Projects
Table of Contents:
Six Scenes for Scene Six of Heiner Muller’s Hamletmachine (2023)
Extravaganza I (2023)
Exploration I (2022)
Virginia Experiment III (2020)
Clown Proctors Lab (2020)
Virginia Experiment II (2019)
Hamletmachine (2019)
Virginia Experiment I (2018)
Synesthetic Feedback Loop (2017)
Six Scenes for Scene Six of Heiner Muller’s Hamletmachine
An inquiry into Heiner Muller’s groundbreaking work of post-dramatic theater Hamletmachine. This show presents six unique scenes to a group of viewers in order that they may help determine what the proper sixth scene should be. These scenes include but are not limited to: Scene One of Hamletmachine, Grotowski's CATS, Taxidermied Animals. The scenes move from the alienating to the immersive as the audience is invited to engage with the theatrical frame which slowly dissolves around them, ending in a birthday party which overflows from the theater.
Extravaganza I
An intensive retreat focused on the cultivation of larger scale experiences for participants. Extravaganza I used elaborately framed experiences and sequenced activities to invite participants into a creative relationship with each other, and offered oppurtunities to collaboratively construct events for each other.
Exploration I
Taking place in the Big Horns range in Wyoming, Exploration I was the first in a series of paratheaterical forays which took place in a back country camping environment. The aim of this exploration was the relationship of the profane and the divine. In a back country setting which allowed for an encompassing isolation from the everyday, we engaged with our surroundings through Clown and Butoh.
Virginia Experiment III
In this final year of the “Virginia Experiment” cycle, we aim to synthesize the previous two years of research and develop an ongoing laboratory environment in which the participants can engage in active culture in a fluid and constant way. By opening up the planning and introducing more elements of creative and collaborative activity, we aim to build a new social framework within our group that creates a space for agency and play. In tandem with the development of this laboratory environment, we reach a more conclusive place in the development of our unique method for exploring psycho-physical presence.
Clown Proctors Lab
Through the Clown Proctors Lab, we invited a number of theater artists to collaboratively develop a piece of devised theater based on the unique identity of this particular group, having as our dramaturgical material the relationships of the artists themselves in a communal living environment. This was achieved by facilitating activities that both brought the participants into a more direct meeting with one another and focused creative exercises. These two processes were then synthesized into the rough sketch of the piece Clown Proctors. This sketch serves as the initial starting point for a multi-year development process of an original theatrical work.
Virginia Experiment II
The object of this project is to explore trust and vulnerability, both through conceptual engagement and realized action. These two elements will be inspected separately as well as through exploring the dialogue between these two modes of engagement. We want to intentionally actualize trust and vulnerability into our previously established group culture, continuing to cultivate our group’s culture in order to disseminate this mode of Being through each of our everyday lives, bringing these specific elements of trust and vulnerability to the fore.
Hamletmachine
This devised adaptation of Heiner Müller's ‘Hamletmachine’ explores social change and our individual roles within it. The piece aims to bring audience members to an active experience of the concepts discussed in Müller's text while leaving the need for cognitive understanding behind. Our ‘Hamletmachine’ exposes audience members to a series of engaging non-narrative stagings in a randomized sequence creating truly unique engagements each evening.
Virginia Experiment I
The aim of this project is to examine and expand existing social relationships and dynamics within the group. This includes the relationships we bring into the space with us, as well as those cultivated through the research. After establishing an intuitive grasp on the social language that exists between us as individuals and as a group, we will begin to abstract the content of these relations. Through this abstraction we intend to cultivate the expression of this content as opposed to the active experience of the relationships. We intend to do this by creating representative expressive structures and performative actions.
Synesthetic Feedback Loop
Synesthetic Feedback Loop created an interactive environment of responsive sensors which converted visual and auditory input into changes in the room through sound, lighting, and image. In this constructed space, we lead the participants through a movement exercise and prompted an improvisatory engagement with the space, highlighting the performative relationship that is held between humans and architecture.