Workshop Sunday

 

I am driven by process, in both creating work and in life on a grand scheme. What intrigues me further is the space of process: what is left behind in evidence: physically, emotionally, accidentally or intentionally in the necessity of continuing on. By no means, is this a new or insightful concept-it is just what it is: an actuality. Anything that grows or builds requires tools and stages that are essential until they are cast aside. In order to get to one place, one needs to leave another. What is left behind provides fertilizer for future growth. Plants shed their casings, leaves, and blossoms to the ground that enrich the soil. Having my own growth begin with theatre and the stage, there is little more beautiful and comforting to me than a stage lit only by a ghost light-an open and eerie space of charged inactivity, waiting to be filled, both vulnerable and incensed. All stages are haunted. Much of my personal body of work, teaching and study explores the many different stages that exist outside of the traditional theatre: on the street, in classrooms, museums, public spaces, characters, interactions, it goes on. The less likely conceived to be a stage, the more interesting to explore. The first indication of a stage is the information left behind as evidence. The histories and mythologies borne, explored, and rediscovered in a constant cycle inevitably set a pattern of overexposure, chaos, beauty, loss and mixed messages in clues and remnants left behind. The beauty I see in a ghost-lit stage is a comfort of a charged space at rest. The strength and clarity of the single ghost light is a beacon. It is the starting point in a process-familiar, protective, and simple with an atmosphere of tools, fertilizer and risks to engage or avert.

 

It is this task of engagement that I set myself out to explore with Striding Lion in the creation of the Night Roars: Live Art Series and the development workshops that lead up to the evening of short, interdisciplinary performances. Simply put, Night Roars: Live Art Series is a cabaret in three acts, featuring new works in development by Striding Lion and artists within the community in an atmosphere infused by creative stations, interactive elements and visual art developed through the workshop process. The entire evening is interactive celebrating works-in-progress, the live art community, and the spirit of performance. The workshops, determined by discipline, are designed as a consistent forum for feedback, generation of different angles and ideas within a work in progress, and a haven in which to play, take risks and create in an accessible, secure and supportive environment.

 

This afternoon, I hosted the first workshop in a series devoted to Night Roars v.3 “House Party” entitled, “Building Home: mapping memory, history and objects.” As is every introductory workshop in a cycle, this one is based in generating material based on environments and public spaces. This workshop is divided into three sections:

The first section was spent in discussion and feedback of our individual proposed pieces for the upcoming Night Roars event, giving us all a collective understanding of the nature of the work to be developed, the questions that arise from both the creators and community, and considerations as to where these questions and tasks may lead.

 

The second section is task-oriented. The proposals for “House Party” are divided by the themes of home, security and chaos. I presented three definitions to the group(all pulled from Wikipedia):

 

A home is a place of residence or refuge comfort.[1] It is usually a place in which an individual or a family can rest and be able to store personal property. Most modern-day households contain sanitary facilities and a means of preparing food. Animals have their own homes as well, either living in the wild or in a domesticated environment. As an alternative to the definition of "home" as a physical locale, home may be perceived to have no physical definition--instead, home may relate instead to a mental or emotional state of refuge or comfort.

There are certain cultures in which members lack permanent homes, such as with nomadic people. 

Security is the degree of protection against danger, loss, and criminals. 

Chaos (derived from the Ancient Greek Χάος, Chaos) typically means a state lacking order or predictability. In ancient Greece, it first meant the initial state of the universe, and, by extension, space, darkness, or an abyss[1] (the antithetical concept was cosmos), but later uses of the term by philosophers varied over time. In modern English, the word is used in classical studies with the original meaning; in mathematics and science to refer to a very specific kind of unpredictability; and informally to mean a state of confusion.[2] In philosophy, and in popular culture, the word can occur with all three meanings. 

 

With these definitions and the following tools and instructions, the group dispersed to explore neighborhood.

 

Tools to be used:

Stream of consciousness writing: For five minutes minimum, set your pen on your paper and write without letting your pen leave the paper. Allow yourself to just write, keeping no mind of format, disruption, change in direction to deter the writing. Just write.

Gesture/movement observation:  putting the observation of gesture into your own body.

Sound/echoes: Listen to the sounds around you, and articulate them in your own voice or sounds you can make. Pay attention to echoes. Note them.

Personal perspective: infuses everything. If you have a piece in mind, identify the  findings that are unexpected. If you are searching for a piece: identify the correlation(association) between what you find familiar versus what you find  interesting.

