Carl Hancock Rux
Poet, Playwright, Performer

Carl Hancock Rux is a multi-disciplinary writer selected by the New York Times Magazine as “One of Thirty Artists Under The Age of Thirty Most Likely To Influence Culture Over The Next Thirty Years” (New York Times, 1994) and featured on the cover of The Village Voice as one of “Eight Writers on The Verge Of (Impacting) The Literary Landscape...” (Village Voice, June, 1998)…

 

Rux, a New York City Foster Care alumnus and Columbia University graduate, is the author of the critically-acclaimed novel, Asphalt (Simon & Schuster/Washington Square Press), the Village Voice Literary prize-winning collection of poetry, Pagan Operetta (Fly By Night/Autonomedia Press), and the OBIE award-winning play, Talk (published by TCG press/voted by Time Out as one of the top ten plays of 2002). Rux's poetry, fiction, plays and essays have been published in numerous anthologies and journals here and abroad.

Miami Performing Arts Center has selected Carl Hancock Rux as MPAC African Diaspora programs artist-in-residence. In this role, Rux will advise on programs and create works that explore the African Diaspora and its impact on the cultures of the Americas. Rux joins Fernando Gonzalez, MPAC jazz programming curator, and David Clarkson, MPAC physical theater artist-in-residence, as one of several artists and experts from specific disciplines who will work closely with MPAC Artistic Director Justin Macdonnell on programming the Center's indoor and outdoor stages. Among Rux’s projects at MPAC will be a cabaret season in fall ‘07 in which he will perform and two large-scale works which he describes as “operas,” one on a Cuban/Haitian theme and the other set in Overtown.

 

"Carl is a true Renaissance man and one of the most original artists working in the U.S. today,” said Macdonnell. “He has an extraordinary ability to make connections across cultural boundaries and weave these into performance pieces of stunning originality. He will be a superb asset to the Center’s artistic team.”

 

“Miami has such a diverse community and a rich history,” Rux commented. “MPAC is exciting because of its opportunity to reflect Miami’s culture and history via the arts. I’m particularly interested in creating multidisciplinary pieces that tell the stories of people of color and unearthing those histories and traditions that demand to be staged.”

Rux has been a contributing writer for several magazines and periodicals including Interview, Essence, Honey, Manhattan File, aRUDE, NKA Journal Of Contemporary African Art, Brooklyn Bridge and American Theater magazine. His collaborations include commissioned text and performances with several performing artists and dance companies including The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Urban Bush Woimen, Marlies Yearby's Movin' Spirits Dance Theater, Jane Comfort & Co., and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Co. among others and Mr. Rux continues to tour in the title role he originated in the Robert Wilson/Bernice Johnson Reagon opera The Temptation of St. Anthony (based on the Gustave Flaubert novel) which played to critical and popular acclaim throughout Europe and was widely lauded in its American premier last fall at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (“BAM”). St. Anthony will next be performed this winter at the Paris Opera. Rux has toured extensively throughout the U.S. and abroad with his own performance works. His newest multimedia piece, Mycenaean, is currently in evelopment at CAL ARTS and will have its world premiere next season at the Brooklyn Academy of Music/Next Wave Festival.

 

Rux Revue (Sony/Epic), his critically-acclaimed first CD, was voted one of the top ten alternative music CD’s of 1998 (New York Times/Year In Music), and his second CD Apothecary Rx is available on Giant Step records. Mr. Rux is also a guest host on WNYC's Soundcheck and an occassional host on WNPR, as well as a contributing commentator on XM radio’s The Bob Edwards Show. At present, he is completing his second novel, Negerplastik, based on the true story of an Afrocentric circus troupe in Germany’s Weimar republic. His poetic opera, Mycenaean, commissioned by the Washington Performing Arts Center,will have its NYC premiere at BAM in 2006. Carl Hancock Rux is the recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Prize; the NYFA Gregory Millard Playwright in Residence Fellow; the NEA/TCG Playwright in Residence Fellow; the Bessie Schomburg award;the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts (CalArts and was most recently selected as a 2005 recipient of the Brooklyn Arts Exchange’s BAX10 Arts & Artists in Progress Award.

 

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