Monthly Archives: March 2016

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WIP #1 Response

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My thoughts:

Some things seemed rushed and some things seemed too long. I also felt really awkward about having nothing to do for a lot of the time; it was like there was this gap between the audience and us because we were in the space but not necessarily participating in the newness . For example, during the beginning when everyone was masked, a lot of us were laughing and becoming spectators. Because we were so interested in audience reactions, we were both the performers and the audience to them.

A lot of my thoughts now are more centered around wondering where we go from here. I’m excited to clean things up and discover what we are trying to say. I also think we could take more ownership of the space and make the whole thing a complete place rather than having table-to-table experiences.

 

My friend’s thoughts:

Just to preface, I don’t think these reactions are necessarily bad or good, I’m just trying to record what they said. Although both of my friends really liked the opening, one preferred things they could explore on their own time while the other preferred group experiences where they were explicitly led somewhere. They both seemed a little hung up on trying to figure out what the “theme” was or what we were trying to say, to the point of frustration. Our (the class) presence also really confused them because they didn’t know if we were acting or not while we were just walking around the crowd, like it was unclear what was a performance and what wasn’t. On that note, there was disappointment about not seeing things because they didn’t know what was happening.

Other thoughts:

  • felt like a museum until being lead around
  • a lot of confusion about what they were “supposed” to do
  • good vibes in the federalist papers room
  • overwhelming except in dark room when there wasn’t other things going on
  • “hard to care” because so many things were happening and there was a disconnect between separate events, especially during leading portion

 

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WIP #1 Response

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My reflection:

  • I think one of the most successful parts of the event was the beginning. Bringing the whole audience into the communal experience of being blindfolded set the stage (excuse the pun…) for the entire performance. However, after taking the blindfolds off, people were unsure of what to do next for a really long time.
  • I loved the museum aspect of the whole thing. It probably went on for a little too long though. We had to adjust the timing to drive things forward.
  • What were we (the class) supposed to be doing? Are we performers even when we’re not performing? How much do we guide people versus letting them just do their thing?
  • This was a radically different experience for the audience doing these things (being blindfolded, being fed bread, etc.) with people that they know than it would have been if the performers were total strangers.
  • My albinism performance ended up happening on the opposite side of the elevator because everyone got in the elevator with me. The performance felt like total chaos to me but everyone I talked to found it really interesting.

Questions people had:

  • Is part of it improvisation?
  • How much were we allowed to break the rules? Should the rules exist at all?
  • Was there an ending?

Things that stuck out to people:

  • Bailey’s piece
  • Kimmy’s bark
  • Omar’s performance – dealt with substantive things in a quick amount of time and was so funny
  • Being masked and applauded for
  • Sophia’s piece about all the sad things that happened to David Carter
  • Paige’s video in the closet – “Woodbridge: A Love Story”
  • Scott Lewis trying to help Carina
  • How far away Carina was from us
  • The elevator door opening and closing
  • The albinism piece passing through the elevator
  • Albino character was sexual (having participants represent my parents, mentioning testicles) but also sincere…
  • Connection between genetics and identity
public showings

WIP #1 running to-do list

3 Comments

Use the comments on this post as a place to organize any advance prep that wants to happen BEFORE CLASS ON FRIDAY.

  • help making more Bailey masks
  • recruiting some helpers “run” audience members through the back hallway into the Directing Studio for the actual performance.

Otherwise, we have 3 hours to put it all together.

(As things get decided in comments I may transfer them up to the main body of the post for clarification as needed.)

public showings, scripts and scores

WIP #1 work to be shown

1 Comment

David Carter curates Carina Zox

  1. Carina’s juxtaposition piece (masks, “human again”, etc., modified to use the hallway down to the green room as well as the directing studio)
  2. and her show-don’t-tell piece (Syrian refugee crisis, modified for the outdoor area on the dir. studio side of the ’62 ctd).

