Alchemy

An unclear new project, about to be born

about pain

about transformation

about shame

about invisible visibility

about volume and form

essentially unclear

more details to follow

A collaboration with the Berkeley Telematics Laboratory

Update, July 2008:

It's been born! In the form of Burning, a performance/drama/movement/visual art/collaborative project. The performance aspect is co-directed with Kelly Rafferty, University of California, Berkeley.

Here are the invitations that have gone out:

1.

Invitation to join new Olimpias production, either physically or as cyber
participant

Dear everybody,

Here is a draft of Burning, the heart of our new production - it
incorporates the Alchemy piece a few of you have seen or worked with in our
workshops/performances at the Touching Time Symposium in Michigan, at the
Portland Disability Arts and Culture Festival, in Oakland at the Dance and
Disability Festival, and in San Francisco at Bare Bones Butoh.

(if you see this on the website: contact me if you want to a copy of the play)

Burning is less a naturalistic play, and more an open script that is
malleable, might be carried in live voices or through soundtrack to
movement, might be a video combined with live performance, might be all
kinds of things....

The workprocess I envision is a longish one, going on over the period of
about a year and a half. We will call for people to come together somewhere,
either outside on a beach or nature park or in a studio, for a few hours,
and do scene work, working with scenes or parts that speak to them.
Hopefully, we can find small sharing opportunities. And thus, we will build
the show bit by bit, scene by scene, capturing things on camera as we go
along.

To me, the whole thing, and the performance research, is about opening the
pores of the body/self, being permeable, dangerous play on the borders of
self and other, self and environment, stage and audience, etc.

So if anybody would care to go on that journey with us, we'd love to hear
from them: actors, dancers, singers, photographers, videographers, sculptors
(in found materials), fire eaters, costume designers, sound artists, poets,
writers, theorists...

Commitment level: open. Could be one day, could be multiple one-day
workshops. There is no expectation that people will stick with it towards a
performance (usual Olimpias process): this is a research process rather than
conventional performance rehearsal work. All energy levels and forms of
embodiment will be respected, and you can be a physical or cyber
participant. Usually, somehow, a product of some kind emerges but we do not
know yet what that is. We will open a listserv to reflect on the process of
creation and the themes, and that might lead to publication (it has for our
last two projects, Anarcha (http://liminalities.net/4-2/anarcha/) and
Tiresias (forthcoming work in About Performance and TDR)).

There is no funding for this work at this moment, but we hope to be invited
to residencies at colleges, which might lead to payment.

Contact: petra@umich.edu. First workshop days in mid-July, around Northern
California, followed by one every two-to-three weeks in
July/August/September. There might be a workshop each in NYC and Ann Arbor
in September. A workshop each in Melbourne and Adelaide in October/November.
Probably a workshop during MLA time in SF.

Love to you all, and come play. Please feel free to distribute to others who
might be interested in this kind of disability culture/body research work.
Petra

2.

Dear (potential) Burning community, dear Olimpias collaborators, Burning is getting going, and here are some news, workshop dates, and first glimpses of sharings. If you want to get involved, in California or long-distance, contact me, at petra@umich.edu! This is the last email I am sending out to all of you, after this, announcements will be just for the group who identified their interest, so no worries about lots of future emails!

1. Kelly Rafferty

We have a co-director for Burning! Kelly Rafferty, from UC Berkeley. Kelly is finishing her PhD in Performance Studies, and has had a good bit of Olimpias experience: she was part of the Anarcha work in 2007, and participated in Touching Time in 2008. She is an experienced theatre director and acting teacher, and will be responsible for those parts of Burning, while I will continue to act as producer, and co-director with special attention to community process and choreography. Kelly and I are both interested in the intersection of performance practice and research, so we are continuing the journey of Anarcha and Tiresias.

2. Workshop Dates

We now have a first set of dates for some initial Burning out-door workshops in Berkeley and Oakland. Thursday 17th of July, 3-5, Lake Temescal in Oakland (near Broadway Parking Area. You will not have to pay for parking. If you need a ride, let us know) Sunday July 20th, 3-5, Faculty Grove, UC Berkeley campus Thursday 24th of July, 3-5.

Bring sunscreen/appropriate clothing, a journal and a pen, and an open mind. It's best if you have read Burning before you come, just as background: if you need an e-copy, email me. We will have another set of workshops in August.

3. Groundrules

These workshop are based on the usual Olimpias methods:

1. There is no expectation that people come to more than one workshop, there is no pressure to build up to a performance. Everybody can give as little or as much time to the process, in person or online, as they wish. In particular, we honor physical, mental and emotional differences and the different temporalities created by them. Different people work on different bits, depending on interest and availability.

2. This is process-work. We offer you opportunities to create art together, to engage in issues of bodily poetics, the relations between metaphors and bodies, transformation, and disability culture. We do not know where the journey will lead. Everybody can perform or publish their material generated in the project, but agrees not to use others as case-studies or use or reveal any material created in the workshops in unethical ways. Permission and trust are important elements of the process, but there is no specified product, or way to it. The journey will be about a year long, and we will see what happens. We are aware that some people find this way of working frustrating, but we have had very good experiences with this open crucible.

3. We shall have fun, share companionship, engage in rituals of creative practice, and break bread together.

4. Sharings

We will have a first sharing of work at Rudramandir, July 31st. This sharing of a short solo work based on one of Guide's monologues is by invitation only. Let me know if you'd like to come, and I will tell you more about it.

The next, and now fully public sharing will be as part of Bare Bones Butoh's next performance evenings in San Francisco's Mission District, August 15/16th.

We also hope to present as part of Sins Invalid, Brava Theatre, San Francisco, September 5/6th, to be confirmed. The next Burning date after that will be a day-long workshop around stem cell research issues at UC Berkeley in late September, date to be announced.