Kennedy Center Residency: Meet the Team

🤩🤩they don't get better than this🤩🤩

Author

Tristan Willis
January 20, 2023

Just as exciting as the residency itself are the incredible people I get to work with! I’m very lucky to know and have collaborated with Joan and navi on (some pretty sick) theatre in the past. They were the two people who immediately came to mind when I decided to create a multimedia, streamed performance about death (and loads of other things) during this residency.

Not only are they both experts in their various (and plentiful) disciplines, but they are curious, intentional in their craft, and insightful. I knew they’d be ideal for a collaborative and very short process like this. I also believe they enjoy process as much as the product itself, and would just be fun to create with.

Learn more about each of them below!!

Joan wears sunglasses and a big smile. The sun and a rainbow glow across her. They stand in a forest, a creek runs beside them.

Joan Cummins (she/they) is a deviser, public historian, and educator who has collaborated with Tristan since 2015. They like to build transformative interactive experiences, love conversations with children, and can't get enough of a good comfy couch. If you know any weird facts, she would also like to know them. Other engagements: work with The Arcanists, dog & pony DC, Young Playwrights’ Theater, and Signature Theatre. By day Joan fields questions about slavery and emancipation at President Lincoln's Cottage, your local genius loci and a home for brave ideas. You can catch her on the airwaves in their podcast Q&Abe, or hear her wax poetic about childhood favorite reads with Rebecca Speas in their show Tortallan (K)nights. 

navi smiles, looking off camera. their facial hair only covers the right side of their face, and he has only a left eyebrow. They rest their middle finger against their face, with a fabulous sparkly teal fingernail. Behind him are pink and blue lasers.

navi (he/they) is a non-binary Sri Lankan manymedia artist. A self taught creator, they've released five albums, and performed & toured as the lead vocalist for multiple bands. As a theater artist, they starred in & wrote the music for Pointless Theatre’s d0t:, and have devised on stage with The Arcanists (The Tarot Reading), We Happy Few (Frankenstein), Dog and Pony (Romeo and Juliet for the deafblind), and more! They're an alumni company member with Pointless Theatre, where - in addition to Art Making™ as a lighting designer, composer, sound engineer, performer, puppeteer, production manager, graphic designer & marketing content creator, they wrote Forest Tréas - an absurdist reflection on the 2002 DC Sniper crisis. Currently, they're running the R&D wing of Flying V as an Artistic Lead, exploring the vast reaches of performance, technology, and nerd culture! @/$yourlocalnavi