Gabrielle DiBenedetto curates Jackson Zerkle

  1. I would like to include his 5 Senses combo (the broken recording where he hit the table and said….some not so savory things)
  2. and his Show, Don’t Tell project. I know that being in the directing studio there is no way for the audience to be up on a grid, but most of what I liked about that performance was Jackson’s character and the conversation we had with him, so maybe there is a way to replicate the performer-audience relationship in some way by seating the audience far away or having Jackson be higher up?

Bailey Edwards curates Sophia Wilansky

  1. all of Sophia’s Cosmogeny postcard images. I know it’s quadruple the number of images but I think they are interesting as a collection. That also seems like it would be a ton of objects but if, like me, you see it as one object…
  2. I would like to include the Story of David Carter as well.

Kimmy Golding curates Maddie Seidman

  1. 5 SENSES—I’m interested if Maddie does her 5 senses project but only with descriptions of what each item should smell, taste, sound, look, or feel like. (Essentially, nobody should know that the taste of “Dirt, blood, and tears” is actually cacao powder and sea salt. Same with the sound of “carving metal”. Nobody should know that it’s actually the scraping of a knife against a tray)
  2. SHOW DON’T TELL (first part) It might be interesting if Maddie combines this performance with Carina’s performance of “If I Were A Bell.” She could start the piece by humming the first notes in the ears of 8-10 audience members people and then end the piece with a full belt of the song (a la Carina’s performance).

Omar Gouda curates John Rodriguez

  1. The road map from the juxtapositions prompt ~ assuming our gallery is less cramped than our classroom, our audience would be able to actually read and appreciate the stories John wrote on the map (I had to read them online afterwards ~ 5′ 4″ problems.)
  2. The short “Remember me, please” reversed video that was part of 5/50. I’m wondering about how to best present this one ~ would it simply be a video display on loop? Would it make sense to have it as a live performance where someone (presumably for a good chunk of the hour and a half) sits at a desk writing the phrase, and then erasing it by tracing backwards in white-out?

Molly Knoedler curates Sarah Pier

  1. The Federalist Papers- I know she’s keenly interested in this and it fits with the theme of audience participation.
  2. Story 4: Gram- Specifically, the music recording, the spilt urn, and the wine bottle could be presented as one object, perhaps even incorporating the taste/ smell of wine Sarah did for the Five Senses project. These objects as a whole fit in with the theme of beginnings/endings, mortality and coping.

Phoebe Mattana curates Paige Peterkin

  1. Paige’s “The Genesis of Love (Juxtapositions video)”
  2. Paige’s 5/50 “My OCD is/is not” piece.

Paige Peterkin curates David Carter

  1. Letters from Dad videos (technically there are two, but they’re both 30 seconds and I feel like you have to have both to get the full effect).
  2. First Attempt video – from his series of Job Hunt videos.

Sarah Pier curates Gabrielle DiBenedetto

  1. Gabrielle’s Albinism piece, to be performed in the hallway in front of the elevator by the directing studio
  2. and the scattered letters of her name, to be placed on a table, possibly with a sign telling audiences they can play with the letters (similar to the instruction she gave us when she presented)

John Rodriguez curates Bailey Edwards

  1. Show, Don’t Tell Performance: “Be Careful You Might” (AKA the bread box AKA Bailey’s feeding trough)
  2. Five Senses Performance: THE TOMB OF EURYSACES THE BAKER

Because the two objects I’m interested in curating for Bailey are both performances that a) require his presence and b) are time-consuming and elaborate, I also have an alternate proposition which I like just as much:

  1. Show, Don’t Tell Performance: “Be Careful You Might” (AKA the bread box AKA Bailey’s feeding trough)
  2. Juxtapositions: “Blue” video
  3. From one of Bailey’s 5/50 stories: “Wind” video

I’m really interested in seeing how the two videos would be interpreted and consumed by an audience when played next to each other, or immediately after one another, or out of order, etc. I’d like to see how they communicate as a pair and individually to other people, especially because they exist in such a similar vocabulary. I think it would be feasible to show them both and wouldn’t required any additional work. especially since they are meant to be experienced as videos and not live performances.

