Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Domino Park in Williamsburg has launched a new free four-week performance art series. It's called Sugar, Sugar!, and It launches on June 4th. Domino, sugar, get it? The performances will happen at Domino Square, and the programming features all different kinds of art, from dance to jazz to interactive theater to an artistic meditation on horseshoe crabs. Joining me now to preview the first-ever Sugar, Sugar! series is Annabel Thompson, co-founder of the creative strategy and producing group Public Assembly. Hi, Annabel.

Annabel Thompson: Hi. Thank you so much for having us.

Alison Stewart: Also joining us is Ellpetha Tsivicos, I hope I got your last name right, founder of the production company One Whale's Tale. They work together to bring the series to life. Hi, Ellpetha.

Ellpetha Tsivicos: Hi. It's Ellpetha Tsivicos. I had to do that, but I'm really happy to be here.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] Ellpetha Tsivicos.

Ellpetha Tsivicos: Yes, that's closer.

Alison Stewart: We're closer. Annabel, why do the folks at Domino Park and Domino Square want to launch this event series?

Annabel Thompson: Sugar, Sugar! really started with the site itself, the former Domino Sugar refinery, where, of course, our series takes its name. It's this new outdoor amphitheater space in Domino Park, which is this super unique outdoor performance space that has this dramatic backdrop of the city's skyline and the East River and Williamsburg Bridge. We just envisioned activating the site in this tradition of a town square by inviting local arts organizations and independent curators and art makers to bring their own creative experimentation into the space and present work that's really being made locally in North Brooklyn and the city.

Alison Stewart: Ellpetha, what made you excited about working at this venue?

Ellpetha Tsivicos: It was like a dream venue. Annabel approached me in the late summer right before the amphitheater had been completed. A lot of my work is site-specific. It's in public parks and community gardens. Annabel knows that and has seen a lot of my work. She invited me to partner with her on this. When I saw the space, I thought it was a dream come true. It has a huge capacity, which means a ton of people get to come. You have the New York City skyline behind you. You can see all three bridges, and you're close to water, which is something we barely ever get to experience in New York.

For me, making art approachable-free is literally the dream. I think right now, but really always, people so desperately need art. With pretty much every institution facing massive budget cuts, as well as independent production companies across the board, the arts are going through a real, we could call it, transformation. I feel like this is the greatest gift in the world, being able to co-curate this with Annabel and bring so many different types of art to so many different people.

Alison Stewart: Annabel, you invited some guest curators to help out with the programming. Who did you want to invite?

Annabel Thompson: North Brooklyn is just such a rich history of being home to some of the leading experimental organizations and curators. We went directly to National Sawdust, of course, and Theresa Buchheister, the former artistic director of the Brick Theater, Sasha Okshteyn, and others.

Alison Stewart: Ellpetha, let's talk about the opening night, Wednesday, June 4th. There'll be two performances. Let's start with Niall Harris. For those who aren't familiar with Niall Harris's work, what makes him so special?

Ellpetha Tsivicos: I think Niall's voice is just very irreverent and present. He speaks his mind. I think it's just really needed right now because I think the more we see people just being honest about their perspectives, the more people relate to them. Niall Harris was brought in via Theresa, who, as Annabel just said, was the former artistic director of the Brick Theater and a longtime mentor to pretty much everyone in the downtown theater community. Niall was a part of the Devised Theater Working Group at the Public Theater a few years ago and has just had a really interesting and exciting career, so we were really excited by that suggestion from Theresa and totally went for it.

Alison Stewart: It sounds like his piece was very inspired by the architecture of Domino Park.

Ellpetha Tsivicos: Yes. Well, we wanted the artists to do whatever they wanted in the space. One thing that I felt was really important when I began these dialogues with the different artists is I wanted to try to reframe the way that we approach art in New York City because, as an artist myself, I can say that the first point of contact is always about money. Because we need it, we all need it desperately. New York City is a cutthroat city. It's a tough place to live, and it's the best place in the world simultaneously.

