Excavating the Rising Star

This December, after many workshops, readings, experiments, and iterations — IVP, in partnership with the Bronx Music Heritage Center will proudly present a fully-staged production of our original, immersive documentary play, “Excavating the Rising Star!”

In 2013 and 2018, nine women in the field of paleoanthropology – dubbed the “Underground Astronauts” – were selected to excavate potential hominid fossils deep within the Dinaledi Cave System at the Cradle of Humankind outside Johannesburg, South Africa. To the surprise of the entire world, the excavation yielded 15 full skeletons of a new hominid species, Homo naledi, rewriting the human evolutionary timeline as we know it.

“Excavating The Rising Star” examines how that 21 day excavation revealed more than just a “new ‘’ human. Using the oral histories from six of the “Astronauts,” conducted by playwright Ash Singer, the play offers a dynamic, creative theatrical experience that ponders the ethics of modern science, questions the authors of history, and examines what it means to be “human.”