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The after-image, New York, NY (2026)

03/27/2026

On this World Theater Day we are SO EXCITED to announce that is one of LMCC’s SU-CASA Artists for 2026!

Our project, “¡Objetos a la Obra! Un Proyecto de Teatro Colectivo // Object Play: A Collaborative Theater Project”, will take place at Washington Heights Neighborhood Senior Center (STAR OAC) from April 14 through May 29. More info coming soon!

SU-CASA is administered by LMCC and supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Additional support is provided by the Tiger Baron Foundation.

07/03/2025

June 12th, 2025 marked the end of our 2025 SU-CASA residency with a Public Showing for the ARC XVI Fort Washington Senior Center community and loved ones. We’re still coming down from the high of that day - and the preceding months of theater-making workshops.

Words are escaping us. But we know for sure that on that day in a senior center at 181st Street and Audubon Avenue, there was a vibration. Low and booming. Like thunder.

The day began with our last rehearsal for The Adventures of the Hat // Las Aventuras del Sombrero. We then joined the larger community to share this short play, which the elders in our workshop generated, wrote, and brought into being alongside us.

We’ll share more about the residency and culminating performance in the months to come, but in the meantime, we want to share our gratitude and awe for the elders who welcomed us and grew to trust us - little by little, week by week. With great honesty and creativity, they brought their passions, heartaches, and love into the space every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

In the words of one participant, we are family.

Huge thanks to the ARC XVI Senior Center staff, who supported us throughout our time there and made our work possible. And to the ever-inspired Nick Alselmo who joined us as sound designer and DJ for the showing and after-party.

We are so proud to have been selected by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council as 2025 SU-CASA Artists.

May the reverberations of this time call in a downpour of hope.

Photos by

06/05/2025

Hello friends! As LMCC’s 2025 SU-CASA Artists we’ve been convening with a group of brilliant elders at the ARC XVI Fort Washington Senior Center every Tuesday and Thursday morning since April 1st.

Every session has been an opportunity to explore pathways for emotional expression and theatrical storytelling together. We start each one by attending to the Feelings Map: a continuous scroll on which the participants may draw or write about their emotional landscape at that exact moment, offering a glimpse into their creativity, delights, concerns, and passions.

In the second portion of each session, the participants collaboratively experiment, improvise, write, rehearse, and perform original short plays inspired by different objects brought into the room. After several weeks of creating, we chose two of the short plays to develop more fully. The plays center around a predicament-prone hat and explore what it means to turn potential ruin and loss into opportunities for expansion and connection.

We will be sharing these short plays with the larger senior center community - and displaying the full Feelings Map - in an event we’re callingThe Adventures of the Hat! // ¡Las Aventuras Del Sombrero! on June 12th from 11AM - 12PM. Please reach out through message if you are interested in attending, it’s going to be a PARTY.

03/27/2025

HAPPY NEWS!

We are thrilled to announce that we’ll be one of LMCC’s SU-CASA Artists for 2025!

Our program, “Creating New out of the Old: A Collaborative Theater-Making Project”, will take place at ARC XVI Ft Washington Center from April 1st through June 30, 2025.

We are SO EXCITED and we can’t wait to share more details about the project with all of you very soon.

SU-CASA is administered by LMCC and supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Additional support is provided by the Tiger Baron Foundation.

10/21/2024

In absolute solidarity with the people of Palestine, the after-image commits to adhering to the Palestinian international call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) and complying with the guidelines of the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).

This means that the after-image will:

• Refuse to work with any cultural institution that receives funding from the state of Israel.
• Abstain from working with any Israeli cultural or academic organization that helps maintain the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
• Reject participation in cultural events and collaboration on cultural products that are commissioned and/or sponsored by the state of Israel.
• Renounce participation in cultural activities and events that seek to “normalize” the Israeli occupation of Palestine and/or the dehumanization of Palestinians.

This boycott continues the after-image’s centering of liberation, solidarity, and justice in the way we work and in the art we make. Moreover, our company is founded and run by women who are, respectively, Jewish, Puerto Rican, and/or q***r. Our distinct identities and lived experiences compel us to resist structures of oppression, ethnic cleansing, and colonization and to actively cultivate a future of collective liberation.