Maddie Seidman curates Kimmy Golding

  1. From her “Don’t forget you mission” story. She is sitting on the window ledge thing in directing studio, giving instructions to crowd. She acts out certain missions, such as spritzing herself and turning on music. The piano should be beneath her. Someone who can play piano (sorta) will play jazz chords when cued. Kimmy will be wearing a sign that says fierce, which she can swing around. Bailey (Amy) will be beside the piano. Maybe, but probably not… we can workshop it… her crush and Amy leave and Kimmy turns Yoncé on louder and does her dance thing to calm her rage down.
  2. The triptych…. This one is more for shit of everyday life than a particlar failure. Kimmy will walk slowly across blackbox to omar’s voice, with her signs displayed. At the end, when Omar says “we want bread, clothing, etc…” he will change that to bread, fruit of the vine, and then the rest of those things. Kimmy will slip in a farcical way, and a bunch of people will walk quickly past her with ease. One of those people will be omar, who will stop center and deliver his grape spoken word piece. He might be dress as grapes/raisins

Sophia Wilansky curates Omar Gouda

  1. Enraged edibles
  2. Story 5 – What’s in a name, with a modification (juxtaposition with 5 senses) that I still need to think more about the details of (I’ve been busy all day!) but should involve cheese slices

Jackson Zerkle curates Molly Knoedler

  1. Molly’s Suspicious Grapes video and
  2. her ‘trapped’ movement piece.
  3. I’d also like to make a case for maybe doing the movement piece that she, Maddy, and Kimmy ended up with in Will Rawls’ class. The only reason I didn’t make that one of my two guaranteed pieces is that its authorship isn’t entirely Molly’s. I think it would bring a true accidental juxtaposition to our showing in a way that might be hard to recreate with other such juxtapositions we came across. Also, I worry that the work we did in that class has gotten short shrift (hasn’t ended up on the website, we didn’t talk about it much yesterday) and it might be nice to have a representative piece included.

Carina Zox curates Phoebe Mattana

  1. her Show Don’t Tell piece, performance with Maddie–memory
  2. her Juxtapositions piece: Act 1 text over Pixar lamp, Act 2 Fresh Prince of Belair, and Act 3 Pokemon card trading

(I’m not sure if we will have time to do all three parts, I’d like to work on curating the pieces together with other pieces, or choosing the best parts of the three-Act project)

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Reflect + Write

Themes:

Testing the limits of theatrical surrender-

going up to the grids/ being in darkness/ anger/ tasting  or smelling with eyes closed/ prodding the desire to intervene

Mythology-

Icarus/ Arthur/ Orpheus/ Genesis/ Sophia’s Chaos + Creation/ Origin of Love/ Bailey Jesus

Others’:

Bailey’s Roman Ritual

Carina’s Syrian Refugee Crisis

Paige’s Feng Shui

Sophia’s Chaos Index Cards

Molly’s Origin of Love objects

Mine:

The almonds thing and the Secret History recording thing

 

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Reflect + Write

MADE BY OTHERS:

one of Maddie’s stories: the artwork with arrows, Ghost drawings, and dialogue—all these disparate elements—it was interesting to see where they come together, and the connections were different for each of us

Bailey and the Bruja—childish story, some of the objects were humorous, but also touching. Pop culture to represent this story (the tumblr).

