How might performance engage us in thinking and feeling our relationship to money, magic, pretending, imagination: what is it we are looking for in the make-believe world we live in?
Programme notes:Suspended in the space between two worlds, can one of them ever become home? How do memories preserve identity? Does dust ever settle on the past? Does grass grow over it? Natasha Davis’ third solo show completes her trilogy on body, identity and migration. Her poetic journey evokes migratory bodies burdened with past memories, present fears and future anxieties.Created in collaboration with Martin Langthorne and Bob Karper and with generous mentorship from Ju Row Farr and Dominic Johnson.Preceded by a short performance by an early career artist on the bar stage. Post show Q&A free to ticket holders.
Followed by post-show discussionSacred programme notes:Begin with a tree whose roots embrace a gaggle of displaced gravestones, and add the question: what’s the difference between pain and itch? The earth moves, old-time film stars dance, and a description of happiness from 1938 sounds as melancholy as a Victorian epitaph
with post-show discussion
Symposium programme notes:This symposium will consider questions of performance, belief, and credit.One way in which some kinds of performance distinguishes itself from other kinds – that sometimes go under the name of ‘theatre’ – is by emphasising that what it is doing is ‘real’, as opposed to the acting and pretending that goes on elsewhere. ‘Performing the Real’ was the subject of the 2009 symposium held as part of SACRED. This time we are turning away from the ‘real’ to think about the many ways in which performance is still interested in make-believe, and how make-believe itself might turn out to be part of the ‘real’.The current financial crisis has revealed how the system upon which we supposedly all depend is itself dependent upon how much we believe in it. Value is an expression of belief: if we believe that such and such a company, or bank, possesses the assets it purports to possess, then, in effect, those assets exist. The moment we stop believing, the value of the company or bank collapses, and the assets in question cease to exist.A credit crunch is what happens when people suddenly stop believing in the financial system – or when we start to wonder why we believe what we are seeing on stage. How might performance engage us in thinking and feeling our relationship to money, magic, pretending, imagination: what is it we are looking for in the make-believe world we live in? The symposium will feature: * a discussion with Richard Foreman (Ontological-Hysteric Theater); * keynote presentations from performance scholars Sara Jane Bailes, Jen Mitas, and Nicholas Ridout; * performative provocations from artists Karen Christopher and Sara Juli, also presenting work in the SACRED season; * break-out panels from a range of researchers and artists; * a Long Table discussion hosted by Lois Weaver; * the attendance of Richard Maxwell (New York City Players) and PS122 Director Vallejo Gantner; * the UK premiere of New York City Players’ ADS.
Three ordinary, awkward people address audience members directly in a witty, frequently disastrous attempt to show them how to live a better life. Provocative writer/director revisits one of her company’s most outrageously funny works