2022 BAX AIR Work in Progress: Andrea Ambam

Rehearsing Justice is a one-woman show that follows the journey of a time-traveling Ida B. Wells.

This is a livestream via Vimeo of the work .

Rehearsing Justice is a one-woman show that follows the journey of a time-traveling Ida B. Wells embarking on a 21st century anti-lynching crusade. After being invoked into the future by cries from the present, Ida endeavors on an investigative mission of police brutality (just as she did with lynchings in the 1900s), coming in contact with some of the most transformative figures and moments in the Black Lives Matter Movement along the way. Rehearsing Justice, both a historical and afro-futuristic crusade, is a theatrical transmedia storytelling experience that explores the technology of social justice through a collage and collision of time. In this oral history, sci-fi and social commentary are converged through the one and only, Ida B. Wells.

This performance was created to center a Black audience. All are welcome to attend, but this space will invoke the words of W.E.B. Du Bois that Black theatre should be “about us, for us, by us, & near us” and uplift Black-identifying people as the ideal audience and community for this engagement.

Conceived, Written, and Performed by Andrea Ambam

Directed by Dria Brown

Featured Artist Maya Carter

About the Artist: Andream Ambam

Andrea Ambam (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based performance artist and playwright whose roots sprout from Cameroon. As a politically engaged storyteller who interrogates the art’s potential for movement building and transformative justice, Andrea pulsates at the intersection of performance and truth-telling— creating theatrical experiences where Black identity fills, overwhelms, and disrupts the center; and where justice, that is denied by the state, can be reimagined and rehearsed in the body. Her current work is rooted in an artistic vision to investigate and modernize “anti-lynching plays” and often features the manipulation of time, poetic text, and ethnographic material as a form of political reclamation.

About the AIR Program
BAX Artists in Residence (AIR) Works-in-Progress, featuring Andrea Ambam, Yo-Yo Lin, Shenny de Los Angeles, and Jessie Young, will be streamed on Saturday and Sunday, February 5 and 6 followed by live Q&A between the audience and artists, moderated by BAX’s Artist Advisors nia love and Abby Browde. BAX AIR Works in Progress is the second presenting installment in a series of creations as part of BAX’s Artist in Residence program.

The exceptional artists who participate in the AIR program at BAX are provided with an artistic home base for a one to two year period, offering them a tangible sense of permanence and place. BAX AIR is tailored to each artist’s unique needs, process and artistic practice. Its structure develops peer support, collaborative problem-solving and constructive criticism. Each 2021/22 Artist in Residence receives 300 free hours of rehearsal space per year and an annual stipend. Learn more at bax.org/artists-in-residence.

About BAX
BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange is a multigenerational arts organization nurturing creative expression and artistic process through education, residencies, and performance at the intersection of arts and social justice.