banished? productions is an avant-pop performance company that generates immersive interdisciplinary art experiences for all, to re-create wonder and re-awaken the senses. It is committed to producing quality work that cull from multiple artistic expressions, particularly in performative or theatrical experiments that play with text and form. banished? strives to inspire and collaborate with other artists in order to fuel its own artistic process: re-discovering and re-inventing the art of narration.
banished? is headed by co-founders Carmen C. Wong (Artistic Director, Producer), Niell DuVal (Technical Director, Producer) and Levia C. Lew (Resident Set & Lighting Designer).
Company members include: Stephanie Davio (Asst. Producer & Performer), Melissa Krodman (Producing Performer), Carrie Monger (Dancer & Choreographer), Susanna Oentorodottir (Stage Manager), Ayo Okunseinde (Video & New Media Artist), Otis C. Ramsey-Zöe (Dramaturg), Glynnis Vance (Costumer), Sam Vick-McGill (Chef).
banished? productions is a proud member of Fractured Atlas. You can read our featured profile here. We also love to be stalked on Facebook and we hang out on Vimeo too.
Carmen C. Wong is an art-junkie who hails from Singapore. She was recently awarded a DCCAH Young Artist grant for Walk With Me an alternative audio walk depicting DC artlife beyond the monuments. A self-confessed appropriator and provocateur, her directorial dabblings include events with the Phillips Collection for This is not That Cafe (2009), highlights from My Comic Valentine (2009), the story-telling machine Ballades Mechaniques (ver 1.0 in 2007, ver 2.0 in 2010), bobrauschenbergamerica (2007), Pablo Picasso's Desire Caught by the Tail (2006) and Oscar Wilde's Salome (2004). She got her start in interdisciplinary performance stage-managing Constanza Macras' Back to the Present (2003) by Dorky Park & SophiensŸle in Berlin, Germany. ccw@banishedproductions.org
Niell DuVal is currently in his ninth season at the Arena Stage as a full-time props artisan. Niell has also been a props artisan for the Shakespeare Theatre and the Kennedy Center. His work has been commissioned by television programs, museums and has traveled on to Broadway (33 Variations, Next to Normal) and other theatrical institutions in the Greater Washington and Baltimore area. A selection of his work was featured in the exhibit Theatrical Artisans: Props and Crafts from DC Theatre (2005) at the Montpelier Cultural Arts Center. Before his move to DC, Niell co-founded a handcrafted-boomerang company in his hometown of Fayetteville, Arkansas. jnd@banishedproductions.org
Levia C. Lew is a principal at an architectural lighting firm in New York City and has worked as the resident Gallery Lighting Designer for the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Other past theatrics include serving as a lighting assistant for the Shakespeare Theatre, a lighting fellowship at Arena Stage, lighting for Roxi in 3-D with Elvis (Baltimore Theatre Project) and associate lighting design for Siguiriya (LaMama ETC, NY). She holds a B.A. in art history and an M.F.A. in lighting and set design from Illinois State University. lcl@banishedproductions.org