Experience ‘Naughty Bits’

Next Stage Arts presents Sara Juli’s Naughty Bits, a dance-play set inside Juli’s memories that examines trauma while finding levity within the tragic. Through movement, text, song, projections and humor, Naughty Bits finds the forgotten bits, funny bits (and wobbly bits) of putting one’s mind and body back together. Performances are at Next Stage on Friday, April 26 and Saturday, April 27 at 7:30 pm.

“What fascinates me most of all about Sara Juli’s work is that she frames these immersive, theater-inspired one woman shows as choreographed pieces. She pulls from so many various places to produce these personal narratives that seem to hit directly into the audience’s personal experiences,” says Keith Marks, Executive Director of Next Stage Arts. “Her professional career in New York gave her the chops and vision to craft world-class theater, and now New England benefits from her relocation.This will be a presentation for community members seeking something new in their theater experiences.”

Juli’s mission is to explore her own personal struggles through the medium of performance. In sharing her work, she creates space for audiences to access their own challenges or traumas. Her provocative, introspective autobiographical solo performance fuses movement, text, song, audience interaction and comedy to both acknowledge the gravity of her burdens as well as simultaneously laugh at their reality. Sara Juli has been described as a “skilled comedian, actress and dancer” and “a light of the downtown dance and theatre scene.”

Please note: This piece explores one person’s experience around trauma.

Runtime: 50 minutes with no intermission

An imaginative and brave show performed with fearless vulnerability by the warm, wild and untamed Sara Juli.

Broadway Baby

A truly generous performance

The New York Times

…a light of the downtown dance and theatre scene

The New Yorker

About Sara Juli (she/her)

Acclaimed Performance Artist Sara Juli has been creating and performing innovative comedic dance-theater for 24 years. She has been fortunate to tour around the world including American Dance Festival, Performance Space New York, New York Live Arts, Bates Dance Festival, Bowdoin College, Dixon Place, SPACE Gallery, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Melbourne Fringe Festival, Noorderzon Festival (The Netherlands), Chelsea Theatre (London), Aotea Centre (New Zealand) and many more.

Her work has been commissioned by Performance Space 122, American Dance Festival, SPACE Gallery, Dixon Place, Portland Ovations, and The Strand Theatre (ME). Sara’s work has received funding from Maine Arts Commission, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, New England Foundation for the Arts Expeditions, New England Dance Fund, NEST Touring Grants, and the prestigious National Dance Project in 2019-2022. Sara was the 2017 Maine Fellow for the Performing Arts awarded by the Maine Arts Commission.

Sara is the Founder/Director of Surala Consulting, a fundraising consultancy helping non-profits and artists build and execute fundraising strategies. She was awarded the Arts Management Award from Brooklyn Arts Exchange in 2013, and is an ongoing project advisor to The Boston Foundation’s Next Steps and LAB Programs. Sara is an Affiliated Artist of Bates College and is teaching “Business of the Arts” at Williams College in January 2024. She lives in Falmouth, Maine, on the traditional lands of the Wabanaki people, with her husband and two children. www.sarajuli.com and www.suralaconsulting.com @sarajulimoves

Digital projections and illustrations by Devon Kelley-Yurdin, original lighting by Justin Moriarty, dramaturgy for Naughty Bits by Michelle Mola and costumes by Carol Farrell.

Naughty Bits was commissioned by the Strand Theatre in Rockland, Maine, through their New Century Series. Additional support came from the Maine Arts Commission, and the American Rescue Plan Maine Project Grants, a subgranting program administered by SPACE for the National Endowment for the Arts.

Naughty Bits was presented by and had its NYC premiere at Dixon Place with funds from New York State Council on the Arts w/the support of the Governor’s office; NYC Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership w/the City Council; the Scherman Foundation, and the Shubert Foundation.

Funded in part by the New England States Touring program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program and the six New England state arts agencies.

Clearly a multifaceted performer, Juli infuses her comedy with dance and her dance with comedy.

Dance Informa

Sara Juli…flows with absorbing comic ease that segues into moments of pathos

The Stage

Sara Juli has been creating and performing comedic dance-theater for two decades.  Her ability to hold an audience’s attention with abrupt changes in style reflects that experience. 

Theaterreviewsfrommyseat

Next Stage Arts

Next Stage is located at 15 Kimball Hill in downtown Putney, VT. Tickets are $20 in advance / $25 at the door. Advance tickets are available at nextstagearts.org. For information, call 802-387-0102 or visit nextstagearts.org.

Next Stage Arts serves southeastern Vermont as a regional cultural hub, arts producer, and instigator of meaningful cultural experiences. Founded in 2010 as a nonprofit organization, Next Stage Arts is a transformative, community-centered project dedicated to revitalizing Putney’s cultural and economic village center through excellence in arts programming valuing diversity as a springboard for nurturing community.  For more information and updates please go to: nextstagearts.org