Glean: take what you can from the atmosphere with what you have to collect-gestures, sounds, bits of conversations, objects, photographs

 

Using these tools:

walk until you are caught by something.(note-if you are not caught by something as ambiguous as “something,” walk along paths until they lead into a building or change of atmosphere.)

Attach yourself to a tool that attracts you. Use it. If one leads to another, use those, too. Use at least 3 tools

Find a way to subtly interact with/as a watcher(Don’t freak anyone out, just make a human connection of some sort)

Record this in some way, using tools  as described.

 

Once everyone returned from their independent journey, we took to creating “maps” of our journeys using collage, shadow boxes and visual work. Fun stuff. Among the items brought back into the space were a few 1961 records of Hansel and Gretel, Disney’s Three Little Pigs, and some Vintage “Better Homes and Gardens/Ladies home Journal” magazines. We played the records, which were eerily creepy and familiar, boasting a Wolf Spanking Machine, and an evil Big, Bad Wolf who spoke only in German, advertisements for battery operated “personal massagers”  and quizes from 1970 determining how tolerant women should be of extramarital affairs. Home, security, chaos…indeed. The collages built were interesting, chaotic and concise. A fun Sunday.

 

Past workshops include:

 

Title: Looking for love in all public spaces

Description: Writing exercises, observations, storytelling and interaction will be used to generate ideas and storylines as connective tissue by taking part in a scavenger hunt gleaning objects, emotions, tasks, interactions and development of relationships between people, architecture, objects and atmospheres to create uncover the love stories that take place all around us.

Location: Water Tower Place

Designed for: Artists of all disciplines seeking to generate material and transitions in new and developing work, overcoming creative blocks, and gleaning ideas and concepts from public arenas.

Led by Associate Artistic Director, Karen Louis. Karen has worked as a performer, teaching artist, costume designer and every other hat known to be worn with Striding Lion since 2002. She received a B.A.(Theatre) from the College of Wooster and an M.A.(Interdisciplinary Arts) from Columbia College. As a performer and teaching artist, she has also worked with The Women's Project and Productions(NYC), Playhouse on the Square(Memphis, TN), Healthworks Theatre(Chicago), and many other places along the way.

 

Title: Reinterpreting Fairy Tales-an exercise in music, movement and mythologies

Description: A selected fairy tale will be presented and expanded upon using music, movement exercises and clowning techniques.

Led by Company member, Dana Dardai. Dana Dardai has worked with the Neo-Futurists, Filament Theater,Stockyards Theater Project, New Leaf Theatre, and New Millennium. She is a teaching ensemble member of the Striding Lion InterArts Workshop and co-composed and performed on their album, "Birdsongs". She has also composed and directed music for "A.W.O.L" with the clown troupe Eleffant Foot. Dana studied the violin, voice and viola at the University of Evansville, clown with 500 clown and movement at Joel Hall and the Salt Creek Ballet.

 

Title: Visualizing Time

Description: Artists explore concepts of time, memory and mapping using movement, contact improvisation and text.

Led by Amanda Exley Lower - a modern dancer, choreographer, and the artistic director of Duende Dance Theater. A mom of two, she shares her passion for movement through performances, residencies, and classes.

 

Title:Necessary dialogues( Social Theatre/Theatre of the Oppressed)

Description: An exploration into building narrative and concepts of political thought through theatrical presentation. What is considered political? How is it articulated through the written word, body and performance? Where do these performances take place? What is the greater cultural meaning/evidence?

 

Title: Musical Duct Tape

Description: Designed to use sound, rhythm and songwriting techniques to explore deeper themes within presented work and further development of musical ideas.

Designed for: Those seeking to explore sound and music within their work and techniques in which to expand or instigate musical ideas.

Led by Christian Rogala, a Striding Lion Company Member for three years, an Honor Graduate at Berklee College of Music, Member of Fluid Minds: a Chicago based Rock Group. Also plays with many other musicians and styles of music.

 

Title: Characters, playing, speed-dating, Oh my! It’s a showcase showdown!

 

Description: Exploring the relationship between character identities, costuming, and engaging the audience, artists will play with character development, building, constructing and contorting costumes/props, and audience participation/engagement ideas to be used in the Night Roars event. Presentations will be set up in the schedule of appearance, games played, music continued, final thoughts and considerations.

