Newhouse Center for the Performing Arts provided this statement: “WASTELANDIA is the culmination of a 10-year partnership with Delirious Dances, which began as our signature PASS residency program was founded and evolved throughout the pandemic,” says Melissa West, Director & Senior Curator of the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art. “It is especially meaningful to have Edisa Weeks and the company return to the Newhouse Center, where they will activate the galleries that they first used to create this work a decade ago. This project, through its dialogue with local environmental advocates and pre-show conversations, will leave audiences contemplating the environmental crisis impacting communities around the globe, and how dance can prompt us into action.”
Editor’s note: Staten Islander interviewed the dance company founder, Maria Bauman, about her performance, also at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, during their dance festival.
From the original invitation and release:
DELIRIOUS Dances’ World Premiere of WASTELANDIA is at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art in Long Island from September 19-28.
WASTELANDIA is a performance ritual constructed from recycled plastic that invites the audience to engage in a multi-layered visual and immersive experience. Through theater, dance, discussions, craft-making, and visual art, the audience is taken on an interactive journey that examines our dependency on fossil fuels and asks how we can be better stewards of the earth. WASTELANDIA is a mash-up between a DIY Haunted house, Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, and a dance performance.
DELIRIOUS Dances
The Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art and Creative Producer Lai-Lin Robinson present the World Premiere of WASTELANDIA
Part One of the 3 RITES Trilogy
September 19-28, 2025 | Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art
Snug Harbor Cultural Center, 1000 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, NY 10301
“A world constructed of recycled materials that invites the audience to engage in a multilayered visual and immersive experience. Through craft-making, visual art, theater, and dance, the audience is taken on an interactive journey to witness a land that can be sculpted, destroyed, and rebuilt again… with more plastic.”
– Dance Enthusiast, Touissant Jeanlouis
DELIRIOUS Dances, The Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art at Snug Harbor, and Creative Producer Lai-Lin Robinson present the World Premiere of WASTELANDIA on Friday and Saturday, September 19, 20, 26 and 27 with Creative Reuse Workshop at 6pm, and performance at 7pm; and Sunday, September 21 and 28 at Creative Reuse Workshop at 2pm and performance at 3pm, in four gallery spaces at the Newhouse Center located in Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden on Staten Island, NY at 1000 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, NY 10301. Tickets: $20 students/seniors, $30 general, $50 supporters, $75 rockstars. Each ticket supports the work and the community and can be purchased online at https://snug-harbor.org/event/wastelandia-by-edisaweeks-delirious-dances/.
WASTELANDIA is a performance ritual constructed from recycled plastic that invites the audience to engage in a multi-layered visual and immersive experience. Through theater, dance, discussions, craft-making, and visual art, the audience is taken on an interactive journey that examines our dependency on fossil fuels and asks how we can be better stewards of the earth.
WASTELANDIA is a mash-up between a DIY Haunted house, Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, and a dance performance. The experience begins in The Greenroom, which is an interactive educational space where the audience can:
- Participate in creative reuse workshops such as making beads out of plastic straws or musical instruments out of discarded objects in collaboration with Materials for the Arts.
- Color in a chalk mural depicting images and quotes by seven remarkable Black and Hispanic women who are social justice and environmental activists in the Staten Island Community: Debbie Anne Paige, Dorcas Meyers, Heather Butts, Jasi (Jasmine) Robinson, Kelly Vilar, Lori Love, Petula Gay
- Listen and/or participate in a discussion on how we can responsibly divest from fossil fuels, viable alternatives to fossil fuel based plastics, as well as the health implications of microplastics accumulating in
our brains and internal organs.
From The Greenroom, the audience traverses through an interactive tunnel of plastic (The Birth Canal); meets the spirit guardians and the trash behemoth (Spirit Room); and helps construct an installation (The Wasteland) out of plastic trash. The inhabitants of The Wasteland come together through Afro-Brazilian and Contemporary dance to forge a sense of community and empowerment; and to build The Wastelandia Gameshow, where two audience contestants are invited to answer multiple-choice questions about plastic consumption, recycling and alternatives. The Gameshow includes the presentation of a Green Award to the mural honorees.
