Event

Wicked King Lion

Wicked King Lion
Created by Ben Van Buren
with Moira Luna *), Ishmael Houston-Jones, Jesse Hart & Emma Hoette

Wicked King Lion comes at the end of 5 years spent working outside in the Times Square area. It is a look at how the area has changed over the past few decades. We will go out of the theater to meet locals, and we will go into the theater to watch them perform.

Over the past 20 some odd years Times Square has undergone Massive sea changes. This work comes from extensive interviews with people who have spent many years witnessing those changes first hand. Wicked King Lion is an imagining of a different kind of tourism. Namely one that historicizes the ways in which we encounter bodies in the Times Square area.

ABOUT Ben Van Buren

Ben Van Buren is a choreographer and performance artist currently living in Brooklyn, New York. Since graduating from Eugene Lang College in 2011 Ben has worked as a dancer for Ishmael Houston-Jones, Ann Liv Young, and Eric Jackson-Bradley amongst others. Ben's most recent projects have spanned from large musical theater productions to small gallery installations. As an assistant choreographer (to Eric Jackson-Bradley) Ben helped choreograph From The Fire, an Oratorio by Liz Swados that won "Musical Theater Matters" awards for Best New Musical, Best Production, and Best Music, at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival, in August of 2011. Most recently Ben's work has been presented by BODEGA gallery in Philadelphia as part of an evening curated by Jen Rosenblit.

In September of 2012 Ben will be moving to Brussels to study at P.A.R.T.S.