Brave New Works Lab 2026
Featuring Works by
Eboné Amos, Lenin Fernandez, Jennie Liu & Andrew Gilbert, Amanda Reichert
May 14-16
Tickets $25-$30
Artist & Creative Community tickets $20-$25
“One of the most interesting and dynamic presentations of locally grown talent.”
— Nashville Scene
“A crucial incubator for stage artists and collectives experimenting between performing arts disciplines… this platform enables the brewing of boundary pushing works in progress.”
— Music City Review
Celebrate local innovation and creativity with a bold evening of entirely original short-form performances. Now in its fifth year, the Brave New Works Lab has become one of the most important resources for daring Nashville-based artists working in contemporary performance, inviting them to transform OZ Arts into a laboratory for the creation and premiere of new works and works-in-progress. Encouraging multimedia experimentation and collaboration across disciplines, the lab creates a safe space for high-risk artistic adventures and has already served as a crucial incubator for some of the most exciting new work happening in Middle Tennessee. The 2026 program spotlights four projects that capture the energy and imagination of the local arts scene.
Each evening features all four projects:
Eboné Amos | from their hands to ours: a continuum
with Alex Dolezal (Pianist) and O’Neal Black (Vocalist)
Performed by: Amaya Muse-Holt, Zaria Skinner, and Justin Tinker
The soaring vocals of singer O’Neal Black set the tone for choreographer Eboné Amos’ riveting movement and music exploration inspired by the Black Radical Imagination, an Afro-Futurist theory by renowned historian Robin D.G. Kelley. Eboné Amos intentionally juxtaposes traditional negro spirituals with abstract improvisational scores and afro-contemporary movement, creating a tension between historical grounding and future-reaching imagination. Accompanied by live music from pianist Alex Dolezal, three dancers employ Black performance aesthetics such as the ring shout and improvisation to generate movement that honors tradition while building into the future.
Lenin Fernandez | Tears Made the Ocean
Performed by: Becca Hoback, McKay House, Emma Morrison, Asia Pyron, Amanda Reichert, Phylicia Roybal, Alex Winer, and Dawn Zurlinden
With large-scale visual spectacle and a dynamic score from Osvaldo Goliov, acclaimed choreographer Lenin Fernandez masterfully concocts a large group dance piece that utilizes the imagery of water as a tool for exploring aging, grief, and memory. A large semi-transparent barrier creates a veil on the stage, invoking the ocean, the sky, the subconscious, and the line between the real and the imagined. While plumbing the depths of emotion, the performers embody the powerful healing that can only be had in community, on the vast sea of life.
Jennie Liu & Andrew Gilbert | Superposition Psychotechnique
Performed with Hannah Dorfman
Performance artists Jennie Liu & Andrew Gilbert make their Nashville debut with an electro-futuristic chamber operetta, drawing inspiration from diverse sources such as Michael Crichton novels, quantum computing, and Stanislavsky’s acting technique. Performing with indie superstar Hannah Dorfman, the trio conjure a techno thriller world utilizing electronic song and processed voice amidst a live laboratory of character to test if consciousness is a measurable system, or a fragile illusion.
Amanda Reichert | The Simulation
with Emmalee Manes (Writer)
Performed by: Lenin Fernandez, Becca Hoback, McKay House, Asia Pyron, Saúl Rodriguez
Boundary-pushing choreographer Amanda Reichert joins forces with playwright Emmalee Manes to create a quirky, eccentric dance-theater work in which the written word springs to life off the page. As an author brainstorms different plots for a new novel, they unknowingly influence a group of characters who are forced to act out the various scenarios against their will. In a “Truman Show”-esque set-up, the occasionally tongue-in-cheek new work explores the complex interior of an author’s imagination, and the implications of an artist not working in isolation, but rather as a creator with a rippling effect.
FREE DANCE MASTERCLASS
Embodied Methods & Processes with Eboné Amos
Join Eboné Amos for a free dance workshop exploring the Black Radical Imagination as an embodied practice. The class introduces participants to the creative process behind her new work “from their hands to ours: a continuum” through a three-part framework including meditation, writing, and improvisation. The workshop is designed to be accessible to all bodies and experience levels.
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2027 APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN
