Sara Juli’s Naughty Bits (Work-in-progress performance)
7:00pm, 6:30 doors
$20 day of show
$2 off for SPACE members
Acclaimed solo-performance artist Sara Juli brings her signature style of movement fused with text, comedy and an ’80s-inspired visual design for a work-in-progress piece.
Sara Juli’s Naughty Bits is a performance piece that explores the impacts of trauma on the brain stemming from sexual assault as a child. Interweaving regressed thinking with a conflicted inner voice, coupled with finding the humor in the tragic, the work breaks down victimhood to ultimately reclaim the mind. Naughty Bits is for the child who did nothing wrong.
With visual design by Dirty Bandits, Devon Kelley-Yurdin and Justin Moriarty; dramaturgy by Michelle Mola and costume by Carol Farrell.
This showing of the piece in development will include an audience discussion with the artist on process, feedback, and dialogue.
Content warning: This work contains material related to sexual trauma and assault.
Disclaimer: As this is a work-in-progress, some of the above elements will not yet be a part of this performance.
Naughty Bits has been commissioned by the Strand Theatre in Rockland, Maine, through their New Century Series with additional support from the Maine Arts Commission, and the American Rescue Plan Maine Project Grants, a subgranting program administered by SPACE for the National Endowment for the Arts. Naughty Bits residency support was also provided in part by New England Foundation for the Arts’ New England Dance Fund, with generous support from the Aliad Fund at the Boston Foundation.
More press about Sara Juli can be found here:
“A truly generous performance” – The New York Times
“Clearly a multifaceted performer, Juli infuses her comedy with dance and her dance with comedy.” – Dance Informa
“Sara Juli…flows with absorbing comic ease that segues into moments of pathos” – The Stage”
Sara Juli has been creating and performing comedic dance-theater for two decades. Her ability to hold an audience’s attention with abrupt changes in style reflects that experience.” – Theaterreviewsfrommyseat
Photo credit: Grant Halverson
Sara Juli has been creating and performing innovative comedic dance-theater for over two decades. She has toured around the world including American Dance Festival, Performance Space New York, New York Live Arts, Bowdoin College, Bates Dance Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Melbourne Fringe Festival, Noorderzon Festival Gronigen, and many more. Her work has received support from Maine Arts Commission, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, New England Foundation for the Arts Expeditions, New England Dance Fund, NEST Touring, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and National Dance Project in 2019. Sara was the 2017 Maine Fellow for the Performing Arts awarded by the Maine Arts Commission. Her solo work has been commissioned by American Dance Festival (NC), Performance Space New York (NYC), SPACE Gallery, (ME), Portland Ovations (ME) and Dixon Place (NYC). Sara is an Affiliated Artist of Bates College. She lives in Falmouth, Maine, on the traditional lands of the Wabanaki people, with her husband and two children, and currently sits on the Falmouth District’s School Board.