Thass french, means “9×22, one more time!” more or less.

Ran across this. Well, I was looking for it. Matt Peiken does a video blurb on Laurie van Wieren’s 9×22: A Dance Lab.

I was there doing “A Bottle of Unleaded” the video of which I will post up here soonish.

Here’s the link to the Peiken piece.

Mr Heiner Müller gave a little speech in 1985 in accepting a prize that was later published as THE WOUND WOYZECK. In it he says:

1. Woyzeck still is shaving his Captain, eating the prescribed peas, torturing Marie with the torpor of his love, the play’s population has become a state, surrounded by ghosts.

This is the kernel of how I see the production. Look: a list. An enumeration of the play’s characteristics. And “a state, surrounded by ghosts.”

Woyzeck is pretty much a conglomeration of fragments and uncertainties. Every production must decide how to deal with this material. This decision, in this case so near the surface and apparently an indispensable preliminary, is of course one that must be made (consciously or not) about all productions of every play. This is the most interesting aspect of Woyzeck to me.

My order will not be the point — I don’t think I can speak satisfactorily through a play anymore, if I ever could. The ordering will be the point: the act of ordering. Which, happily enough, is also reflected in the play itself I think in different ways.

Some of that last post suggests that our organization is a model of perfection and that if only the rest of the world would catch up, we’d all get along just fine.

Well, I may be stupid but I’m not blind.

There are some serious issues I know we have, and although I won’t air dirty laundry here, I will say that we have plans to become more actively engaged and more responsive to more of the world. Our history of site-specific and site-based work has its foundations in a responsive relationship to space, geography, topography, objects, etc. And it is specifically the negotiability of this relationship that activates and gets activated by performance and, when successful, produces opportunities for meaningful experiences, both public and individual.

I think because we have often been looked upon (when we manage to attract the eyes of others) as eccentrics or isolated one-time wonders, we have paid careful attention to this relationship and tried to nurture it, aid it, and shelter it from the harsh winds of the Midwest urban tundra. But regardless of whether Minnesota Nice is a front, a fake or a feeling, for crying out loud there’s just No Money and there never has been and likely, never will be. Not in this country.

“The food stinks!” he screams to the waiter. “And such small portions too!”

So to extend this idea of responsiveness that we rely on with site to other aspects of our existence is a natural and not impossible movement.

And not the grass, right.

We’re talking money.

And although everyone knows the difficulties of arts orgs, of art orgs in a recession (of anyone at all, really, at this here and now…) perhaps some details of our situation might shed light on the peculiarities of a broader picture.

A small, arts-driven, “experimental,” and site-specific group like ours faces an uphill battle in the best of times. We have a very small infrastructure because we make original work for particular locations. This means:

So the question becomes: must we change the work in order to survive? Do we need to create a maintenance bureaucracy in order to prove that we are serious? Do we need to conform to existing models in order to continue to exist?

My contention is that growth does not equate to survival (in any context, but particularly in our own). That drive toward growth always reminds me of cancer, and I’m not fond of thinking of art as an all-consuming wasting disease.

Consequently we must convince (not just audiences and funders) but ourselves and the entire ecosystem into which we have placed ourselves that not only are we not a vast black consuming cancerous hole, not only do we have a right to exist as we are, but that our existence is a viable model for a vibrant and flourishing member of a larger community.

In short, I believe our situation is parallel to the situation of the arts in general within the larger world (at least in this capitalist, puritanical, Spectacular portion of it).

We have never wanted to exist simply to exist. Never believed that we could turn enough profit to maintain our skewed visions. We knew going into this that when you claim the margins of difference for yourself you will be marginalized. Our path was always a rocky one. But I do think we hoped that our presence, and our commitment to making life interesting for ourselves and as many others as we could reach, was not only a viable and laudable one, but one that would alter the make-up of the ecosystem enough to make continued existence not only possible but necessary.