Bailey’s Show Don’t Tell Hiccoughs—such a crazy experience to represent the v simple thing that is hiccoughs

Kimmy’s Sisterhood—maybe I’m just really attached to the SOFTP series, but I loved the way that, for me, the people in the class representing these characters actually just become the characters—these tropes are also us

THEMES:

The audience as the performance—Sarah’s Show Don’t Tell Federalist Papers, my Juxtapositions, Omar’s Show Don’t Tell how to read music

Tension between the literal retelling of a story, and abstracting the story into a concept or experience. Examples of the former: Bailey’s scene from Secret History, Maddie’s Katniss, Gabrielle’s story of the Three Dates, Phoebe’s Harry Potter scene

Examples of the latter—Bailey’s hiccoughs, Gabrielle’s Juxtapositions, my Show Don’t Tell

Bad stick-figure drawings—Sophia’s simple black and white pictures, Maddie’s Ghosts, Kimmy’s FRabies, Phoebe’s cartoons of India

Downward spirals—Paige’s (50 objects), Gabrielle (50 objects), Sophia (50 objects—River)

Maps—John’s Juxtapositions, Sophia’s (50 objects), Molly’s ELI5

MY OWN PIECES:

Show Don’t Tell—it was really challenging for me to make a piece that could in any way represent the gravity and complexity of the Syrian conflict, and I still feel like there’s a lot of ideas there that I want to explore.

Juxtapositions—what I made felt like the beginning of something that I want to expand on. I felt like this piece failed in the ways that I set out for it, and I want to make it better.

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Reflect + Write (Omar)

Surrendering Agency

  • Bailey (Show Don’t Tell) ~ Submitting ourselves to part of his human farming scheme.
  • Carina (Juxtapositons)
  • Kimmy (5 Senses) ~ Literally signing away our rights
  • Any performance where we voluntarily closed our eyes or deprived ourselves of our full senses ~ there were many!

Deletion ~ How do we erase or fail to acknowledge?

  • John (5/50) ~ Backwards writing
  • Paige (5/50) ~ Strikethrough vs. removal
  • Phoebe (Show Don’t Tell) ~ Corruption of original memories
  • Sarah (Show Don’t Tell) ~ Use of pseudonyms (like Publius)

Dragon Tales, Dragon Tales

  • Molly (Show Don’t Tell) ~ Beyond borders, there be dragons
  • Bailey (5/50) ~ “Brothers” contained a picture of a dragon
  • Omar (5/50) ~ patron dragon of an Osaka ramen restaurant
  • Sara (5/50) ~ King Arthur imagery tied to European myths of dragons
  • Phoebe (Juxtapositions) ~ Pokemon cards ft. dragons
  • John (5/50) ~ “I wish, I wish…” with all my heart…

Works I Found Striking

Gabrielle’s 5/50 Letter Scramble ~ a microcosm for the devising process as a whole, where different viewpoints make for radically different interpretations of basic components.

Bailey’s Show Don’t Tell feeding trough ~ A fascinating juxtaposition between a scenario that’s intellectually absurd and comical, but also instinctively terrifying.

Molly’s Show Don’t Tell map ~ One of the presentations that directly challenged us as audience members to convert our experience into “art.”

David’s ELI5 on Gregor MacGregor ~ I personally just found the saga of history’s biggest con-man to be hilarious.

Personal Works That Stand Out

Juxtaposition (Enraged Edibles) ~ What started out as a (culturally insensitive?) satire of slam poetry ended up evoking some very real latent anger.

Show Don’t Tell (Don’t Drop the Beet) ~ The brevity of the performance was entirely a consequence of my failure to choreograph the battery ~ whether that’s good or not, I cannot say.

 

