Film still from Leslie Cuyjet: For All Your Life (2024). Video by Peter Richards. Courtesy the artist.
General Admission: $25
Presenter Tickets: $15
Purchase Tickets
Saturday, January 11 at 6:30PM
Sunday, January 12 at 1PM & 5PM
For All Your Life is a performance event and social experiment that investigates the value of black life and black death. Centered around an ambitious serio-comical short film, For All Your Life is staged as a seminar, guided by an insurance sales woman, played by choreographer and artist Leslie Cuyjet.
Part screening, part sales pitch, this solo performance offers a primer on the life insurance industry and its direct connection to slavery; unpacking the ways in which human beings grapple with the inevitable prospect of death and, more importantly, the ways in which lives — especially those of people of color — are monetized.
The short film, shot in 2023 with award-winning Brooklyn director Daniele Sarti, serves as a primer on life insurance. The “pitch” offers a unique investment opportunity — exclusive to audiences — while commenting on professional standards required to achieve legibility for black women within the setting of corporate theater. For All Your Life, the presentation and performance, delivers insight, humor, and drives its mission directly to audiences to choose life.
More information at forallyourlife.com.
For All Your Life is co-presented with Live Artery | New York Live Arts. Explore the full 2025 Live Artery Festival here.
CREDITS
Created and performed by Leslie Cuyjet
Co-director and Dramaturgy: Sean Donovan
Stage Management: Randi Rivera
Stage Design: Neal Wilkinson
Lighting design: Amanda K. Ringger
Video and sound design: Max Ludlow
Co-producers: Jennifer Castro Song and Sweat Variant
Film Credits
Director: Daniele Sarti
Assistant Camera: Max Nemhauser and Joe Kickbush
Audio: Will Scott
Assistant Set Design: Joseph Wolfslau
Make up: Jane Serenska
Production Management: Tess Dworman
Editing: Daniele Sarti, Leslie Cuyjet, and Tim Donovan
Sound Mix: dayae choi
Additional Performers: Tess Dworman, Jacque Betesh, Katrina Reed, and Jason Watt
SUPPORT
The premiere of For All Your Life was commissioned and presented by The Chocolate Factory Theater, April 10-13, 2024. For All Your Life was made possible by a Support for Artists grant from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; created, in part, during a 2023-2024 Research Residency at Danspace Project; supported by the Mertz Gilmore Foundation Late Stage Production Stipend; and developed, in part, during a residency at Baryshnikov Arts, New York, NY.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Leslie Cuyjet is a performer, artist and “a potent choreographic voice,” says the New York Times. For two decades, she has danced for and collaborated with a range of artists like David Gordon, Juliana F. May, Will Rawls, Cynthia Oliver, Jane Comfort, Tere O’Connor, Niall Jones, Yanira Castro and many others. Cuyjet’s own work interrogates these experiences as a performer through the lens of the black body, and includes movement, film, text, and theater. Her work has been presented at The Kitchen, MoMA PS1, The Chocolate Factory, CPR – Center for Performance Research, SculptureCenter, Gibney, and The Shed; where her piece, Blur, garnered her second “Bessie” Award for Outstanding Choreographer/Creator in 2022. Recent honors include Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants for Artists, Princeton Hodder Fellow, Movement Research Resident Artist, and MacDowell Fellow. Cuyjet has been supported by residencies at Movement Research, CPR – Center for Performance Research, Yaddo, Marble House Project, and New Dance Alliance. She is a published writer and the former co-editor of Critical Correspondence. Cuyjet graduated from the first cohort of Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women: Black in Business program and holds a B.F.A. in Dance from the University of Illinois.