Led by Karen Louis

 

Chicago

“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure”-Joseph Campbell

Since my arrival in Chicago, I have been trying to fall in love with this city. It was easy to fall for the alleys, and the reflection of light bouncing off of the puddles after a summer storm. Riding my bicycle down the Lakefront path. Building and collaborating on shows with my company. Teaching performance programs in the city schools. Exploring art, music, and sudden friendships in a fertile, if random, ground of influence and opportunities. I had believed to have committed myself fully to the quest for love of this city, despite the fact that one foot was always poised in either retreat or advance. Perhaps I had truly committed myself to falling.

The first time I visited Chicago was in 1994 for a Women’s Studies conference at Depaul. I was brought in as an actor to play Virginia Woolf in a play that had been written by another Wooster student, and had won some kind of award. I didn’t think much of Chicago-it reminded me of Cleveland, which, at the time, wasn’t a horrible association. Cleveland had been in a resurgence and beautification decade. Jacob’s Field was still new. Tower City was still current, and the Flats still had an array of clubs. Cleveland was a little bit pretty. The area of Chicago we were being housed in was seedy, so I didn’t have a huge impression of Chicago, necessarily. We didn’t even drive through downtown. I don’t remember Lake Michigan any differently than I know Lake Erie. Chicago=Cleveland, which was fine. No harm, no foul. I knew Cleveland, and was fond of Cleveland. Chicago didn’t offer anything new to me. I was at a conference. I didn’t feel that I had an opinion.

I did form one. It was while watching Saturday Night Live in the hotel room with Blind Melon as the musical guest. Shannon Hoon loped up to the microphone and mumbled, “This is for Kurt Cobain.” awkwardly. My first thought was that he was being snide and playing off of the common tone in the grunge days of calling another musician a sell out, or Kurt Cobain was dead. I couldn’t figure it out. It was clearly one or the other.

Kurt Cobain was dead. I had another association with Chicago. It was in a hotel room, and watching a television screen, confused and hoping for sarcasm, rather than remorse.

Years later, as an actor traveling and exploring residencies and contracts, meeting new sudden friends and cohorts, I heard about the storied potential of Chicago. Many of my friends aspired to live and build a career there, and it was presented as a wonderland. I was already based in NYC, a city I loved, and had no interest in Chicago. If I left New York, it would be for Los Angeles. In my mind, New York had theatre and Law and Order. Los Angeles had film and television. I grew up in the Midwest, and had no interest in returning. I had New York waiting. I had Los Angeles looming. First things first, especially while still in my 20’s.

At 26, I began planning my move from NYC to LA. I took a year to canvas, establish contacts, save money, and transition my tone. I wasn’t unfamiliar with LA, as my grandparents lived in Long Beach, and from five years old on, I had spent many holidays and vacations out there. Many memories were built and fantasies borne of those trips full of Seal Beach, Marina Del Ray, 70 degree Christmas’, back yard lemon trees, and morning feedings of the neighborhood rabbits. As a child, Los Angeles represented the dream world I would one day own, posted in snapshots of palm trees and beaches amid my Sassy Magazine posters of Johnny Depp and Christian Slater that decorated my bedroom walls at my Father’s house. As I grew older, went to college, and accepted opportunities, I found myself in New York City, hopelessly in love, training at Strasberg, and surrounded by constant amazement. Childhood memories and palm trees didn’t stand a chance against swollen stories passing by, towering in architecture, rooted in the frames of the sheer mass of people ebbing along, aware and blinded by the atmosphere of Everything. The Chelsea Hotel. Leonard Cohen oozing from every pore of the city that begged to be explored and trodden.

When I decided to leave New York, the dream of California was clear, and waiting. I did have the anticipation of training, the desire to work in independent film and television, the fruition of a few friends from my traveling actor days, NYC, and other places along the way. I had even struck up a romance with a friend from high school. Most importantly, though, was the energy of starting anew-exploring the landscape and opening up my path to the cliff’s edge, all the while admiring the view.

My final trip to L.A., before actual relocation, was a two-week stint to find an apartment. Knowing I’d be living the La Boheme life as a n actor again, I had staggered my connecting flights in Chicago to spend the weekends of travel with my best friend from college, Heather, who had been in Chicago for a few years. The Chicago I found on the first weekend en route to L.A. was drastically different from the “It’s just like Cleveland” Chicago I remembered. Nights were long and oddly glamorous, filled with champagne, martinis, laughter and late night runs to the lakefront. Days were filled with brunches, music, hilarity and art. Sleep was minimal. New friends were immediate, to the extent that a group of newfound friends stole my keys on my last night, trying to convince me not to go out to Los Angeles and to stay in Chicago. It almost worked, as when my flight was scheduled to take off at 8:30 am, I was still searching for the hidden keys. Part of me hoped I wouldn’t find them. Luckily, the flight had been delayed, and I did not miss it. I slept for the entire weekend on that flight. In that sleep, I recognized something I hadn’t expected-I was completely infatuated with Chicago. Who knew? Chicago raised my eyebrows and pushed my pulse. But I had already put my plan in motion, so that city was to be nothing more than a “what if?”