As theater makers we understand the role of the arts in shaping public discourse and imagination. We refuse to be complicit in the systematic use of art and culture to whitewash the last century plus of settler colonial violence and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the last 12 months of escalating genocide.

We furthermore renounce the conflation of calling for Palestinian liberation with antisemitism. the after-image - with our Jewish and non-Jewish leadership completely aligned - is fervently opposed to all ideologies of violence and forms of oppression. We and the BDS movement, including PACBI, reject boycotts of individuals based on their identity (such as citizenship, race, gender, sexuality, or religion) or opinion.

06/03/2024

As we’re sure you’ve noticed, three of us have been co-leading the after-image since the Fall, but with all of our attention on our spring residency at the Barnard Movement Lab, we never found the right moment to properly introduce our third leader. With complete awe at her integrity, the breadth of her abilities, and her artistic virtuosity, we are so pleased to officially announce Zahydé Pietri in her role as Co-Producing Artistic Director.

Kate and Amy were co-leading the company as a duo since founding the company in 2019. But with a desire to grow our artistic vision, organizational practices, and the scale of what we could accomplish, we knew we needed to bring on a third leader. After collaborating with Zahydé since 2021 as a devisor, performer, and social media manager, we eventually mustered the courage to ask if she might want to lead the company. To our complete delight, she said yes.
Everything the company has accomplished since October has been imprinted with and shaped by Zahydé’s leadership. And so, please officially re-meet Zahydé:

ZAHYDÉ PIETRI (she/her/ella) is a born and raised Puerto Rican actress, artist, and teaching artist based in NYC. Most recently she has been onstage as a performer and devisor in the after-image’s Let’s Exorcise! and HOUSE OF AMERICAN ACTIVITIES, and as actor and puppeteer in Grand Pistachio ’s Layer the Walls I and II. As a VO artist she used to fight with herself weekly translating the women of WWE’s Female Division on RAW and SmackDown. She has a BA in Drama from the University of Puerto Rico and has trained and been onstage in Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Perú and NYC. She’s a loving parent to Chaplin (her pup, not the acclaimed silent actor/filmmaker), and Greta Carbo (her sourdough starter, not to be confused with legendary silent era actress Greta Garbo). She finds joy in collaboration and is infinitely grateful to get to create art with Amy, Kate and the after-image community!

With each production, we intentionally evolve our model for creating devised movement-theater. The three of us have been relishing in leading together and are thrilled to already be envisioning the next phase of our work.

05/23/2024

This spring, we were grateful to be artists-in-residence at the Movement Lab at Barnard College. During our residency, we performed for, taught, and developed a world premiere in collaboration with immensely sharp and generous Barnard and Columbia students. We are excited to share with you photos and insights from our time on Barnard’s campus. We also want to address Barnard and Columbia’s student-led protests and their Gaza solidarity encampment:

• the after-image stands in solidarity with the student and faculty protests against both the genocide in Gaza and Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine. We decry the Barnard and Columbia administrations for repressing student and faculty free speech by way of force via the NYPD, intimidation, and academic punishment.

• We have no idea the politics or activism of any of the students, professors, or staff with whom we were collaborating this semester. We spent our time on campus focused exclusively on presenting and debriefing Let’s Exorcise! and developing and producing Flow Up!

• We are speaking only for ourselves when we say: the after-image continues to stand in solidarity with Palestine. We uphold the sanctity of every single human life and the rights of all people to live in safety and with self-determination. We cry out for a permanent ceasefire, a diplomatic path to a just peace, and liberation for all Palestinians and Israelis. None of us are free until all of us are free.

The students give us hope. More to come.

Image 1: Audience members with Catharty Captain Jerry Soto at a performance of Let’s Exorcise! at the Movement Lab.
Photo by Olga Rabetskaya.

Image 2: A selection of student reflections on the portions of Let’s Exorcise! that resonated most with them.

Image 3: The Secret Life of Stuff First Year Seminar and the after-image creating the physical materials of Flow Up! based on objects destroyed at our Movement Lab performances of Let’s Exorcise!

