Photos: Valerie Oliveiro
Digital Program: Margaret Ogas | aegor ray
June 5-7, 2025 | Red Eye
New Works 4 Weeks Festival 2025
WELCOME
Thank you for gathering with us to witness performance offerings by 11 lead artists and many collaborators, shaped by this place and this time. We steward Red Eye’s space—located on unceded Dakota land in Mni Sota Makoce—as a community resource, and continue to hold the container of New Works 4 Weeks as a reliable point of connection in our arts community. Collective work feels crucial for building solidarity in this moment, and this year’s festival was nurtured by the five of us as an expanded collective of producers. We invite you to stay after each Friday for a multi-modal engagement developed in collaboration with the artists, and to bring your whole selves to experience and reflect on these works.
The work that you are experiencing tonight grows out of Isolated Acts, a program that has been nurturing the Twin Cities performance-making community since the early 90s. Each year we invite early and mid-career artists who wish to engage in dialogue around their creative process. These artists form a temporary community of practice, including varied backgrounds, aesthetics, and approaches to performance, but with a shared commitment to questioning artistic form and challenging dominant culture. Isolated Acts participants receive modest technical, production, and marketing support, as well as access to rehearsal space at Red Eye as available. Cohort members meet periodically over the program period for feedback showings, where each artist shares material from their process and participates in a feedback protocol that has been developed over Red Eye’s history.
New Works 4 Weeks continues for one more week! Please be sure to come back and join us for the final shared evening of performance this year, with Rachel Sadie Lieberman and Akiko. Details can be found below.
Thank you for bringing your presence, attention, and reflection to this place, and to the work of the incredible artists in this year’s festival.
Valerie, jess, Lelis, Emily, and Rebekah
NW4W Festival Producers Collective
Margaret Ogas
Manolo
Manolo (or, How to Feel Sexy When Every Single Thing is on Fire) was conceived sometime in 2023 on a plane ride home from California. I was returning from a trip that I would have never been able to afford without an artist grant and watching Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag while spaced out on motion sickness meds. A solo performance!!!
Since then, the world of Manolo has developed and transformed, grappling with questions around consumption, desire, and the relentless influence of market systems on our very core senses of self. It wasn’t until a few months ago that I uncovered my high school journals, and so many of these questions were met with newfound insight from my teenage self. Manolo doesn’t provide answers; it conjures a space for writing imaginary wishlists, laughing through despair, and dancing until the wheels fall off.
Biggest thanks to aegor, the Red Eye, Val, Emily, Alice, matt, Lelis, Rebekah, jess, Judee, Charles, Akiko, Rachel, Georgia, and myself for not losing my damn mind (yet).
Original text, sound editing, video editing, and set by Margaret Ogas
Features music by: Pitbull, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Bree Runway, N.O.R.E., Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, Mr. Flagio, Art Lown
Opening medley sound credits: Mariah Carey, Ginuwine, JUVENILE, Britney Spears, *NSYNC, Destiny’s Child, No Doubt, Kelis, Ciara, Fergie, Pitbull
Features audio clip from Sex And The City, “What Goes Around Comes Around” (2000)
Margaret Ogas is a dance artist working at the confluence of movement, storytelling, and experimental performance. Drawing from Chicana sensibilities, queer theory, and diasporic futurisms, her dances weave personal narrative with playful design to foster tender connections with audiences. Ogas is a 2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow and was a 2021 Naked Stages Fellow at Pillsbury House + Theatre. Her choreography has been presented throughout the Twin Cities at spaces such as the Walker Art Center, the Southern Theatre, the Cedar Cultural Center, and Red Eye Theater. Her projects have received support from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. Beyond her choreographic work, Margaret is a dedicated teaching artist, freelance performer, and grant writer. This fall, she will begin graduate school at UCLA to pursue an MFA in Choreographic Inquiry.
aegor ray
DAKSHINA
Collaborators: Sati Varghese Mac, BakiBakiBaki, Aurora Masum-Javed, Marcela Michelle, Paige Reynolds, Kristi Golden
Thank you so much to everyone who has touched this work with their conversations and support, including Yoni Tamang, Sachiko Ragosta, Oliver D. Allen, Moe Sierra Aidalinda, Josina Manu-Maltzman, Moheb Soliman, Chris Stedman, October Rowen, Gayatri, MJ Jamison, Yonci Jameson, AP Looze, my organizing collective SWIM, all of my queer friends in recovery, and all of my friends at the Los Campeones gym on Blaisdell <3
NW4W Embedded Writer
In 2025, current OMNIVERS artist and New Works 4 Weeks alumnus José A. Luis joins the festival as embedded writer. His writing practice, titled “Reflections,” meets the festival through a series of pieces surrounding the public performances.
Festival Staff
Red Eye Co-Artistic Directors: Valerie Oliveiro, Emily Gastineau, Rachel Jendrzejewski (on medical leave), Theo Langason (on sabbatical)
Festival Producers Collective: Rebekah Crisanta de Ybarra, jess pretty, Lelis Brito
Embedded Writer: José A. Luis
Co-Technical Managers: Alice Endo and matt regan
Lighting Designers: Heidi Eckwall (weeks 1 and 2), Alice Endo (weeks 2, 3, and 4)
Technical Lead: Valerie Oliveiro
Red Eye Communications: Emily Gastineau, with Rebekah Crisanta de Ybarra
Liminal Space Technician: matt regan
House Manager and Operations Associate: Jeffrey Wells
Financial Consultant: Margot Bassett Silver
Grantwriting Associate: Lee Petre
Development Associate: Alayna Barnes
Special Thanks
Garvin Jellison
Minnesota Opera
Karen Quisenberry
Rebekah Crisanta de Ybarra
Open Eye Theatre
Public Functionary
Red Eye Board of Directors
Karen Quisenberry
David W. Kelley
Rachel Mattson
Jinza Thayer
John Marks
Sara Shives
New Works 4 Weeks Continues!
New Works 4 Weeks:
Rachel Sadie Lieberman | Akiko
June 12-14, 2025
SUPPORT RED EYE
Water is life and sustenance. Walk with us by jumping in The Reservoir! The Reservoir is a group of committed donors who are deepening Red Eye's sustainability—making fertile space for creative and collective process to flourish. Anyone can join The Reservoir by signing up for a monthly recurring donation!
Of course, we're forever grateful for one-time donations, too! You can support online through GiveMN. Red Eye also can receive contributions through PayPal, Venmo (@supportredeye), and by mail (2213 Snelling Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55404).
Every bit counts, and adds up! Thank you so much for being part of Red Eye!
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. This Cultural Districts Arts Fund activity is funded, in part, by the Arts & Cultural Affairs Department at the City of Minneapolis. New Works 4 Weeks 2025 is additionally made possible by grants from the Jerome Foundation and The McKnight Foundation.