Near East Family is an interdisciplinary art collective working in a wide range of sonic, visual, literary, performing, and media arts to create innovative live performances, video, recordings, installation and hybrid works. NEF was co-founded by David and Tara Gladden in 2007 while earning their MFAs at Brooklyn College in the Performance and Interactive Media Arts Program. Clinton Wilkins joined the family in 2008 and Michael Frost in 2009. Additional members come and go and are based far and wide. In various collaborations, they have presented work at The United Nations, Oi Futuro Museum in Rio de Janiero, Harvestworks, The Baltimore Contemporary Museum, Judson Memorial Church, The Living Theater, Grace Exhibition Space, The Wild Project and Dixon Place among other venues.

Ian Wen has performed and danced in NYC at The Kitchen, 78th Street Theatre Lab, PS 122 (Dance Off!), The Public Theater, and La MaMa ETC. Internationally he has performed in Ukraine, the Netherlands, Greece, and Mexico. His movement background consists of butoh training with Diego Pinon, Yoshito Ohno, Akira Kasai, Ko Murobushi, and Yumiko Yoshioka. He is an adjunct at Brooklyn College where he works with the graduate acting students.

“If you look past the innovative text, past the stage design, past the classical New Age costuming, you will inevitably discover that the red-hot core of the show is its music. The band Near East Family — onstage from the get-go — underscores the big themes of the play (war, ambition and untimely death).”

– The Brooklyn Paper

Photo by Claudia Manlik