Image 4: An audience member moving through Flow Up! The Catharty Quest Continues at the Movement Lab. The installation was free & open to the public April 5th - 7th.
Photo by Nicolle Márquez.

04/05/2024

FLOW UP! THE CATHARTY QUEST CONTINUES opens tonight at the Movement Lab at Barnard College!

April 5 @ 6PM - 8PM
April 6 @ 1PM - 3PM & 6PM - 8PM
April 7 @ 1PM - 3PM
Come for 30 minutes or stay for two hours. Return as many times as you want. The journey is yours.

Flow Up! was conceived and written by: Amy Shoshana Blumberg, Kate St. John, and Zahydé Pietri
Multimedia Design by: Kate St. John
Sound Design by: Nick Rodrigues
Devising and Collaboration by Barnard College students: The Secret Life of Stuff, First Year Seminar taught by Professor Camilla Sturm
Feminism and the Politics of Anger, First Year Seminar taught by Professor Meredith Benjamin
Modern American Drama and Performance, taught by Professor Patricia Denison

📷:

04/01/2024

FLOW UP! THE CATHARTY QUEST CONTINUES launches this week!

In this self-guided multimedia installation you’ll traverse the constellations of our inter-connectedness, sculpting a fresh origin story for an object someone else has let go. In helping to free your fellow space sailor from their past, perhaps you can give yourself the same gift.

Come for 30 minutes or stay for two hours. Return as many times as you want.

April 5 @ 6PM - 8PM
April 6 @ 1PM - 3PM & 6PM - 8PM
April 7 @ 1PM - 3PM
At the Movement Lab at Barnard College.

Free and open to the public.
Links for RSVP in BIO.

03/29/2024

“The performance completely broke down the traditional distinction between audience and performer. The audience did not just idly watch the Catharty Captains as they brought new life to the exorcised objects; they actively engaged, too.”

Read the full review at our Link in Bio!

Repost from
•
“Let’s exorcise, bitches!”

With this bold proclamation, Barnard alumnae Amy Shoshana Blumberg and her fellow creatives from ‘the after-image’ movement-theater company transported audiences into the vibrant and emotionally weighty world of Let’s Exorcise! A Community Catharty Party at the Barnard Movement Lab last Thursday and Friday night.

Brightly colored lights and 80s jazzercise videos along the walls immediately set the energetic and friendly atmosphere of the performance, which is described by Blumberg as “a participatory performance ritual.”

Article by Haley Scull
Read Link in Bio

03/29/2024

Students from Professor Meredith Benjamin’s Feminism and the Politics of Anger First Year Seminar creating multimedia content for Flow Up! The Catharty Quest Continues.

Flow Up! is a self-guided interactive multimedia installation; you’ll traverse the constellations of our inter-connectedness, sculpting a fresh origin story for an object someone else has let go. In helping to free your fellow space sailor from their past, perhaps you can give yourself the same gift.

We are thrilled to be developing the world premiere of Flow Up! The Catharty Quest Continues with three courses of Barnard students.

Flow Up!, the sister experience to Let’s Exorcise!, but which you can enjoy as a stand alone event, will be running April 5, 6, & 7 at the Movement Lab at Barnard.

Come for 30 minutes or stay for 2 hours. Return as many times as you want. Tickets are free and open to the public. RSVP now! Links in Bio.

03/25/2024

Perspirators, Exorcists, Voyagers! You and the debris from your past are about to launch into separate orbits. And transformation can erupt with the flash and burn of a meteor, but most quests for catharsis need a sequel… or three.

The journey continues at Flow Up! a self-guided installation. Grab hold of what your fellow space sailors seek to release and let it spark in you the possibility of something new. Return to the artifact you offered up at Let’s Exorcise!, bring any other thing from which you are ready to move on, or just bring your desire to fly into the deep unknown. Come for 30 minutes or stay for two hours. Return as many times as you want.

Flow Up! The Catharty Quest Continues
April 5 @ 6PM - 8PM
April 6 @ 1PM - 3PM & 6PM - 8PM
April 7 @ 1PM - 3PM
At the Movement Lab at Barnard College.

RSVP links in BIO.

The after-image

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