Upstairs, In Our Bedroom

In front of a white wall, Same As Sister, biracial black and white twin sisters, mirror one another's hair fixing gestures. The sister in the background is dressed in black, with the sister in the foreground wearing a brown afro wig and red sweater. — Same As Sister in rehearsal for *Upstairs, In Our Bedroom* at Dance Arts Institute, October 2023. Image: © Gillian Mapp

Upstairs, In Our Bedroom (work-in-progress) is an autobiographical performance that radically reimagines Same As Sister’s experiences as female identical twins of color next to those of outsider authors, June & Jennifer Gibbons (a.k.a. The Silent Twins). Utilizing dance, text, VR technology, and puppetry, they will reveal the powerful and painful intersections between twinship, blackness, madness, and art-making.

Choreographed and Performed by: Same As Sister/Briana Brown-Tipley + Hilary Brown-Istrefi in collaboration with Peggy Piacenza
Dramaturgy by: Susan Mar Landau
Disability Arts Adivsor: Rachel da Silveira Gorman
VR Specialist: Lora Appel Puppetry Consultant: Hanne Tierney Creative Producers: Amanda Szeglowski, HERE (NYC); Christina de la Cruz & Cara Spooner, Dancemakers (Toronto)

Upstairs, In Our Bedroom is being commissioned and developed through the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP), NYC, with additional support from Dancemakers (Toronto). The project was developed in part during a 2022-2023 Plug-N-Play Residency at Toronto Dance Theatre.