Marisa Blankier (Deviser, director) is a theatre artist and dog owner from Toronto. They are the Program Coordinator and an instructor at The Wooster Group’s experimental youth ensemble, The Summer Institute. Marisa has toured extensively as a Stage Manager and Tour Manager with theatre companies, live podcasts, and bands. Marisa trained at École Internationale de Théâtre Philippe Gaulier, and is a proud alumna of CalArts and Interlochen Arts Academy.

Modesto Flako Jimenez (Project Advisor) is a Bushwick-raised theater director, writer, poet, actor, producer, and educator. ATI & HOLA Award Winner, and profiled by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, Flako is best known for the original productions and three signature festivals – Ghetto Hors D’Oeuvres, One Catches Light, and Oye! Avant-Garde Night! – produced with his company Oye Group. Modesto is also an associated member of the Wooster Group, and the vice president of the board of Brooklyn Poets. Flako has appeared on TEDxBushwick, Comedy Central’sThe Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Favorite: Early Shaker Spirituals (Wooster Group), Last Night At The Palladium (Bushwick Starr/3LD), Yoleros (Bushwick Starr/IATI theater), Conversations Pt.1: How To Make It Black In America (JACK), Take Me Home (3LD/ Incubator Arts Project), Oye For My Dear Brooklyn (The Performing Garage), Furry by William Burke (Bushwick Starr), Samara by Richard Maxwell (SoHo Rep; dir. Sarah Benson). He is the 2016 Princess Grace Award Honorarium in Theater awardee. In 2018, he became the first Dominican-American Lead Artist in The Public Theater Under The Radar Festival with his show Oye For My Dear Brooklyn. www.oyegroup.org

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Aaron Landsman (Project Advisor) is an award-winning playwright, theater artist/performer, and teacher. His work includes site-specific productions in the kinds of places where people perform their lives: homes, offices, buses and meeting rooms, as well as more traditionally staged works. His 2016 work Empathy School/Love Story was the New York Times’ Critic’s Pick and Time Out New York’s Recommended Show. Landsman collaborated with many distinguished artists, including Elevator Repair Service (of which he is a company member), Clarinda Mac Low, Ogemdi Ude, director/dramaturg Mallory Catlett, designer/performer Jim Findlay, filmmaker/composer Brent Green, photographer Paul Shambroom, and others. Landsman’s work has been presented at many important venues and festivals in NYC and nationally, including Abrons Art Center, The Chocolate Factory Theater, EMPAC, and HERE Art Center, as well as internationally. He was a 2017-18 Guggenheim Fellow, 2014-16 Princeton Arts Fellow, and the recent ASU Gammage Residency Artist, as well as a Visiting Associate Professor at Princeton, and a recent finalist for the Alpert Award. www.thinaar.com

 

Perfect City is a 20-year art and activism working group created with New York City residents, urban planners, and social justice workers. Instigated in 2016 by Aaron Landsman and housed at Abrons Arts Center on the Lower East Side of New York City, its work includes performances, mapping exercises about belonging and avoidance, roundtable discussions, writing, and research on street harassment and gentrification. The group is supported by an Abrons Arts Center PATHS Social Practice Residency, and has received funding from LMCC's Creative Engagement, The Rubin Foundation, and the Jerome Foundation. Their work has been presented by Abrons Arts Center, Crossing The Line Festival, and The Architectural League, and published in Urban Omnibus and Arts Everywhere. http://perfectcity.org/

 

UP CLOSE 2019 features Perfect City members Tyler Diaz (Deviser, performer), Jahmorei Snipes (Deviser, performer) and Tiffany Zorrilla (Writer, performer).

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Jahmorei Snipes (Deviser, performer) is a native New Yorker raised in El Barrio who currently resides in Harlem. In 2018 she graduated from Marymount Manhattan College where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting with a minor in Political Science. She joined The Youth Channel at Manhattan Neighborhood Network Youth Media Center. During her undergraduate career, she continued to pursue her passion for artistic activism and joined Perfect City in January, 2017. 

 

Tiffany Zorrilla (Writer, performer) originates from the Dominican Republic. She writes and recites her poetry and has a strong interest in performance art driven by activism. She also loves singing and playing jazz music. She is a founding working group member, developed the performance piece Paint last year, and is working on new material for the Catcalling Project in the coming year. She is a Mellon-Mays scholar at CUNY. 

 

Tylor Diaz (Researcher) is a musician who focuses on composition and live jazz guitar. After studying at Hunter College, he became a music instructor at Abrons Arts Center. Tylor joined Perfect City in 2016 after attending a public event hosted by Perfect City and seeing how the wide-ranging effects of gentrification are important not only to him and his neighborhood but to all of New York City. As a Perfect City member, Tylor helps lead discussions on the lack of civic engagement and education in schools for the younger generation.