PRAISE!

A Wender Collective Fiscal Sponsorship
Co-Created & performed by Gabriel Thom Pasculli and Vincent E. Thomas
In collaboration with Desiré Graham and Malia’Kekia Nicolini

Created with the support of NPN Creation Fund, co-commissioned by Sandglass Theater, Bethany Arts Community, and the Baltimore Theatre Project.

Praise! is an immersive event exploring self and spirit through a child’s experience of church. Moments of dance, song, testimony and confession are interwoven through collective dialogue and story sharing. Praise! opens the door into a conversation around body, queerness, and sacred celebration in a way that takes nothing for granted. While the two performers crisscross memories and fantasies of divine encounters, the piece asks how we reconcile past experiences to make new meaning for the present. Developed at 2019 at Dartmouth College’s VoxLab and in 2021, 2023, and 2024 at Art Omi in New York, an excerpt of Praise! was featured as part of VT Dance’s 20th anniversary concert at the Baltimore Theatre Project in April 2023. The project was further developed in residence at Bethany Arts Community in Ossining, NY, and has an official premier set for 2025 at Bethany Arts Community and Baltimore Theater Project.