StoryFest 2024 - Showcase:
Off-Kilter Cabaret
2:40-3:35 - Black Box Theater
The Off-Kilter Cabaret, now in its third year, is the new Twin Cities multi-disciplinary performance program designed to highlight, celebrate and support artists with disabilities. Produced by Off-Leash Area, the Off-Kilter Cabaret curates new and original work by artists with visible and invisible disabilities into events that are accessible to both performers and audience. Here at StoryFest, you'll see artists from the 2023 cabaret. A discussion will follow the showcase.
Off-Kilter is a cabaret and performance program conceived and created in March of 2020 by Jennifer Hupfer-Ilse and Paul Herwig, artistic directors of venerable and award-winning theatre company Off-Leash Area: Contemporary Performance Works. Off-Kilter is designed to highlight and support artists with disabilities, and to give space, voice and agency to artists with disabilities in the design and leadership of the program. Off-Kilter’s 2022 and 2023 performances were curated, cabaret-style shows that featured 7 artists with disabilities ranging in artistic and creative mediums; accessibility for the audience included ASL interpretation, audio description and live captioning. As this program develops and expands, its goals include providing artistic development and support to artists in the disability community, and bringing greater attention to the need for visibility, adaptability and inclusion in the arts arena.
To follow along with Off-Kilter news, visit www.offleasharea.org/about-off-kilter.html.
Desdamona
Desdamona is an internationally known, award-winning poet & hip hop artist. She has traveled the US & abroad, touring and leading workshops, and working in over 300 schools and prisons. She co-founded B-Girl Be, a celebration of women in Hip Hop that took place in Minneapolis between 2005 and 2011. Des has been featured on eight French releases and has toured France, as well as collaborating with international Grammy award winners Sly & Robbie. In 2014, Des was chosen to feature in a national "Back to School" campaign for Kmart as a rapping lunch lady. She’s created commissioned work for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, as well as lyrics for the WNBA Detroit Shock theme song. Desdamona’s 2016 release No Man’s Land features an all-female cast of singers, poets and emcees from the Twin Cities. Listen here: www.desdamona.bandcamp.com.
Houa Moua
Houa Moua (She/Her) is a comedian and lifelong lover of the performing arts. Currently the Billing Assistant at Metropolitan Center for Independent Living, she is an advocate for disability justice in her community. As a Hmong woman with a disability, the act of navigating multiple layers of marginalized spaces fostered her outgoing and resilient spirit, as well as her desire to put an end to ableism, racism, and the patriarchy. Houa’s visibility and presence have been steadily growing in the Twin Cities since 2020, in productions such as The Kung Fu Zombies Saga (Theatre Mu), Face to Face: Hmong Women's Experience (Park Square Theater), Stories Exploring Disability and Theater (Full Circle Theater), and most notably in her stand-up comedy with the Funny Asian Women Kollective. She’s excited to make her StoryFest debut.
Amy Salloway
Actor, writer and storyteller Amy Salloway is a big fan of the Venn Diagram spot where live performance, human connection and social change overlap. Her award-winning autobiographical solo plays -- “Does This Monologue Make Me Look Fat?,” "So Kiss Me Already, Herschel Gertz!,” and “Circumference” -- have toured to theatre festivals, colleges and communities across the US and Canada, and she’s contributed personal stories to radio programs on MPR, CBC, and the hit podcast “Risk!” Amy teaches memoir and narrative writing through Minneapolis Community Ed, and is the Midwest instructor for The Story Studio (the educational arm of Risk!). Until the pandemic wielded its ugly sword, Amy hosted Story Club Minneapolis one Thursay a month at the Bryant-Lake Bowl; she’s currently contemplating the options for a live, streaming or combination reboot. Amy is honored to be a founder and leadership team member of Off-Kilter, helping to establish greater visibility and opportunity for artists with disabilities. For more scoop on what Amy’s doing, visit www.facebook.com/awkwardmomentonstage
Scott Sorenson
Scott Paul Sorensen is a passionate and kind 27 years young man from Roseville, Minnesota. A puppeteer, artist and tuba player, Scott feels connected to the world by the arts that inspire him. Puppetry helped Scott learn to speak, and today it helps him understand social situations. Scott graduated from Irondale High School in 2015, and currently works part-time for Goodwill Industries and at Interact Center for Visual and Performing Arts, where he writes scripts and creates puppets for performance and therapy. In addition, Scott loves to travel, plays in a band, makes pottery, and swims for Special Olympics Minnesota. He is an adoring big brother to his sister, Mur.