COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS,
ANCESTRAL PATTERNS (2022)
"Cognitive Distortions, Ancestral Patterns" uses cognitive distortions to understand the experiences of immigrant women artists as it relates to assimilation, segregation, and mental health care. Alongside research of social work practices with immigrant communities, Belaya documents the expertise of these artists to examine communal care of immigrant women in the United States.
Featuring filmed interviews of immigrant women artists living in New York City, live video projection mixing, movement, and music written for string quartet + jazz quintet.
Sonya Belaya in collaboration with Laura Sofía Pérez, featuring Grey McMurray and students at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance.
Presented by the Center for World Performance Studies in partnership with the School of Music, Theatre & Dance.
THREE SISTERS (2020)
Roulette is pleased to present the first performance composer Sonya Belaya‘s year-long residency. Три Сестры (translated to three sisters) is a piece reflecting on the history of domestic violence against womxn in Russia. Inspired by the recent Khachaturyan sisters trial, Три Сестры reflects on the culture Belaya and her two sisters grew up in, the domestic abuse they survived, and the interconnected history of womxn’s trauma in her beloved homeland. It asks is it possible to discuss these issues without contributing to American Russophobia and seeks to imagine a world where examining cultural violence does not cancel out cultural beauty, and violence against womxn is universally punishable.