And so in our disillusionment we tighten our belts and walk head first into the inferno.

If you saw it, let us know what you thought.

Online review by Lightsey Darst was thoughtful and called it ecphrastic. (Look it up. You’re already online, google is just a click away.) The local paper’s Graydon Royce said that it was a disappointment and that my piece (I went “off the rails”) was “a tiresome exercise of technical tricks and meaningless meanderings — a brazen invitation to nod off or check your e-mails.”

Naturally I disagree. I thought my part was a beautiful, if flawed, piece with great work by all involved. We made a Johns-like work and I think it worked like a gray Johns painting — that was the site-specific point, after all.

In any case, attendance was low. Which of course was disappointing for us, but also raised some questions which may get addressed in public in another post.

Plans are underway to continue this work, but in the meantime we forge ahead with other new work in new spaces. We are looking at a new version of Woyzeck at an old military base on the river, an interactive espionage-love story in the skyway system, and an realization of W.G. Sebald’s novel Austerlitz dawning across the breadth of the city.

Just a little something here:

I’m working on the sound for the next opportunity at 9×22 and I’ve discovered that if you play “Her Majesty” by the Beatles backwards you get something that sounds like “A bottle of unleaded” which is fun, plus something that sounds like “Oy, ishtinem!” which is even more fun because when I was in school there was a young woman who was learning Hungarian and she used to come out with Hungarian exclamations, one of which was (or at least sounded like): “Oy, ishtinem!”

Not that I can remember what it meant…

On a more rested note:
So I’m trying to approach this performance opportunity as a link between what I just did for Jasper Johns and what is in the future (including Sebald’s Austerlitz and Buchner’s Woyzeck).

Part if that effort is trying to “empty out” a phrase through repetition. Which I think I’ve got down. It’s an introductory measure from the UbuWeb classic “I’m a Mormon.” A rinkydink little jingle that in itself is cloying and when repeated some 30-odd times becomes something else.

(After the madness sets in of course.)

See: we’re at war, here…remember? Over and over and over again my friend… Was it all for a bottle of unleaded?

P.S.
Just been reading a lotta Aleksandar Hemon, which I’d recommend to anyone and he had a character say something poignant about war in The Lazarus Project:

war becomes this space where anybody can kill anybody at any time, where everybody wants everybody dead, because the only way you are sure to stay alive is if everybody else is dead

I’ve read everything he’s got out and his relevance to my concerns is spot-on, mate.

Hey, hello I’m here, its me. I’ve never really felt the urge to write before but tonight its powerful. So why? Well, I’m trying to solve a performance problem - its like a hard little tight knot that’s hard to unravel. Last night as FatSunny mentioned, was our dress rehearsal. It was indeed. For me the experience was not so easy. I realize that I give up alot of control working inside a theatre. I’m remembering that disconcerted feeling of giving up control of the ideas. Of working hard to marshal elements around me, willing others to behave, think what I’m thinking, hope they come through! Of course, I’ve always given up, given in to performers but that’s different, thats part of the fun. Its the blank space, the technical elements I find frustrating. Letting go of controlling all three dimensions of the space is hard. Also, I have no collaborator in the stage, no texture to respond to. I’m just left alone with the ideas in my head that at this moment feel like a bunch of boring crap. The proscenium stage is a flat, flat surface. I am reminded of this over & over.

So to the problem. Pick, pick. I made this thing that is about the Flag series. These Flags are interesting to me because I find them both attractive & repulsive. I think I understand them. Why people feel so passionately about their Flags, yet I don’t really get it. I remember when I first arrived in this country being rather shocked that people displayed their Flags so readily. In their yards, on their shirts, their jeans. Its a brand, no its not, its a sign of patriotism, wait no, its a symbol of rebellion. Where I come from (or I should say where I grew up) people are more inhibited about showing this sort of thing. Waving a Flag around sends the wrong message, implies certain political/right wing associations that could get your head kicked in.

