PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER! aka The Chekhov Project
Currently working with WaxFactory in an in-depth investigation of the beloved theatre classic, Anton Chekhov's The Seagull. After an extended period of dramaturgical and design research, and rehearsals of choreography and staging, we will embark on an exploration of many ways in which this century-old play resonates in the 21st century America. Contemporary parallels will be drawn, and incorporated to examine our society's destructive obsession with celebrity, excess and hedonism.
#aspellforfainting
A brand new ensemble work for a solo performer, a sound artist/DJ and a video artist/VJ, titled #aspellforfainting is an improvisational piece, created anew for each performance by using disparate textual sources (The Seagull, Macbeth, Hamlet, Streetcar Named Desire, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, YouTube instructional videos, etc), a multitude of musical selections and sounds, and over 50 objects as an investigation in the chaos of creation. The performer is given a series of tasks to complete while the DJ/VJ team shifts through a constantly rotating series of textual sources, sound cues, light changes, and props placed in the performers path.
Using Charcot’s Tuesday night lectures at the Salpêtrière and his instigation of hysterical performance as a leaping-off point, we trace the lines of fainting, hallucination, delusion, and love letters that run through the source material. #aspellforfainting vividly celebrates the live, raw neurosis of being a performer. The tempest that occurs between the initial brilliance of an idea and the dread one encounters when they can't figure out what they were thinking just a moment before. The crippling of an artistic block, unforeseen circumstances, nightmares, getting out of ones own way... and what happens when one confronts the reality of what was created, exposed, capsized, deconstructed, demolished, and uprooted.