Ex.Pgirl is dedicated to making new interdisciplinary movement theatre pieces that are created through a collaborative rehearsal process. All projects begin with a root idea and are developed as an ensemble through the imagination of the actors.
Founded in 2002, Ex.Pgirl is led by artistic co-directors Bertie Ferdman and Suzi Takahashi, who first worked together in the physical theatre company mad dog (director Phil Soltanoff). They soon decided to create their own humorous original works exploring issues of multiculturalism, identity, and performance. They seek to merge the banal with the spectacular, the common with the extraordinary. Currently, Ex.Pgirl works in close association with artists hailing from Japan, Argentina, France, Korea, and Puerto Rico, all of whom reside permanently in NYC.
Ex.Pgirl is committed to cultural diversity and humor. Combining each member's multicultural identity and diverse artistic disciplines such as dance, theater, acrobatics, music, and video, Ex.Pgirl collaboratively creates theatre that redefines and complicates the question of nationalism and cultural identity in today's globalized community. Working as an ensemble in a development process of improvisation, performers examine the intersections of fear, love, humor, news, myth, and every day language, and how they are alike and dissimilar from culture to culture. Ex.Pgirl develops each piece in a series of workshops where artists are encouraged to explore ideas from their own artistic and cultural perspective. All performances utilize a mix of English, French, Spanish, and Japanese. We also like wearing our name on our costume.
Ex.Pgirl uses satire and parody, as well as powerful visual imagery, to create a humorous and magical landscape of cross-cultural interactions, misunderstandings, and revelations that form an innovative form of non-linear, non-text based storytelling in which nothing is ever quite what it seems. It might best be described as Pina Bausch meets The Monkees. We are committed to offering our audience a more culturally expansive and entertaining view of our everyday reality.
photo: Julien Jourdes