated notes that are passed between them. Orchard Beach, Nathan’s hot dogs and Whitney Houston’s hair are all part of the landscape of Bronx Gothic. Created by New-York-based writer, performer and choreographer, Okwui Okpokwasili, in collaboration with director and designer, Peter Born. Bronx Gothic is a partially-true chronicle of one woman’s past, and draws inspiration from both Victorian-era novels and West African griot storytelling. Okpokwasili’s intensely physical solo performance pushes against extremes, reverberating with a potency that threatens to break the body. Bronx Gothic unfolds as a dark and powerful tale of sexual self-discovery and the (brown) body in transformation – and the humour, love, strangeness, and even te