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REFLECT + WRITE

Memory/Nostalgia

STORY 4: Short Term Memory – John

STORY 2: Easter, 1996 – Gabrielle

STORY 2: A Summer of Sisterhood – Kimmy

STORY ? : (Spy Kids)  – Bailey

JUXTAPOSITIONS: A Star Fell and Nobody Remembered – Kimmy

JUXTAPOSITIONS: Hotels Across The Country – John

SHOW DON’T TELL – Phoebe

SHOW DON’T TELL – Molly

Love

STORY 4: Once in the Highlands – Kimmy

STORY 1: A Kiss for the Heart to Grow – Kimmy

STORY 1: Three Dated and a Wedding – Gabrielle

STORY 4: Us – Paige

STORY 5: The Origin of Love – Molly

JUXTAPOSITIONS: Love Is – Gabrielle

Creation/Universe

STORY 3: Adam & Eve – Molly

STORY ? : Cosmogeny – Sophia

JUXTAPOSITIONS: The End of The World – Molly

SHOW DON’T TELL – Sarah

Magic AND/OR Stars

STORY 5 – Everything Sparkles – Gabrielle

STORY 5 – Like Magic – Phoebe

STORY 4: Short Term Memory – John

Failure

STORY ?: FAILURE: Carina

STORY 2: Adventures in the Osaka Red Light District – Omar

JUXTAPOSITIONS: The Job Hunt of David Carter

JUXTAPOSITIONS: David’s Quarter-Life Crisis/Panic Attack

SHOW DON’T TELL – Carina

2 – 3 Things I’ve Made:

SHOW DON’T TELL: The Black Panther Party

For me, this was the first of my pieces where I felt every element really informed each other, even though the could (technically) all stand on their own. I think that made the piece even more powerful.

STORY3: Don’t Forget Your Mission (Thanks, Yonce)

I like this story, because I feel like an instructional guide 21 year old Kimmy would give to 11 year old Kimmy. It’s also a story about maintaining confidence, which is definitely something I did not have as an 11 year old girl, so something like this would have been helpful.  (i.e. I would have been my own fairy godmother.)

3 – 5 Things Made By Others:

SHOW DON’T TELL – Carina

The struggle in this piece was incredibly fascinating. There was a lot of failure involved which produced a both physical and audible reactions from the class as a audience

  • JUXTAPOSITIONS – Enraged Edibles – Omar

The great thing the these performances is that Omar was able to take 2 very basic food items (like a raisin or a corndog) and address real systemic problems in the U.S. At the same time, he made the outlet for which he did that (slam poetry), seem like a farce.

  • SHOW DON’T TELL – Bailey 

This piece was the creepiest performance piece I have ever been apart of. The act of 14 disembodied heads looking at each other felt extremely unnatural. Moreover, we were all fed by this almost naked man and told to not hiccup. Everything felt so ritualistic. I LOVED IT! (And also is a  connection to his other 5 Senses piece)

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Reflect + Write!

Overarching Themes

Justice/Criminal Activity
Kimmy- like I’m 5, black panther party
Kimmy- 5 senses, waving rights
Phoebe- show don’t tell
David- like I’m 5, Gregor MacGregor
David- 5 senses, GW Plunkitt

Travel
John- juxtapositions, hotels
John- 5/50, Midnight NYC
Omar- 5/50, Osaka red light district
Carina- 5/50, Berlin
Molly- like I’m 5, cartography

The Shit of Everyday Life
Sophia- juxtapositions, job hunt of david carter
Carina- failure
Phoebe- 5/50, Stop motion ganesha
Omar- 5/50, whats in a name? puns probably
David- the grand old job hunt

Childhood
Bailey- 5/50, spy kids
David- 5/50, toy story
Phoebe- juxtapositions
Kimmy- 5/50, don’t forget your mission
Madeline- 5/50, Seidman dead squirrel

The Idea of Playing your Part
Carina- Juxtapositions
Bailey- Show don’t tell, hiccups
Omar- show don’t tell, music puns
Sarah- show don’t tell, federalist papers

Memory
John- 5/50, Remember me Please?
Phoebe- like I’m 5, how memory works

Love
Paige- genesis of love
Paige- 5/50, Us
Gabrielle- 5/50, dates and a wedding
Gabrielle- Love is..
John- 5/50, You and me

Things Made My Others that Interest Me:
-Bailey’s Show not tell, in a box!
-Carina’s Juxtaposition
-Jackson’s Show not tell
-John’s “Remember me Please?” object

*I really like the first three because I think they make such interesting use of space and our sense of orientation within it. Each piece made me feel a bit uncomfortable but in a way that

Things Made by Me that Interest Me:
Show not Tell, How Memory Works
5 senses, Sight

*I think both play with expectation, and really mess with it in an cool way which is why I really like both of them*