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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
Ruxs 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 Centers artistic team.
Miami has such a diverse community and a rich history,
Rux commented. MPAC is exciting because of its opportunity to
reflect Miamis culture and history via the arts. Im 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 CDs 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 radios The Bob Edwards Show. At present, he is completing
his second novel, Negerplastik, based on the true story of an
Afrocentric circus troupe in Germanys 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 Exchanges BAX10 Arts & Artists in Progress Award.
Do you have an artist to recommend for a future ArtSpotlight? If
you do, contact ArtSpotlight@theArtsweb.com.
You can even recommend yourself!
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