The Wexner Center for the Arts Announces Its 2023–24 Performing Arts Season

2023–24: Dance and theater

Tere O’Connor, Rivulets 
Thu-Sat, Sept 21—23 
Midwest Premiere 

Called “a mesmerizing stream of consciousness” by the New York Times, Rivulets is a singular movement work driven by the expansiveness of the human mind and marked by choreographer Tere O’Connor’s 40-plus years of experience. This work for seven dancers was co-commissioned by the Wexner Center. 

James Dennen, Christian Faur, ETHEL, Michael “Blakk Sun” Powell, Molly Shanahan: Like Leaves. Like Carrots. 
Fri–Sat, Jan 12–13 

Dennen and his collaborators—visual artist Christian Faur, string quartet ETHEL, writer and spoken word artist Michael "Blakk Sun" Powell, and choreographer Molly Shanahan—will present a work-in-progress of their experimental, improvisational, VR-supported response to Samuel Beckett’s absurdist tragicomedy Waiting for Godot. The work was developed through a creative residency at the Wex, which also yielded the virtual works Anti-Gravity Donuts and Critical Theory 1. 

Aya Ogawa, The Nosebleed  
Thu-Sat, Feb 8–10 

The Nosebleed is an intimate autobiography that explores playwright-director Aya Ogawa’s fractured relationship with their long-deceased father. Offering a series of turbulent, absurd, and poignantly comic vignettes, four actors play "Aya" while the playwright themself plays their 5-year-old son and father. As the play explores the gap between Aya and their father, it considers the topic of failure and how we as a culture don't create space for it. 

Ain Gordon & Josh Quillen, Relics and Their Humans 
Thu-Sat, Feb 22–24 
Ohio Premiere 

Writer, director, and performer Ain Gordon and composer-performer Josh Quillen performatively reimagine a three-year odyssey following Josh’s father’s 2006 ALS diagnosis. Fusing journal entries, a podcast interview, a high stakes dinner menu, and a very surprising playlist, Gordon and Quillen conjure an intimate sonic portrait. 

Tall Order, Those With 2 Clocks 
Thu–Sat, Mar 21–23 
Midwest Premiere 

Performance artists Jennifer Kidwell, Jess Conda, and Mel Krodman present a work that mixes sketches, drag, and cabaret with a live DJ, focused on attacking the patriarchy. The continuation of Kidwell’s work with the Wex, which co-commissioned the work, Those With 2 Clocks is a funny, NSFW performance that features a variety of community collaborators, from veterans to doulas.  

Anonymous Ensemble, Llontop 
Fri-Sun, Apr 5-7 

Llontop celebrates and honors Indigenous Andean culture and language through the song-poems of Quechua poet Irma Alvarez-Ccoscco. An interactive, community-building installation of Peruvian objects with a live film performance that can be experienced in person or virtually, the work invites audience members to use their phones to “see” cultural artifacts. This act unleashes sound clips that create an individualized audio experience for each. 

Dana Michel, MIKE 
Fri–Sat, May 3–4 
Midwest Premiere 

Following a previous world premiere video installation at the Wex in 2022 and a presentation of sculptural works in the Summer 2022 exhibition Portal For(e) the Ephemeral Passage, Michel returns to the Wex galleries for a durational dance performance that reflects the conflict between feeling safe in public spaces and revealing one’s inner self, and the impossibility of attaining these goals without trust in oneself.  

2023–24: Music

Pelada 
Tue, Sept 26  

Born from punk energy and emerging from Montreal’s underground warehouse rave scene, the band made up of singer Chris Vargas and producer Tobias Rochman combines electronic music with raw, urgent Spanish-language vocals centered around power and social justice, creating an electrifying concert experience. Fans include Iggy Pop, who featured Pelada on his BBC radio show and says of the band, “They always wake me up.” 

TENGGER 
Thu, Oct 5 

TENGGER is a traveling musical family made up of Pan-Asian couple itta and Marqido and their pre-teen son RAAI, who joins his parents on tour and often on stage. The band creates magical, psychedelic, new-age drone magic through the use of harmonium, voice, Marqido’s analogue synthesizers, and itta’s toy instruments. 

Joe Rainey 
Thu, Oct 19 

Ojibwe artist Joe Rainey combines traditional pow wow vocals with avant garde electronica to create a wholly unique sound. Rainey’s work has been recognized by NPR, which named his 2022 album Niineta one of the best experimental albums of 2022, as well as Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and the Dessner brothers from The National, who signed Rainey to their 37d03d label. 

El Khat 
Thu, Nov 9 

Named after the addictive leaf that’s been chewed in Yemen and the Arabic peninsula for over six centuries, El Khat comprises four Tel Aviv musicians with Iraqi, Polish, Moroccan, and Yemeni roots. The band, founded by multi-instrumentalist and composer Eyal el Wahab, uses DIY instruments made from found materials to produce its funky, psychedelic reimagining of traditional Yemeni songs. 

Blind Boys of Alabama 
Wed, Nov 15 

Renowned for their rich gospel and blues sound, the Blind Boys have enchanted music lovers worldwide with their powerful vocals and impassioned performances. This award-winning group, inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2003, continues to redefine the boundaries of traditional gospel music, infusing it with elements of soul, R&B, and rock. 

Copresented with Ohio State’s Office of Academic Affairs 

Zoh Amba + Chris Corsano 
Fri, Nov 17 

An emerging star in the world of avant garde jazz, 23-year-old composer, saxophonist and flutist Zoh Amba brings her Tennessee roots to her music, infusing it with folk melodies, hypnotic refrains, and repeated incantations. She’s joined for her Wex date by drummer Chris Corsano, a frequent collaborator who played with Amba on the new album The Flower School. 

Jeff Parker and The New Breed 
Thu, March 28 

Chicago’s Jeff Parker is recognized as one of music’s most innovative electric guitarists, who’s been featured as a guest artist on albums by musicians such as Meshell Ndegeocello, Joshua Redman, and Yo La Tengo. A prolific player who works in a wide variety of styles, he explores and exploits the contrary relationships between tradition and technology, improvisation and composition, and the familiar and the abstract, using samples, synthesizers, and a range of techniques.