Next Stage Arts Project

Next Stage Arts will present Sara Juli, a highly acclaimed Maine-based dance-theater artist, in collaboration with The Strand Theater in Portland, ME, a peer rural-based arts organization. Next Stage will host Juli for a 3-day engagement as an artist-in-residence in April 2023 - she will workshop her upcoming new theater piece, Naughty, and share her process with the community to create connections and excitement leading up to this final performance. The culmination of her Next Stage engagement will be two performances of Naughty in February 2024. Naughty is a performance piece exploring the impact of trauma on the brain stemming from sexual assault as a child. Interweaving regressed thinking with a cruel inner voice, coupled with finding humor in the tragic, the work breaks down victimhood to ultimately reclaim the mind. Next Stage will be the second theater to present this work during her New England tour, just following its world premiere at The Strand.