The performers will choose what to perform, but they will also pick one quote from one writer which either inspires them, is relevant to their performance on December 4th , or not at all!!!!!
Therefore we called the show: " From Sydney to Sillitoe: an Unusual Cabaret".
The evening will feature Butoh dancer Stacy Lynn Smith, Contortionist Jonathan Nosan, Fusion Dancer Extraordinaire Davey, post modern performance artists Raquel Almazan and Katherine Adamenko, Tangoh dancer Laurence Martin, and Margherita Tisato with the Vangeline Theater.
Contortion+ comedy+ post feminist discourse+ butoh + fusion danse and classic literature= what's not to love?
All our performers : can choose from the following authors:
Sir Philip Sidney
Edmund Spenser
Christopher Marlowe
William Shakespeare
Ben Johnson
John Donne
Andrew Marvell
John Milton
Samuel Pepys
John Bunyan
John Dryden
Alexander Pope
Jonathan Swift
William Congreve
Daniel Defoe
Samuel Richardson
Henry Fielding
Laurence Sterne
William Collins
William Blake
William Wordsworth
Samuel Coleridge
Lord Byron
Percy Shelley
John Keats
Jane Austen
Emily Bronte
Robert Browning
Charles Dickens
George Eliot
Thomas Hardy
Henry James
Oscar Wilde
Dylan Thomas
James Joyce
Virginia Woolf
George Orwell
Graham Greene
Samuel Beckett
Laurence Durrell
William Golding
Alan Sillitoe
On this blog we invite all the performers to share with us their literary journey as they look for an author or a quote which inspires them....
As they get ready for their performance...
Let's share away!
And I hope you may discover some great writers!
And we can discover something about your process as an artist as well...
http://www.bowerypoetry.com/?#Event/95338
www.vangeline.com
"It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple: one must be a woman manly, or a man womanly" quote by Virginia Woolf
ReplyDeletethat inspired RAQUEL ALMAZAN'S VIRGIN STRIPPER PERFORMANCE a section of her solo piece SHE WOLVES on DEC. 4TH.
"This show tackles many of the complex issues that women deal with in their attempt to define themselves and achieve equality and freedom. Even today, after so many decades of feminism, women often find themselves trapped inside traditional roles, which limit their possibility to achieve their personal dreams; while there's still a lot of violence and sexual exploitation against women around the world. She Wolves invites men and women alike to rethink these issues.
Women have been compared to wolves throughout history and in different cultures and parts of the world. She Wolves entertains the idea that there is some truth behind this comparison: deep down, women are wild, untamed and fearless but are rarely allowed to unleash this side of themselves. The show is a solo performance piece with characters inspired from female archetypes, mythology, pop culture and the sex industry.
Almazan not only shares her personal journey as a woman but gives voice to the lost women of history. She Wolves also echoes the lost female voices of today, the voices of marginalized women in prisons and the sex industry, who shared their stories and perspectives with Almazan during her research for writing this piece.
SUMMARY ON HER WORK BY RAQUEL ALMAZAN
Thank you Raquel!
ReplyDeleteI cannot wait to see your piece...
Vangeline, thank you for giving me a chance to perform on stage again, because as I've always said, "There is no place like home" and that is what the stage is to me....with that said, for the upcoming Cabaret, I have been inspired by the quote:
ReplyDelete"To be, or not to be" soliloquy from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet,
with my dance piece entitled “The Bull Fight”.
With the recent shocking and disturbing news of the many reported suicides across the US involving LGBT teenagers, and I also being a survivor of say, "Bullying" in school and college based on other's perceived notions of me being "different"....there are often sacrifices which are made to be "different" in the world we live in...while these differences are often much more acceptable with females, males often face much more ridicule than their female counter parts when the least "difference" in say, "Normal Mannerism of the Defined Male Species" is detected, and this can begin as early as grade school as many news reports have shown. So where does the training begin?
In conjunction with the words from the “Hamlet” soliloquy, I thought about the “Bull Fight”, the Bull being the one targeted at the satisfaction of the crowd by the daggers till death. With the continuation of the many thoughts of suicide by children, “receiving daggers of words” and/or abuse at the applause of their bullies, what does that say of us as a people. The “Bull” has no chance, but matadors have known to be injured by the “Bull”, and I think there is at some point of the child being bullied the thought of “To be, or not to be” as the same question of the “Bull” to fight back or succumb to the daggers.
At the same time, the analysis of soliloquy has at times gone beyond the literal interpretation between the choice of “Life” and “Death”, the question can merely mean in your existence will you “Be” or “Not Be” as to say in your life will you make something out of it or will you conform to settling in all decisions you make or choices you decide. Each of course bringing forth a different direction; a different destiny; and a different consequence.
In my own personal life, having survived the “daggers of words” and injury, there came a time when I had to decide for myself my own destiny...will I live my life according to other people or will I live my life according to how I want to live it, and if do, what will I do with it, do I have something to say, will I inspire people, but the bottom line while the external forces can accept or deny your expression, the bottom line is your own self acceptance of being, and that is the armor that I have carried with me through my art and my life.
hank you Davey for sharing..that is a very powerful statement.
