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Mondo Bizarro

New Orleans, LA

Mondo Bizarro has been creating original, multidisciplinary art and fostering partnerships in local, national and international communities for the past couple of decades. They are a group of artists that have committed to labor as an ensemble over several years with the goal of establishing a body of work inspired by a particular set of commonly shared aesthetic and civic values. They create, present, and produce a wide array of imaginative projects aimed at utilizing art as a tool for understanding what makes us commonly human and individually unique. Their work is intentionally multidisciplinary, ranging from physical theater to large-scale community festivals; from social media to site-specific productions. Everything they do is fueled by the desire to develop brave new works of art that illuminate the beauty and travails of the human condition.



Individual Bios

Nick Slie lives and works on the disappearing wetlands of coastal Louisiana.

Sean LaRocca has been ArtSpot Productions’ managing director and primary musical director since the late 90’s.

Millicent Johnnie is a choreographer and collaborator with Mondo Bizarro.

Cry You One


Mondo Bizarro is an artistic collective that creates original, multidisciplinary art and fostering partnerships in local, national and international communitie

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Nick Slie lives and works on the disappearing wetlands of coastal Louisiana.

Artist Bio

Millicent Johnnie is a choreographer and collaborator with Mondo Bizarro.

Artist Bio

Sean LaRocca has been ArtSpot Productions’ managing director and primary musical director since the late 90’s.

Artist Bio

Travel to the communities of Southeast Louisiana and witness how a woman’s fingers are the last vestiges of the earth she once tilled; her palms hold the final memory of a certain marsh. Louisiana is disappearing. It is breaking apart into the sea. The Gulf of Mexico, aided by sinking land and rising seas, has been swallowing this region at such a horrifying rate that a coastline that was a long-day’s boat ride away just 30 years ago may soon be the backdoor to the city of New Orleans. Cry You One is an outdoor performance and online platform inspired by the disappearing wetlands of Southeast Louisiana. Created by the award winning New Orleans companies ArtSpot Productions and Mondo Bizarro, Cry You One celebrates the people and cultures of Louisiana while turning a clear eye towards communities throughout the United States that are currently impacted by man-made or natural environmental concerns. Part song, part story, part procession for our lost land, Cry You One utilizes the unique music and stories of Louisiana to inspire connections between people working to steward the natural world wherever they live.


Award Year
2013
Status

Completed

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Nick Slie

New Orleans, LA

Nick Slie lives and works on the disappearing wetlands of coastal Louisiana. An actor, director, writer, educator and community activist, he is co-founder and co-artistic director of the New Orleans-based performance collective Mondo Bizarro. Nick’s performance work ranges from physical theater to multi-disciplinary solo work, from digital storytelling to collaborative ensemble productions. In the last two years, Slie has collaborated on a vast array of local and national performance projects, including as co-creator/performer for Mondo Bizarro’s Loup Garou, Flight and Catching Him In Pieces; co-creator/performer for the national tour of Uprooted: The Katrina Project; co-director for Olive Dance Theater’s Brotherly Love; co-producer of The State of the Nation Art and Performance Festival and co-creative director of Mondo Bizarro’s post-Katrina story project, The I-10 Witness Project. Nick is a frequent collaborator with ArtSpot Productions. He serves on the board for Alternate ROOTS and is the former board chair for the Network of Ensemble Theaters.



Member of:

Mondo Bizarro is an artistic collective that creates original, multidisciplinary art and fostering partnerships in local, national and international communitie

Johnnie-Millicent

Millicent Johnnie

New Orleans, LA

Millicent Johnnie is a choreographer and collaborator with Mondo Bizarro. A native of Lafayette, Louisiana, she received both her BFA and MFA in dance at Florida State University. She toured as resident choreographer and rehearsal director of the Urban Bush Women in New York City and has served as a choreographer for the New York City Opera, U.S. Cultural Ambassadors of Music, The Krannert Performance Arts Center, Grammy Award-winner Bill Summers, Los Hombres Caliente, and notable directors Peter Sellars, Rhodessa Jones and Chey Yew, to name a few. Millicent’s choreography has been featured by Cleo Parker-Robinson Dance, Hubbard Street II, The Alternate ROOTS Cultural Tour (Uprooted: The Katrina Project) and ESPN. Her work has been presented at venues such as Danspace Project,DANCENOW NYC, Dance Harlem, Joyce Soho, Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, The Yard at Lincoln Center, International Association for Blacks in Dance Conference (2000-02) and The New Orleans Jazz Dance Project. Johnnie teaches on the dance faculty at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX.



Member of:

Mondo Bizarro is an artistic collective that creates original, multidisciplinary art and fostering partnerships in local, national and international communitie

LaRocca-Sean

Sean LaRocca

New Orleans, LA

Sean LaRocca has been ArtSpot Productions’ managing director and primary musical director since the late 90’s. He is a New Orleans native and resident. His most recent projects are: Sea of Common Catastrophe, Cry You One,and Maria Kizito.



Member of:

Mondo Bizarro is an artistic collective that creates original, multidisciplinary art and fostering partnerships in local, national and international communitie