Sean Donovan is an actor, director, choreographer, dancer, and writer. His recent works include, Cabin at The Bushwick Starr, The Reception at HERE Arts, and 18 1/2 Minutes at JACK (in collaboration with Sebastián Calderón Bentin). He’s also been presented in The Under the Radar Festival, CUNY’s Prelude Festival, Incubator Arts Project, FAE Festival in Panama, Stanford University, NYU, and others. Sean won a 2022 Lortel Award for his performance in Heather Christian’s Oratorio for Living Things at Ars Nova. He was nominated for 2014 and 2017 BESSIE awards for Outstanding Performer. He’s worked with Taylor Mac, Lee Sunday Evans, Heather Christian, Faye Driscoll, Miguel Gutierrez, Jane Comfort, The Builders Association, and many others. Recent credits include Bark of Millions at Sydney Opera House and BAM, The Trees at Playwrights Horizons, Oratorio for Living Things at Ars Nova, Thank You for Coming at BAM, Danspace Project and an international tour, Age & Beauty Part 2 at NYLA, and House/Divided at BAM. He co-wrote the web series Morning Chardonnay with Hannah Heller. Other Film/TV credits include Law and Order: Organized Crime, Feast of the Epiphany, and Laurence. He holds a BFA in Theatre from NYU. He teaches Movement and Choreography at NYU.
Max Ludlow is a British-American audio engineer, sound designer, and multimedia artist based in Brooklyn, New York. He can often be found building sound systems, troubleshooting projectors, and hanging large objects from the ceiling at venues such as The Kitchen, Harlem Stage, and The Chocolate Factory, among others. A graduate of Purchase College, SUNY, with a BA in Anthropology and Media Studies, Max produces the Artists and Hackers podcast and coordinates the Audio Storytelling program at the Tribeca Festival. In his free time, he performs electronic music under the alias Windy 500 and conducts research on avant-garde, punk, and electronic art.
Amanda K. Ringger has been designing locally, nationally, and internationally for over 20 years with artists such as Faye Driscoll, Cynthia Oliver, Doug Elkins, Leslie Cuyjet, Molly Poerstel, Ivy Baldwin, Laura Peterson, Darrah Carr, Antonio Ramos, Alexandra Beller, Sean Donovan, and cakeface, among many others. She received a BA from Goucher College in Baltimore, MD and an MFA from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. She is the recipient of a Bessie award for her collaboration on Faye Driscoll’s 837 Venice Boulevard at HERE Arts Center.
Randi Rivera is a native New Yorker from the Bronx. She has been a freelance Stage Manager and Lighting Director since 2009, working both in NYC and on the road. A few favorite colleagues include Tina Satter & Half Straddle, Keigwin & Company, Dance Heginbotham, Harlem Stage, Faye Driscoll, Doug Elkins Choreography Etc, Sidra Bell Dance NY, The Chocolate Factory, Andrew Schneider, Ivy Baldwin, Cathy Weis, Gallim Dance, Sean Donovan, Phantom Limb Company, and Ballez. Rivera served as Associate Director for the Broadway run of Half Straddle’s Is This A Room in 2021. All of her work is for her family.
Neal Wilkinson is a set designer, production manager, and visual artist. His most recent set design was Hang Time by Zora Howard, which was premiered at the Flea last year. As a member of the Builders Association from 2003 to 2019, he designed works including House/Divided, Elements of OZ, and Strange Window, which have been presented by theater festivals internationally. Neal’s company Corps Liminis provides production management for theatrical productions, museums, and installations. Most recent projects include Here We Are, Sonic Sphere, and Tomas Saraceno’s Particular Matter(s) at the SHED, the 2022 Lightscape at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and the Joan Jonas retrospective at MoMA. As a multimedia artist, his new work Fight For America!, in which the events of January 6th, 2021 are re-played by audience members as a tabletop wargame, will be produced by The American Vicarious and premiere in 2025: [www.fightforamerica.games]
ABOUT LIVE ARTERY | NEW YORK LIVE ARTS
New York Live Arts, guided by the leadership of visionary artist Bill T. Jones, collaborates with boundary pushing artists, advocates for their vision, and fortifies a creative future. The annual Live Artery Festival provides a space for artists to network and share their work with the general public and presenters from around the world alike, which leads to commissions, tours and the building of long-term relationships.