ReplyDeleteAll of us who felt different growing up can relate..and I can relate very clearly to that question.
" a different destiny, different consequences", these words feel very true to me as well. Every time I get up to perform a Butoh piece I feel the difference and also sometimes the judgement of others.
Yet I have no other choice but to be true to myself. I think many of us who chose less conventional lives can relate to what you and Raquel are writing about.
So many writers to choose from and so many I don't know....
ReplyDeleteAnd the eternal dilemma of whether it's better to follow my instinct and use something my heart knows or challenge myself to use something my brain will have to process.
If we believe that every piece of art should take you beyond , the answer should be easy to find.
But if we also commit to honesty and passion in our work, wouldn't the answer be the opposite?
Margherita
It's very exciting for me to know that actually there are so many writers you are not familiar with! I was really hoping that the search for the perfect quote could open up new vistas....
ReplyDeleteThis show brings together my love of English Literature and love of the scenic arts...
Leave it to Shakespeare to take me places I have not been in decades; in working with my dance piece "The Bull Fight", I'm actually drawing alot from the feelings I felt in high school, dealing with racism and verbal/mental abuse. The feeling of isolation, and not being accepted, because of race and/or sexual orientation; it was very difficult. While my degree of harassment can not even compare to the modern day brutality of bullies, I can still feel a familiarity of grief. The stage has always been my voice, its where I project my life in both dreams and history, and processed alot of the baggage I carried with me all these years. After going through my closing speech in the dance piece, I became too choked to even read it. Leave it to Shakespeare to bring forth the tear drops...I hope this piece will honor the children who have passed and those who are now living through similar situations, because if we can't save ourselves how can we save anybody else.
ReplyDeleteJonathan Nosan here...this is my first blog. Ever. In the Blogosphere. I think. Fantastic.
ReplyDelete"How can I retrace to-day the strange steps of my obsession?"
Henry James from "The Turn of the Screw"
No, I haven't read it. I intend to someday. But no day soon. I did however hear some, not all, of it on the radio this past weekend as the opera by Britten and I loved it to pieces. What I heard of it at least. I will listen to the complete opera before reading the complete work, I think. Regardless the music struck a tone in me deep enough to see what James was getting it and this quotation fits my piece and perspective just right. Each word fits, which is how I work, economizing movement in purposefulness.
My recent work of Bagabones is memoiristic and have spent the last year looking at the last 30, so the concept of "retracing steps" rings true for me where I am. Combining that with "strange steps" and "my obsession" lays out the basic construct of the piece I'll be presenting at the cabaret of "Have a Nice Day."
So there we go.
James by way of Britten.
I blogged.
Ah, finally! This is also my first time blogging...
ReplyDelete"What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price of all the man hath, his house, his wife, his children."
and
"Those who restrain their desires, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained."
Both of these quotes by William Blake represent the content I am dealing with in my newest solo endeavor, The Birthday Party. My solo work tends to be extremely personal, pouring directly out of my life experiences, especially addressing my dark side, which includes all of my problems, mistakes, shortcomings, fears, flaws, etc.
Creating solo work is my way of processing that which I want to change in my life. I accept and attempt to let go of all that I have no control over. I am honest and embrace the struggles I've brought on myself. I am a work in progress. I believe this type of self-reflection makes me a better person.
I would like to give credit to some amazing authors who influenced my work on The Birthday Party well before the challenge of this blog was presented. 4:48 Psychosis and Crave, two plays by Sarah Kane, have echoed the darkest aspects of my dance. I embody the women of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. Most importantly, Rilke's First Elegy is the breath propelling my dance. It was a gift from a loved one offered through what I can only think to call divine intervention. Thank you Derek.
I made it!
ReplyDelete"You said I killed you. haunt me then! The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe-I know-that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always, take any form, drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you. Oh God it's unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"
Emily Bronte, Wuthering heights
I've tried to stop dancing many times. I tried to believe my soul was elsewhere and that was a pastime. They tried to make me understand I couldn't dance, they made me believe t wasn't my life. They almost won.
And yet, that's where I went back to, for happiness, knowledge, guidance and faith. There I spent my holidays and there I went to when I skipped school: the dance studio.
I've lived with the ghost of what I could have been for so long, I now need it around me.
My push to crate is a struggle and a dichotomy, it's a hunting that has been summoned into existence.
Through Butoh, I found a way to channel that ghost, to walk the earth with it and keep it close to me. And even though it comes and goes and it's not always easy or pleasurable, it still is my choice to bring it back.
I almost never go on stage as myself only: I collect my personalities and tap into the knowledge of my Brothers and Sisters and as hard as I try there is always at least two of me on stage.
it might be because I was born a twin, who knows...
But without that duality I wouldn't be here; without the struggle and the tension; without listening to my deeper self.
So here she is, La belle dame sans merci. Listen. "And no bird sings" (Keats).
Margherita
Well well well… Challenging…
ReplyDeleteHow can the mind explain or resolve the puzzles which it has created?
Furthermore, how to put into words what I am refraining from labeling, describing, anticipating...as I am invested in the practice of discovering the moment in Thoughtless awareness.
“To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive…” Lord BYRON
Let’s witness together part of this process…
Laurence