I got to Los Angeles, settled myself into the Holiday Inn in Hollywood, immediately took a nap, and slept through a mild earthquake. I had plans to meet up with the boy I’d been seeing, but he was insisting I drive out to Burbank, which I was not intent to do, having not driven in five years, and didn’t know how to get there, and frankly, found his whole demeanor a little rude. I cancelled the plans and opted to do some writing at the hotel bar, where I quickly fell into conversation with the bartender. We spoke of New York, the business, and all of the typical stuff. Then we came to the subject of Chicago, and she kept saying, “You know, I wish I had known about Chicago.” And my heart twitched a bit with the wonder if I was making a mistake in considering only two cities in which to play. I guess that is what usually happens when you walk away from infatuation. You wonder.

I woke the next morning to my hotel phone ringing. I had assumed it was the boy, calling to apologize, but it was my friend Carrie, calling in tears, telling me to turn on the television. This is where this turns into my September 11th story. Sitting alone in a hotel room in Hollywood, watching the literal world I had just left crumble as it would in a big-budget movie blockbuster.

Dumbfounded. Helpless. Confused. Horrified. Alone. Really, really, really far away.

My phone rang again, and this time it was the boy. He was laughing, shouting, “Are you watching this?!?Fuck New York!” I never realized what a terrible judge of character I had been.

Devastated. Cut off. Alone.

I tried to call everyone back home, but my cell was out(as it would be for another week or however long it was). Luckily, there was a youth hostel next door with internet, so I was able to get in touch with friends and family that way, and account for everyone I could. But there wasn’t much I could do, that far away.

I’ll spare the rest of the story, as it’s another entry in and of itself. I hid in my hotel room for a few days, trying to make some sense out of anything, and eventually came to “live what you love.” “Follow your bliss,” It was the only thing that made any sort of sense, and the only perspective I could muster to take a terrible tragedy and tie a makeshift rudder of hope and direction to it. It happened. Now what?

I spent my two weeks out on the West Coast, half-heartedly looking for an apartment, but had already decided that I couldn’t stay out there with family in Ohio and a life in New York. I decided to take my staggered return weekend to find an apartment in Chicago, which was easy to do. Rather than move to L.A., I moved to Chicago, intending to stay there for a year, until things settled down, then either move back to New York, or go out to L.A. again. I was still jumping off of the edge of a cliff, still admiring the view. This one just happened to be a little chillier for 6 months of the year, and offered opportunities other than the ones I had been surveying. Adventure always wins.

I came to Chicago in an unexpected transition stumble. Chicago was a treasure- a worthy crush that lived up to its promise of amusement, discovery and wonderful distractions. I had moved into an industrial loft space in the West Loop with Heather’s brother Jaime, and his punk-rock-hairdresser-from-Seattle girlfriend, who was absolutely insane, and kind of wonderful. We renovated the entire space in a free-form artists loft over the next year. Old friends, whom I never thought I’d see again, began appearing everywhere. The music scene was amazing, vibrant and contagious. Amanda, a friend with whom I had toured with the Rocky Horror Show years back, had just started a theatre company(She will say it’s “Interdisciplinary,” but I think that is redundant-theatre is, by nature, interdisciplinary, and we were, essentially, putting on plays in the first few years-check us out now at www.stridinglion.org---plug,plug. Wonderful company!), Striding Lion, and I had signed on for “Cowboy Mouth” as the producer, costume designer, assistant director and understudy(starting up companies=many hats). Summers were amazing. Winters were long and brutal. Work was constant.

With “live what you love” as an impetus for discovery, I soon found myself as the growing artist that had twitched and turned in discomfort during my time as an “actor and that’s it,” which led to the “actor turned restaurant general manager with stable income and health insurance” that led to “actor turned general manager turned bar manger/teaching artist in Harlem and Washington Heights.” Chicago became a playground of building identity and taking earnest chances to explore what truly drives me . It was within this city that I was able to bridge the connections of wants, desires and tuggings of my 20’s and early 30’s into a perspective that broadened into a path that makes sense.