WASTELANDIA began in 2015 during creative residencies at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art and Materials for the Arts. The premier in September 2025, will be the completion of a ten year journey. The project was initially titled 3 RITES Life and in 2024 the title was changed to WASTELANDIA to better reflect the intention of the rite. WASTELANDIA was also developed through creative residences at Chashama Space to Create; ChoreoQuest at RestorationART/The Billie Holiday Theatre; a remote pandemic residency with the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; as well as New York State Dance Force residencies at Topaz Arts and Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Additional residency support for 3 RITES Liberty and 3 RITES Happiness was provided by BRICLab; Dance in Process at Gibney Dance with funds provided by the Andrew Mellon Foundation; Mabou Mines SUITE/Space program; Maggie Allessee National Center for Choreography; Norte Maar @ Socrates Sculpture Park; and Performance Spaces for the 21st Century.
The 3 RITES Trilogy (Life, Liberty, Happiness) humorously and poignantly interrogates why life, liberty and happiness were included as unalienable rights in the United States Declaration of Independence. The trilogy explores what the right to life, liberty, and happiness means today, who has access to these rights, and how they manifest in the body. 3 RITES is a National Performance Network/Visual Artists Network (NPN/VAN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by 651 ARTS, Mount Tremper Arts, RestorationART, Kelly Strayhorn Theater, DancePlace and NPN/VAN. 3 RITES is made possible in part through funding from the Brooklyn Arts Council; Creative Capital; Durst Organization; The Harkness Foundation for Dance; MAP Fund; New Music USA; The New England Foundation for the Arts, National Dance Project which is generously supported with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and the Mellon Foundation; New Music USA; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; a PSC-CUNY Award, jointly funded by The Professional Staff Congress and The City University of New York; The Puffin Foundation; as well as through the sponsorship of The Field; and the generosity of individuals.
WASTELANDIA
Concept: Edisa Weeks
Choreography: Edisa Weeks in collaboration with the performers
Performers: EmmaGrace Skove-Epes, Javon “Ja’Moon” Jones, J’nae Simmons, Mars Garcia, Uilalani Marx
Guest Performers: Emil Troy, Idea Reid, Keb Barshack
Text: Edisa Weeks
Costume Design: Sarita Fellows
Associate Costume Designer: Brittani Beresford
Interactive Technology: Enddle
Lighting Design: Tim Cryan
Set Design: You-Shin Chen & Edisa Weeks
Sound Environment: LaFrae Sci
Mural Honorees and Green Award Recipients: Debbie Anne Paige, Dorcas Meyers, Heather Butts, Jasi (Jasmine) Robinson, Kelly Vilar, Lori Love, Petula Gay
Creative Advisor: James Scruggs
Creative Producer: Lai-Lin Robinson (2024-current); Marýa Wethers (2017-2024)
Community Engagement Coordinator: Maya Smith-Gilbert (2025-current), Maya Simone Z. (2021-2023), Rebecca Fitton (2017-2021),
Production Director: Violet Asmara Tafari
Illustration: Leo Jimenez
Banner Image: Wastelandia mural. Image Credit – DELIRIOUS Dances
Snug Harbor Cultural Center
Snug Harbor was founded with the execution of the will of Robert Richard Randall, heir to a shipping fortune, who died in 1801. The will required the family fortune and estate be used to build and operate a haven for “aged, decrepit, and worn-out sailors.” Today, Snug Harbor is a place where history, architecture, visual and performing arts, gardens, agriculture, and education come together and provide dynamic experiences for all ages. It is one of the largest ongoing adaptive reuse projects in America and is one of New York City’s unique architectural complexes and historic landscapes. Majestic buildings of classic architectural styles are home to exhibitions on historical subjects and contemporary art. Snug Harbor’s Music Hall is the one of the oldest concert halls in New York City. Fourteen distinctive botanical gardens are spread across the site and include the celebrated New York Chinese Scholar’s Garden and the Richmond County Savings Foundation Tuscan Garden, based on a 18th century garden in Florence, Italy. Snug Harbor is also is home to the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Snug Harbor Artist Residency Program (SHARP), Staten Island Museum, Staten Island Children’s Museum, Noble Maritime Collection, Art Lab, Children’s Harbor Montessori School, and Staten Island Conservatory of Music. Snug Harbor is also a proud Smithsonian affiliate.