With all of the artist dialogues, what I tried to do was say, "What's your dream? Here's the space. What do you want to do? What's inspiring you about it? What have you been thinking about? What have you been working on?" From that is how we kind of started with all of the artists, and where we landed is where we'll see if you come to all of the commissions in June.

I really do believe that things change by the way that you live your life every day. I wanted to facilitate those dialogues very specifically in hopes of, in a tiny, tiny way, yielding something different, something that's really, really truthfully about inspiration. For Niall, it was about the architecture. If we go through all of the different artists, everyone took a different little thing away from the space; its history, its location, what they've been thinking about themselves as artists. It's really colorful and vibrant.

Alison Stewart: Annabel. On June 4th, there's a special dance performance. What can you tell us about This Could Be You?

Annabel Thompson: Lisa and Lena are part of that first show with Niall, all guests curated by Theresa Buchheister. Their piece is shifting, and it's really a work in progress along with Niall. We're really excited to bring in that experimentation and improvisation to the space.

Alison Stewart: We are talking about Sugar, Sugar!, happening this June at Domino Park on the Williamsburg waterfront. Events are free. They'll run from June 4th through June 28th. My guests are co-curators Annabel Thompson and Ellpetha Tsivicos. Ellpetha, Juneteenth is going to happen right in the middle of the festival. I understand there's a special performance called The Revival: It Is Our Duty. How does it celebrate Juneteenth?

Ellpetha Tsivicos: I think this is a better one for Annabel to answer because she's been working with Troy for a lot longer than I have.

Alison Stewart: Go for it, Annabel.

Annabel Thompson: Yes. My team had the privilege of working on this original commissioning of this piece, and it's a joy to see it in its next phase. The Fire Ensemble is an intergenerational choir community centered around BIPOC and queer folks, who rehearse in workshop and perform large-scale music and rituals rooted in predominantly Black musical styles. Their work is really centered around the process and space of community that is built through gathering. We're super excited to be presenting this piece in celebration of the Juneteenth holiday.

Alison Stewart: Who can I ask about the horseshoe crabs?

Ellpetha Tsivicos: You can ask me.

Alison Stewart: All right.

Ellpetha Tsivicos: I also wanted to say quickly about Lisa and Lena. There's a very special surprise appearance of my almost 25-year-old convertible PT Cruiser on the stage.

Alison Stewart: [laughs]

Ellpetha Tsivicos: It's not to be missed, but we can talk about Eli Nixon and the horseshoe crabs. Eli Nixon's an incredible performer that does what they call suitcase theater. I was a part of the Devised Theater Working Group with them last year at the Public Theater and had the privilege of watching their piece develop. It was Absolutely beautiful.

Eli's work is something that I think you can be 4 years old or 60 years old to appreciate. It's visual. They work with all different types of costumes, but they also really lean into digressions and dialogue. They're able to tie in their environmentalism, because Eli's an activist, and he's really into the environment and does really interesting site-specific environmental work.

The way that they tie that into a playfulness of how ridiculous it is to be human, how small we are, but you know that we're still on this earth. Eli loves to interact with the audience. They do this thing called nature drag, which is really about embodying nature, different characters from nature. Horseshoe crabs is one of them. You're just going to laugh, but also be really deep in a philosophical thought process of like, "The horseshoe crab is one of the oldest creatures that's still walking this earth."

They use the blood of the horseshoe crab for a lot of vaccines and pharmaceutical research. Eli ties this prehistoric creature into modern times and in a humble way of us being small, but them being so big in terms of the history of the earth. Then you laugh the whole time because Eli's just a clown.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] Sugar, Sugar! is happening this June at Domino Park on the Williamsburg waterfront. Events are free, and they run from June 4th through June 28th. Annabel and Ellpetha, thank you so much for joining us.

Annabel Thompson: Thank you so much, Alison. We love WNYC.

Ellpetha Tsivicos: Thanks, Allison.