With the breadth of this path before me, the foot that has been poised for years is gaining weight and momentum to continue , strengthened by this city, and all that it contains. I may not have fallen in love with Chicago, but I am reverent to the honor and freedom to explore that this city has granted me. It is certainly a treasure.

fuck the couch

Towards the end of my Columbia experience, an esteemed professor of mine mused that he "laid on the couch for four months" after finishing grad school and his thesis. I laughed in appreciation at this and found myself conflicted-lay on the couch for four months?!?! With all of this momentum? That's not how I work! Oh, but the couch does look comfortable... 

So, I tried. 

It turned out that my couch wasn't so comfortable, after all, albeit pretty. 

And there was so much to do! Amanda, the Artistic Director for Striding Lion, was heading out West with Eloise and Ben, bound for the mountains, Ben's law school, and Eloise's new home state of Colorado. So, there were meetings, transitional eekings of keeping the company strong, inspired and fiscally sound. And there was planning, on my end, devising programming as the "becoming" Artistic Director, and the opportunity to frame and harvest the programming and community I've been laying out for nearly a decade through journals, teaching, personal musings, observations, and practice. There is no couch laying in that, but there was also a sense of stasis that became my couch, in many ways. Add to that, my unexpected unemployment, due to arts funding cutbacks resulting in my summer teaching position being cut, and I found myself living off my emergency credit cards, and my two bartending shifts that are muse-intensive, but by no means gainful employment... 

This summer was fraught with both feast and famine. The feast was in building opportunity with Striding Lion, structuring a kick-ass season, concern over economic stability, waiting to learn what funding will come through, and which ones will fail with our paranoid and flawed economy. The famine came in waves of recognition and manifested itself in spending hours trying to configure back-up plans, watching them fail, feeling caught and tangled in an isolation that I hadn't expected. I had planned to use this time as a gift-to learn to play my guitar well enough to perform live, learn my Logic software in order to record, write the great american novel. I did none of these things. I freaked out, trying to figure a way in which to survive. Is that a couch?

If it is, I don't like it, and I refuse to lay on it. I suppose it's wonderful that my couch is a lovely, yet uncomfortable, antique loveseat. Not a couch at all.Whenever I tried to settle in it, I could never get comfortable. I just didn't fit enough to relax or settle. It's better this way. 

Four months have passed. I'm back in action. Stasis session is over. Striding Lion is roaring along in the INCUBATOR series at the Department of Cultural Affairs(check out the blog at http://dcatheater.org/blog/) , which will culminate in our "Pioneers" performance at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, September 29th. There are two sections to this: a for-youth production based on the songs, stories, diaries and history of the Westward Expansion, and "Directional Shifts"- a production that is an introduction to the "Night Roars-live art series" in which our artists explore our own responses to the definition of "pioneer" in our current time and place. It's all very exciting and a certain exploration.

Now that I have dismissed stasis, I have learned that it's crucial to have a couch. I need a place to rest. So, for my birthday(September 1st), I built one out of my childhood wrought iron bedframe. It didn't really take much- a mattress, a boxspring, pillows made from remnant fabric from the local JoAnn Fabrics.It was a bit of a rescue effort, on multiple levels that I won't divulge here, and it makes sense.  I'm happy to build something new and functional out of my history. Points for being able to sleep upon it. I recognize that it is still not truly a couch, but I clearly don't dig on couches.

The culmination of the thesis exhibition of Loss is Expected occurred on Friday, May 15th, 2009, during the Manifest Festival at Columbia College, Chicago. In keeping theme with my deconstruction of  performance and production, my previous performances in the installation were minimally advertised, and used to alter the space, rather than entertain an audience. Audiences were unexpected or coincidental, and often unaware that performance was going on whatsoever. Prior characters were subtle and completely pedestrian. Mad Lady Libs was the breaking of this rule in my performances. She, too, was minimally advertised, but her costume, make-up and distance from a pedestrian evocation made clear the performance element. Clearly, she is a character that belongs to Loss is Expected. Clearly, she is a familiar icon, skewed. Clearly, as she will tell you, she is on vacation, and she is very excited to see and be seen, watch, and be watched, divulge and be divulged, solve and be solved.

Being on vacation, she has the ability to travel and explore-smile for photos with strangers, pose for others willingly. She has also prepared games and gifts- a poem, a pledge, a song, she reads tarot cards and interacts. She is not aware of her costume, other than the fact that it is sharp if encountered carelessly(being made of chicken wire and trash), so she keeps a careful distance. But she is welcoming, funny, and clear, albeit a little awkward. Luckily, she has no shame.

