Monday January 16th
Title: Walltz
Instructions: Play Nina Simone's "Why." Lexi cuts out the letters of the title and hands to Sergey to sew together. The title becomes a banner on the drywall board leftover from Friday's performance "the pig and the wallflower." Shrine out with candles and flowers. Following the song, destroy the wall.
Why? Lots of metaphorical/symbolic energy going on in this piece. It's Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and Nina Simone's song rips as a tribute to his work. The question "why" is universal and a space where diverse opinions and emotions can meet with dialogue. Through "why," the wall is piece-by-piece broken down.
Rehearsal Discoveries: It just so happens Sergey and I decided on matching outfits with track-runner vibes. This decision was primarily out of random acts of fashion, but one could definitely read into it as a gesture toward utilitarian, action-based, nationalist, and competitive energies.
Performance Write Up: Cutting, sewing, and stringing up the letter took longer than expected. It was raining and a few people came to witness. This style of symbolic, action-based performance offers a mellow and meditative experience for the performers. I believe Sergey and I had fun and experienced this performance as a note-worthy time capsule of 15 minutes. Meaning and intention go a long way.
View on Youtube ---->> https://youtu.be/5thI5DFh1AA
Tuesday January 17th
Title: White board
Instructions: Write "someone with a whiteboard" on the whiteboard.
Why? Had been seeing someone. We laid the history of our close friendships out on a white board and presented them to one another. I felt moved by this experience of witnessing, understanding, validating, and cross checking our beliefs/philosophies/plans. I wanted to "up" my whiteboard game and get something substantial for my own room, so I saw this as an opportunity to buy another white board.
Rehearsal: check to make sure erasure method works on new, home depot-bought white board (was skeptical of new surface and whether it would leave many marks). Decided to remove sweater mid performance as an act of sensuality.
Performance Write Up: I was full of symbols from an acid trip. These all began to pour out, and I did not limit myself to the words "someone with a white board." Once I started scribbling, the undercurrent of these meanings and how they played a role in my particular situation this month (as a 29 year old woman with a specific, moment-in-time, strong desire to have a child) took hold of the marker. These symbols include a basket, soup, the knife, a sprawling cow, and the pot for the soup. I chose to order the performance with the steps of retrieving the white board, presenting flowers as beauty inspiration, then writing on the board. I erased in a circle motion around the full white board until the single statement, "to be soup," was left. I left that out for a minute, then redressed myself to close the performance.
View on Youtube ---->>> https://youtu.be/XmsNLx__54w
Wednesday January 18th
Title: I exist.
Instructions: Come up with reasons that prove your existence.
Why? A moment in time where that seemed like a good idea. I am still not convinced I exist.
Rehearsal: I adamantly chose not to think of ideas ahead of time, not wanting to prepare things and feel in the moment.
Performance Write Up: There were some dull moments. Essentially, I got bored, which is the opposite of creative. It was nice to interact with people who were present and passing by. The task is one of much wonder. Afterwards, I wished I had gone outside to explore within the environment because the stage was empty: not much to exist with.
View on Youtube --->>> https://youtu.be/CKRdQPv-NjQ
Thursday January 19th
Title: Memory dances
Instructions: Remember something. Interpret the memory as a movement. Layer on more memories and movement sequentially. Review and maintain the memory of the movements throughout.
Why? I got stoned with Michelle and we went in the jacuzzi without paper or cell phones. While stoned in the jacuzzi, we began conceiving of many art concepts. We didn't want to forget them, and I tend toward forgetfulness. Memory dances became the solution. I appreciate the way a dance felt better than some bullet point repetition of words in the head. The way I could connect movement with the metaphor, empowered the associations of each memory greatly since metaphors stretch far and wide.
Rehearsal: Consisted of wanting to chicken out of the idea, thinking I did not sleep enough to remember well. Coming up with other ideas of the performance to bail out on it. Then sticking with the idea at 9:58.
Performance Write Up: There were a fair amount of people there, which often encourages excited expression for me, and for that reason, most of the movements had a focused intensity to them. Unfortunately, I did forgot the memory associated with two of the movements. I would like to blame it on lack of sleep and grounding practices; many failures in life can be attributed to those. Not surprisingly, a chunk of the memories were related to performances that took place on that stage. It was nice to revisit the memory of performances as a performance.
View on Youtube --->>> https://youtu.be/MziNrursh7g
Friday January 20th
Title: Termitten III
Instructions: Perform the play.
Why? Initially I was so excited about the first play, "Under the spell, endure the wanting", I was eager to write more. I wrote the beginning of this play in August. Something personal happened. I think I told a white lie and I felt so much from it that I wrote the first statement from the father. So really, that first statement was me thinking. Something about that statement felt like a father speaking to a son. In the spirit of the first play involving vortexes, I am a lover of concepts that dig toward destruction. From this framework, the concept of termites eating a house and lineage fit perfectly for me.
Rehearsal: The night before, I cut out the costumes and painted them. Then rushed off to a date. Then got broken up with, went home and recorded the "munch munch" audio track. Woke up the next morning, and tried to finish the rest of the dialogue before Michelle got to the space. Michelle arrived around 9:20 and we went at the script with colored markers in order to grasp the organization. I showed Michelle how to play the stylophone in three minutes. We discussed her finding a different voice to make distinct the difference of narrator vs son. We moved quickly and semi-frantically setting up the costumes and props. We were cutting the munch fabric as we read through the script.
Here is the additional line written by Michelle in our quick read through
Performance Write Up: Larry said it was the best show he had ever seen. The rhythmic munching leading up to the buffet scene was a success. Our musical dialogue was enthralling. There were moments of uncertainty and janky planning, one of them being the stylophone solo-length and the other one being when I wanted to cue up the audio during the munching, but I mistakenly didn't set up next to the phone. I had to exit the stage to cue it up. I would have preferred to have kept the phone next to me and have hit play while munching.
This is the script PDF:
View on Youtube --->>>> https://youtu.be/zhxsIPAjOHY