SAME AS SISTER

RESIDENCY:
OCTOBER 8 2024 – JANUARY 17 2025
Premiering 2026 

Led by twin choreographers Hilary Brown-Istrefi and Briana Brown-Tipley, Same As Sister (S.A.S.) is a New York City- and Toronto-based performance collective celebrating 11 years of collaborative and interdisciplinary storytelling. Their performance and film commissions have been presented and screened internationally at The Citadel: Ross Centre for Dance (Toronto); Base: Experimental Arts + Space (Seattle); Archaeological Museum of Messenia (Greece); Centre d’Art Marnay Art Centre (France); Danspace Project, BRIC, and New York Live Arts (NYC), among other venues. S.A.S. is currently a commissioned collective in the HERE Artist Residency Program and Guest Curators at Dancemakers, supporting the creation of UPSTAIRS, IN OUR BEDROOM, slated to premiere in 2026. Dance/choreography awards include Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts’ 2022 Dora Mavor Moore Award Nominee for Outstanding Production (THIS IS NOT A REMOUNT); Jerome Foundation’s 2021-22 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow Finalist and Alternate; Foundation for Contemporary Arts’ Emergency Grantee (2022 and 2017); Queens Council on the Arts’ Queens Arts Fund 2020 New Work Grantee; and New York State Council on the Arts’ New York Foundation for the Arts 2019 Artist Fellow.

UPSTAIRS, IN OUR BEDROOM is an autobiographical performance that radically reimagines Same As Sister’s experiences as female identical twins of color next to those of outsider authors, June and Jennifer Gibbons (a.k.a. The Silent Twins). Utilizing dance, text, VR technology, and puppetry, they will reveal the powerful and painful intersections between twinship, blackness, madness, and art-making.

During their two-week residency at IRT, Same As Sister will be delving deeper into their research and development for UPSTAIRS, IN OUR BEDROOM, working closely with dramaturg Susan Mar Landau, performers Peggy Piacenza and John Pickup, and sound designer Arjuna Meadows.

UPSTAIRS, IN OUR BEDROOM is being developed through the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP), NYC, with additional support from Dancemakers, Toronto. The project was developed in part during a 2022-2023 Plug-N-Play Residency at Toronto Dance Theatre.

IRT Theater is a grassroots laboratory for independent theater and performance in New York City, providing space and support to a new generation of artists. Tucked away in the old Archive Building in Greenwich Village,  IRT’s mission is to build a community of emerging and established artists by creating a home for the development and presentation of new work.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York State Legislature; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council; A.R.T./New York’s NYC Small Theatres Fund made possible with support from the Howard Gilman Foundation & support for ASL interpretation provided in part through funding from Access A.R.T./New York.

ACCESS: IRT is a fully wheelchair-accessible facility. Please reach out to Kori Rushton if you have any accessibility questions or concerns, krushton@irttheater.org