Text: I am an Island

I am an island, enlightening the world

I am an island and a gift.

I am an island here to welcome you.

Welcome.

I am an island of an icon on an island.

A goddess of freedom

from slavery

oppression

tyranny.

I am your teen dream set aside to watch over you

in friendship

I am an island

begging you to bring me your huddled masses

in hopes that they get to me first.

Breathing free in the dream

surrounding my feet.

I am an island built on your base

reduced to pieces for travel,

stored for clearance.

Thank you, Cleveland!

I am an island representing your dreams,

your gifts to me are clear,

covering me top full

on this island.

I ask you to now help me fill in the blanks

So I can share with you what I have learned,

Watching, waiting,

here for you, of you.

She then asks the crowd to offer these nouns:

1)    Noun- something personally sacred

2)    Plural Noun-can be anything

3)    Noun- something that contains something

4)    Noun- collective group

5)    Noun- Powerful entity

6)    Noun-personal ideal

7)    Noun-Personal ideal

Once the words are in place, she asks the crowd to place their right hand over their hearts, and repeat after her:

I pledge allegiance to the –1—of the United –2—of America. And to the –3—

for which it stands, indivisible,one –4—under –5—with –6—and –7—for all.

How does this character relate to Loss is Expected?Simply. She is who she is. She was built with one common goal and reminder of optimism, ideals and growth. Layered with waste and reflection, her reason for being is still proud and clear. When she doesn't make sense, or seems odd, it adds a cautionary tale to those who observe, which an observer can accept or reject. She is both a reflection and a nurturing entity, always seeking, always persevering.

The evolution of this character stems directly from my childhood. The only art contest I've ever entered(it was unbeknownst to me-a school project) was in 5th grade. It was a poster contest for the Kent Junior Women's League(oh, god, the field day I could have with that title, alone). The contest was to create a poster under the theme of "I Love America" and go from there. I drew the Statue of Liberty with little comic book thought bubbles surrounding it containing what I had been brought up to believe as the benefits of living in America: Food, Wealth, Clothing, Happiness, etc, etc, etc. The poster wasn't good, by any means, but it won 2nd place out of 100, and I got a free pizza and $10!!! Apparently, the poster was submitted to a state-wide competition. I never saw it again.

I probably wouldn't remember any of this, had not one one of my teachers laminated a newspaper article that had been published in The Record Courier and given it to my mother(she was the school psychologist for the Kent City schools-and is now a fantastic watercolorist in Cape Elizabeth), who then kept it until she and my stepfather moved to Maine, and it ended up in a package sent to me, just before I started grad school in 2007. In 2007, I found it absurd, hilarious and sweet, and gave this carefully laminated photo of me in a pinafore dress and a mullett at age 10 a permanent place on my refrigerator, as well as a reminder of the icons and signs that are both driven into you in youth, and chosen as you grow older, wiser, and wanting to remember those familiar things and events that you can't quite place, but form your identity.

Cross that(much like the initial cross in the tarot readings given) with the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance that we were trained to recite with a loudspeaker and a principal when I was a kid, and the manner in which we'd play with the word "indivisible." In my experience, we were trained and rewarded for learning our patriotic renditions. But the fact of the matter is, we all live our lives, and  recognize where we are, where we are going, and the place we personally land is not built of what we have been told, but of how we choose to play the games presented, and interpret the rules. Even(especially) as kids, we tried to play with the rules given to us.

I chose to work with the Statue of Liberty because she is beautiful, specific, stoic and a common thread between my process of growing up, ideals, and hopes for the future. I can't dismiss that she is an island(much like my own personal musing that "Joan of Arc Island" in NYC is a median on Riverside Drive),  a myth, and an aspiration. So, I humanized her. I gave her a home and a dowdy outfit, carefully and lovingly constructed, and a personality that is hilarious, concerned, welcoming and out of time.

On May 18th,after the performance, I returned to NYC to visit friends. As I clumsily tried to explain this particular character to Brandon, who is a video artist(an amazing one, in fact)in Brooklyn, he rather incredulously asked, "Karen, do you know where the Statue of Liberty's gaze falls?"He then told me of the statue of Minerva in Green Wood Cemetery, in Brooklyn, at the site built to commemorate the Battle of Long Island, August, 27, 1776. I did know this, given my past Statue of Liberty research... but I had forgotten. Visiting this monument of Minerva raising her hand in an acknowledging wave to the monument of the Statue of Liberty, torch high and resolute,  accentuated the inclusion that I sought to extend. Liberty may be an island, but she is seeking connection. That's her point. that is why she embodies the American dream. 