Anyway, the point is that I’ve made this piece about a symbol that I just have a hard time understanding/connecting to. I just can’t take it seriously. No wonder its a comedy. What’s the problem? Well, I feel I’ve avoided Johns altogether and gone straight for the symbol. Thats the problem. Quite honestly, I see in this work only a surface connection to John’s pieces. It feels unfinished, it lacks depth. Maybe thats the point?

On another note, I am in the process of applying for citizenship. It seems right somehow after 19 years to finally take the plunge for a project rather than for some other reason. I will be needing this American passport for a different project in the spring that will bring me face to face with the Dept. of Homeland Security. It makes me feel a bit more secure to have that thing in my back pocket especially with the recent Supreme Court decision.

Ok, so Flag is about the absurdity of the citizenship process. That will have to do for now.
I guess then the Johns piece is a means to another end. Hmmm. Maybe I need to fold these ideas into the Spring project….

It’s happening again. We’ve got three different shows set up elbow to elbow. Despite our common history and the works’ common inspiration, there are significant differences between the three (four, since Sean’s is really two).

And what is happening is the exponentially increased reach, impact and possibility when seeing all of them together. The interplay and contrasts set up multiple lines along which experience and meaning can race or creep, fly or crawl.



For me it is like being submerged in chocolate (um, that’s a little odd…). But maybe you know what I mean. All that richness all around, being able to reach in any direction and find lovely tastes that take you further.

Dress this: paper, tape, rope, gray light and a mic.

Actually tech rehearsal last night was the most enjoyable tech rehearsal I’ve ever been in. Which might not be saying much — given how miserable tech rehearsals usually are — but also partly due to the handmade quality of this one: process should be apparent as in Johns paintings.

(Plus there’s also the Chance element thrown in by the structured play that makes this engine go.)

There are a couple things that haven’t been tested yet (the Catenary, full video and sound, a full run) but I know the fundamentals are sound (hey, just like the economy, right?) and that low level anxiety that comes from uncertainty will be a powerful energizer.

Being in the piece is very hard, trying to watch and perform at the same time. But I don’t want to make anyone do anything I won’t and I can feel it better from the inside anyway.

I wonder if audiences will be put off by the non-presence of nearly every element — I hope it will work like J’s grays and not simply fail on its own.

In any case, it is a beautiful gray thing we’ve made, with the texture and complexity of (dare I hope) a Johns surface.

Now whether there is as much intelligence, wit and depth in this as there is in one of Mr J’s is an open question still…

One suit left… half a suit..

Got the rope and the second set of toothbrushes..

program almost finished

tech tonight, making a list of what to get covered

another email to send out?

Need to work the lift, teach the song, test the sound, figure out the timing of the opening and transitions, write the interstitial monologs…

The thing is, this way of working is new to me: making some structures and letting the performance be a lot of play within them. Sort of Cage-ian…

It was fathers’ day yesterday, right? I remember breakfast in bed. When I got back from visiting my father I went to see Justin Jones at the Red Eye. Biked home and made more suit, worked on program (coralling bios, mostly), but at that point it’s too late to do any real planning because I don’t know about you but my brain stops functioning at peak efficiency sometime around midnight. So as I taped I watched Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet.

There’s something silly about it, dated, simplistic, but on the other hand it is a crystal of perfect inspiration: the nature of film (light-shadow-image) being used so directly and effectively — that’s the key: finding how a particular space (of film, of a stage, of a page) works and riding it like a wave — you can’t control it, but you can sense its movement and lean into the curves. The Poet’s scar and the bleeding boy, killed by a snowball. Falling into the mirror, the walk along the hotel corridor (filmed with the wall and doors on the floor) peering into keyholes. The images are not directly symbolic not do they solely serve a narrative (although both are also true to a certain extant). It is the extant to which the images are in excess of these uses that they are beautiful and inspirational to me.

Okay, now I’m just procrastinating…