Mission

UpRise! Productions aims to affect social change through performance and empowerment education

Vision

A World Without Walls

Collaborating Members

Project Summary

The purpose of the “Rebellious Creativity” Project is for this cutting edge multi-media production company to create, produce, and perform two original works (one in the fall, one in the spring) in the upcoming budget year of 2008-2009. The goal of the “Rebellious Creativity” Project is for the company to showcase it’s two next original works, the multi-genre “I Am The Collaboration” and “Windows” a predominantly movement based multi-media work.

“I Am The Collaboration” will be created in partnership with the National Spoken word artists “The Universes” and the New York-Austin based dance company prodigy of Donald Byrd: Wideman/Davis Dance. The piece will debut in Pro Arts Collectives’ Black Arts Movement in October of 2008. This work will explore those lost in the sanity of self, harboring the baggage of past loves, mistakes, horrors to the human spirit and flesh. We are all bound by the chains of slavery, privilege, and love not marked by gender, race, religion, or money. “I Am The Collaboration” seeks to challenge, examine, explode, and recapture the heart, the humanism in us all. From the march of a proud black man wearing a confederate suit carrying his confederate flag to the child of Cajun love forced to chose sides at family reunions, this is but a mere taste of the stories that Uprise! Productions will explore in this new multi-lingual, multi-discipline, performance piece. As with every UpRise! Production, no taboo is safe from examination. “I Am The Collaboration” shouts “We love when the heart has been opened and allowed to beat freely to it’s own rhythm”.

UpRise! Productions intends to debut its’ multi-genre movement based production “Windows” to the newly crafted Long Center in the spring of 2009. “Windows” unfolds the intersection of six individuals’ stories using only gestures, projected and whispered text. Incorporating film, sign language, music and movement based expression, UpRise! Productions will deliver a captivating and soul-stirring experience for Austin audiences. Stories will be crafted and directed by Uprise! Productions’ Co-Artistic Director Zell Miller III in collaboration with Managing Director/Choreographer Ananda Mayi Moss.

Organizational History

UpRise! Productions: The Root of Rebellious Creativity, was founded in 2005 as a collaboration between members of several established arts groups in Texas including Xenogia Spoken Word Collective, Capoiera Da Rua, Ballet East Dance Company, Cry Havoc Action Choreography, Public Offenders, and Blacklisted Individuals. This diverse band of alchemists blend artistic genres deeply rooted in a framework of social justice. UpRise! transcends the confines of difference through a multidisciplinary performing arts group that aims to affect social change through performance and empowerment education.

UpRise! Productions has performed at Austin’s First Night, Pro Arts Collective’s Black Arts Movement, The National Poetry Slam, Hot September Flurries, Make It Wet Spit Fest, the Austin City MLK Celebration at the Vortex Theater, UT Queer Conference, Austin Latino Theater Alliance, African-American Families in Technology Conference, The Urban Speak launch party, Austin Black History Month Kick Off event, and the Hip Hop Theater Explosion. UpRise! Productions’ piece “Power is Yours: Take It Or leave It” won “Best of the Fest” at Frontera Fest 2006.