Memory is amazing to me. As are facts, and the games we play in which to join the jumble  that has been spread out like a carpet of reminders and cautionary tales. Loss is Expected is my first public foray into playing with my personal past and the history that built the history that will continue to define the past. It's playful, stark, layered and constantly influenced, easily overlooked, and equally enigmatic. I approached this installation as I have done with characters as an actor. It's intensely personal, and shamelessly overt.

None of this was expected. It makes total sense.

xo,

K

5/11/09

Title:What of today?

Game:

I brought into the space four newspapers-A New York Times, A Red Eye, Chicago Tribune, and a Chicago Sun Times. I spread them out underneath the tree(as the Christmas tree it once was), and began to page through, ripping or cutting out headlines or items that caught my attention on a quick flip-through. This was an attention-grab game. I found that photos or articles I found immediately disturbing or beautiful, and both, were impulsively cut with care. Things I found personally repulsive were ripped,yet still added, and headlines or advertisements that enhanced a sense of absurdity were carelessly cut. In the midst of this, much was going on- photo documentation was being taken for the department, my wonderful and always-inspiring advisor and I had a meeting, earlier than scheduled, but that was fine, and fit into the attention pull and skew of this task that was not announced, familiar and pedestrian, all fitting into the theme of this piece.

Once the newspaper pieces were dissected, I placed them where I felt they belonged in the space. This was my game  for this day. Pulling from places that influence and exist, yet being completely separated as an observer to catch and cut, pull, and extort the meaning that contains meaning for me at a first visceral glance. What catches our attention in the familiarity of following rituals, like reading a newspaper, which is a solid thing to do, while being concerned by the outside world, but how quickly is our attention, direction and impulse pulled? 

 I love newspapers as they are tangible, directed, edited, a chore, and a privilege. I chose to use newspapers that were both opposed in audience, and available at the nearest gas station. A little bit of choice, and a little bit of circumstance. We glean information based on the information available to us. Newspapers are directed to a specific audience, in journalistic objectivity and aspirations of integrity, and that is compelling to me in the scope of Loss is Expected. 

So I flipped, cut, tore, held meetings, listened to the activity around me, and then placed my findings where I felt they belonged within the space.

Pandora-May 4th, 2009-Loss is Expected

In Memory of the Kent State Shootings, May 4th, 1970.

Additions to the space:

Individual flowers(13 total) placed in holes that had previously been empty on the stage flats(nod to the photo of Allison Krause placing a flower in the barrel of a National Guardsman's gun)

A string of flowers draped on the tree

Text taken from Wikipedia:

"They're worse than the brown shirts and the communist element and also the night riders and the vigilantes," Rhodes said. "They're the worst type of people that we harbor in America. I think that we're up against the strongest, well-trained, militant, revolutionary group that has ever assembled in America."

Unknown speaker 1:"Suddenly, they turned around, got underneath, as if they were ordered to, they did it all together, aimed. And personally, I was standing there saying, they're not going to shoot, they can't do that. If they are going to shoot, it's going to be blank."

 

Unknown speaker 2: "The shots were definitely coming my way, because when a bullet passes your head, it makes a crack. I hit the ground behind the curve, looking over. I saw a student hit, he stumbled and failed, to where he was running towards the car. Another student tried to pull him behind the car, bullets were coming through the windows of the car.

"As this student fell behind the car, I saw another student go down, next to the curb, on the far side of the automobile, maybe 25 or 30 yards from where I was lying. It was maybe 25, 30, 35 seconds of sporadic firing.

"The firing stopped. I lay there maybe 10 or 15 seconds. I got up, I saw four or five students lying around the lot. By this time, it was like mass hysteria. Students were crying, they were screaming for ambulances. I heard some girl screaming, 'They didn't have blank, they didn't have blank,' no, they didn't."[19]

 

0.Jeffrey Glen Miller 265 ft (81 m) shot through the mouth - killed instantly

0.Allison Krause 343 ft (105 m) fatal left chest wound

0.William Knox Schroeder 382 ft (116 m) fatal chest wound

Sandra Lee Scheuer 390 ft (120 m) fatal neck wound

 

0.Joseph Lewis Jr. 71 ft (22 m); hit twice in the right abdomen and left lower leg

