In their latest devised theatre piece Don't Peek, Woof Nova Collaboration explores our mysterious, relationship with life after death through three interwoven tales that take place at the threshold between this world and the next. Don't Peek! continues our exploration of paranormal phenomena through this intriguing performance-hybrid where life's mysteries unfold and ghostly sightings abound. The show will close on March 7.
This beautifully handcrafted performance work combines objects and images, songs and gestures, original and found texts. The research process that accompanies the making of a piece draws on a variety of sources including mythology, philosophy, the natural and social sciences, alternative medicine, homespun recipes and visual art.
Woof Nova is made up of Temple Crocker, Annie Kunjappy, Daniel Allen Nelson and Morgan von Prelle Pecelli. They function as co-creators, co-directors, designers and performers. Temple and Annie have been collaborators since 1995 as Strangefruit Theatre Ensemble in San Francisco, performing in a number of Bay Area venues including ODC Performance Gallery and the Theatre of Yugen. They have been funded by the Zellerbach Family Fund and nominated for best direction and best costume design by the Bay Area Critics Circle. Since moving to the East coast they have worked with Daniel and Morgan on various projects in New York, Baltimore and Massachusetts, performing at the Ontological-Hysteric Theatre, La Mama, Baltimore Theatre Project and as part of the KO Festival of performance in Amherst. In July 2008 they decided to finally give the East Coast incarnation of their ensemble a name. Thus Woof Nova came into being.
As time, space and memory pass through the pinhole of death, events are upended in the camera obscura. Don't Peek.
Temple Crocker is a performer and educator currently residing in Baltimore, Maryland. She has worked extensively in the San Francisco Bay Area performing with multiple companies including Art Street Theater, Campo Santo, Torque Dance Theater and Pearl Ubungen Dancers and Musicians. In 1996 she co-founded the experimental performance ensemble Strangefruit. Since her move to the east coast she has presented work at spare room, CHELA, Creative Alliance and the Baltimore Theatre Project. For the past three years she has had an ongoing relationship with the Ontological-Hysteric Theater presenting new work at the Summer Series in 2005 and acting in Richard Foreman's ZOMBOID in the spring of 2006. Temple is currently a member of the theater faculty at Towson University and University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Annie Kunjappy has been devising original theatre since 1995 as Artistic Director of StrangeFruit Theatre Ensemble in San Francisco, and in various collaborations with Temple Crocker and Daniel Nelson at the Ontological Theatre in New York. She was nominated for best direction and costume design by the Bay Area Theatre Critics' Circle for Sewing Lessons, and was awarded best costume design for Funnyhouse of a Negro. Annie has performed and taught Motion Theatre, a physical impulse-based improvised narrative form, with its founder Nina Wise, in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, and is also part of Big Apple Playback Theatre. She works as a chef and teaches at the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts.
Daniel Allen Nelson is a theater-maker & performer, whose recent original works include Tongues & Hearts at LaMama (2008), Spoleum at Ontological-Hysteric Theatre in NYC (2006), and Baltimore Theater Project (2007), Sedimentary presented at OHT & Galapagos Art Space (2007), and Veils/Vestiges (2005) at OHT. His theatricalizations of poet Tom Breidendach's works: Pharmacose, and Bleat have also been staged at OHT & Galapagos. His scenography and puppet designs have been featured at various venues in NYC including St. Ann's Warehouse Puppet Lab, Mabou Mines, and LaMama. Regional Theater credits as a performer include: Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Ensemble Theater Co (Backstage West Garland Award), Guthrie Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Jungle Theater, Red Eye Collaboration, Center Stage Theater, and Baltimore Theater Project. He most recently performed in Idiot Savant at The Public Theater.
Morgan von Prelle Pecelli has been a curator, producer, anthropologist and performing artist in New York City and internationally since 1999. She is Director of Development at PS122. She is the Founder of the Lost Notebook, an arts initiative dedicated to discovering new ways of making compositional theater economically sustainable (www.lostnotebook.org). She served as the PRELUDE 08 Festival dramaturg and a curatorial advisor (www.preludenyc.org). She is on the Board of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater where she was the Managing and Programming Director from 2004 - 2006 and started the Ontological-Hysteric Incubator (www.ontological.com). She is completing her PhD in Anthropology at Columbia University.
