Requiem for a Stranger

AT NEW ORLEANS' CONTEMPORARY ARTS CENTER (2019-22)

Requiem for a Stranger is an expansive work of music, movement-theater, interactive design, and sacred spaces created by Jennifer Sargent's physical theater company Vagabond Inventions and Singer-Composer Renee Benson. This episodic, ensemble-devised project explores the wild heartspace of grief.

Requiem was conceived in 2019 and devised from inside the pandemic’s tide of loss. The work draws inspiration from texts by adrienne maree brown, Rainer Maria Rilke, the healer Martín Prechtel, and the creators’ intimate losses to conjure an epic love song for the stage.

“The work is powerful; Benson’s vocals are haunting.” 

Laurie Uprichard, Executive Artistic Director, Firkin Crane, Cork, Ireland

“I was holding my breath throughout. The performance really speaks to the process we all go through when we grieve.” 

Carly Rogers, Social Worker serving young people in Jefferson Parish

“Really profound”... and provokes reflections
around our “cultural survival mechanisms.” 

Jon Greene, Director of theater company, The Radical Buffoons

“Requiem is a vital, investigative, and deeply moving work.”

Frank Davis, former Program Director of the Contemporary Arts Center

“It's truly spectacular - the depth and craft... Each character inhabiting a particular part of the process of grief, with its own sonic and environmental journey.”

Donna Costello, Dance Artist, NYC

Creative Team

Co-Conception: Renee Benson and Jennifer Sargent
Performers: Renee Benson, Jessica Donley, Melanie Greene, and Jennifer Sargent
Directed by: Jennifer Sargent
Music Composed by: Renee Benson 

Design by: Jeff Becker

Devising Dramaturg: Madison Krekel

Costume Design by: Ja'nese Brooks-Galathe

Anti-Colonial Dramaturg: Alaina Comeaux

Physical Dramaturg: Penelope McCourty

Social Justice & Producing Consultant: Renellta Arluk

Production Manager: India MackDevised collaboratively by Tricia Anderson, Jeff Becker, Renee Benson, Grace Booth,

Jessica Donley, Melanie Greene, Madison Krekel, Jalisa Roberts, Jennifer Sargent, 

Shannon Stewart, and Mahalia Abéo Tibbs

Gorgeous Offerings

Conceived and Directed by Renee Benson

Co-produced by India Mack and Jennifer Sargent​

Supported by the Contemporary Arts Center's Inter[SECTOR] Residency

The “Gorgeous Offerings”address the manifestation of the Grief Body within the Black and Indigenous community in New Orleans and beyond. The Offerings are a series of community rituals and healing spaces that, together, form a transmedia storytelling project offering an array of resources across a year-long Inter[SECTOR] residency at New Orleans' Contemporary Arts Center. These events include: the experimental film, "The Black Ophelia," accompanied by community dialogue around Black women’s birthright to fragility in mourning; integrative health sessions led by staff from the Center for Mind Body Medicine; and workshops on “Grief Mapping” and anti-colonial/ anti-capitalist relationships to land and grief led by Raconteur Alaina Comeaux. The Offerings seek to draw a broad community into a process of honoring and healing our community’s losses.

More about the Gorgeous Offerings:

Fall 2021-Fall 2022

The Offerings address and respond to the particular burden of grief and loss held in the BIPOC community. This burden includes the devastating impact of Covid-19 compounded by layers of accumulated, embodied stress and disruptions to communal forms of mourning and healing. This project specifically addresses the manifestation of the “Grief Body” within the Black and Indigenous community, and the dearth of adequate, accessible resources for healing on the terms of these communities – especially inside the ongoing crisis of the global Covid-19 pandemic.

These events include: 

• The episodic experimental film The Black Ophelia, accompanied by community dialogue around Black women’s birthright to fragility in mourning

• Integrative somatic health sessions led by staff from the Center for Mind Body Medicine

• Workshops in “Grief Mapping” and anti-colonial relationships to the land led by Raconteur Alaina Comeaux.

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