0.John R. Cleary 110 ft (34 m); upper left chest wound

0.Thomas Mark Grace 225 ft (69 m); struck in left ankle

0.Alan Canfora 225 ft (69 m); hit in his right wrist

0.Dean Kahler 300 ft (91 m); back wound fracturing the vertebrae - permanently paralyzed from the chest down

0.Douglas A. Wrentmore 329 ft (100 m); hit in his right knee

0.James Dennis Russell 375 ft (114 m); hit in his right thigh from a bullet and in the right forehead by birdshot - both wounds minor {died 2007}

0.Robert F. Stamps 495 ft (151 m); hit in his right buttock {died June 11, 2008}

Donald Scott MacKenzie 750 ft (230 m); neck wound

 "I think that the guardsmen were provoked beyond reason. I believe that we used every conceivable effort to get the people to disperse and to move, long before the formation moved up to the hill. And we regret this as much as anyone, that people were killed and wounded. We even regret the fact that it was necessary to be here."[24]

Text for Constance: Key to a state of emergency-as performed May 2nd, 2009

 

Lately I feel as though we are in a constant state of emergency. Travel, finances, trust, safety, history.  It’ as though we’re on a constant quest to find that one particular key in the jumble that has been collected and set aside for a later date or time.  And the time is now, so we fumble to find our keys, only to find them unmarked, uncertain, or lost

 

Keys: The last bastion of  safety in a carved form that is still as common as communication. A key allows entrance into protected spaces. It is used to add human protection for places of concern. We twist them and turn them, to know that we are safe and have created safety for the space we have left. Keys are carried on belts, chains, in purses, pockets, and forgotten until needed. In a state of emergency, they can be positioned between the fingers as brass knuckles that you hope to never use. Keys represent security. They are as multi-faceted as the dips, grooves and divets that define them.

 

Keys also represent trust and responsibility. No matter where or how I’ve wandered, I realized that I accrued a collection of keys. How do you dispose of them when they are done? Businesses once worked for, friends emergency keys who later moved, exes, school restrooms-they all add up. They all add definition, and can’t be tossed away without some sense of discomfort. They deserve suspension.

 

There are keys to getting to know someone.

Keys to getting to know yourself

The first key is as simple and unmistakable as your first home.

 

My first home, we were taught in school of captain Brady

And his brave leap across a great gorge

In a state of emergency

To escape those who knew the land, having lived there for years.

Native Americans who pursued him along the river

Captain Brady hid in this river, and breathed through a reed

That I’ve never seen growing

But it’s history, right?

It’s  what we were taught

We took field trips to visit burial mounds

In Towners Woods

Above Lake Pippen

Where the Hopewells laid their bodies to rest.

There were mysteries in those woods

And talks of hauntings

rituals

Pranks

At the site where our senior and prom pictures were taken

Grins frozen in time

And a Baptist church at the base of the hills

Where they sent their kids to abstinence camp

And consequently learned about sex

And none of it made any sense

How it all worked together.

It just did. It just was.

We joked about the river that ran through our town

The same in which Captain Brady hid

And the Hopewell’s fished, hunted, traveled and rested

And the industrial waste from another place that caused it to famously burn.

All of this pales in the history in May

39 years ago today.

When a state of emergency was declared

And Rhodes, a governor, called in the National guard

To silence the response to a war that had raged for far too long

Too far away

It seemed so unfamiliar then

To protect a town from its own.

A week ago from today

The SWAT team was called into my hometown

What Ive heard is that is was to end a party in the streets

And the panic that ensued

With burning couches and drunken angry mobs

throwing stones and empty bottles

Receiving pepper spray and battalian rounds.

Seems so unfamiliar?

An absurd re-enactment

To make national news and national play.

Because this place was once

a site of protest and confusion.

On the fourth day in May, just before noon

Escalating frustration

That was disregarded until it  became a mistake

Friendly fire

Victims in transition

An example turned answer

A new definition for a known space

Divets, painfully carved curves.

Recognized as an identity

To deciding the next course

Of protection and safety.

39 years ago today, a state of emergency was declared.

Two days later, lives were lost.

And a town became notorious.

It was given a new key.

A new tone.

One that continually dangles and unlocks

Pursuit, anger, comfort and tragedy

Hauntings

Rituals

pranks

 

Those of us who grew up in this city

Take our keys seriously

And remember them well

With protection and responsibility

As guardians to the next step

Unlocking the next new thing

That keeps us in the game.

 

I’ll be here on Monday, just before noon

Searching for the key to  quell the state of emergency that colors

Our constant orange alert

And to honor those who have carved the dips, grooves and divets

That unlock the next twist we choose to turn.