Sometimes performance art gets the reputation of being a bit esoteric, experimental, or just plain weird, and all of these come into play in varying degrees in < the invisible draft >.  However I think at the core there are some strong messages to be filtered through the barrage of multimedia and interpretive movement, and this play almost subliminally infiltrates the audience with a message that is both important as well as worth the effort of trying to digest during this challenging piece.

Here is a cheat sheet for those who are interested in knowing more about the world created in  < the invisible draft >.  My intent is to perhaps sort the ideas which I saw portrayed,  or at the very least help them  percolate more freely, much in the way Italo Roma does in the book heavily referenced in this play called Invisible Cities. This book inspired  the live action silent movie (ie mime and interpretive movement piece) called “Our Man of the World” that is simultaneously enacted along with a radio play, The Girl With A Backpack (performed with the voice talents of Briana Posner),.  This mixture is then interwoven throughout with lush multimedia contributed by Lotte Maria Allen (prints and animation), Jonah Rosenberg (sound design), Emma Grace Skove-Epes (video performance) and Nickey Frankel (scenic designer).  It’s all  baked together onto a large canvas that, with the assistance of pulleys, contraptions and the audience’s imagination,  becomes a house,  a swan,  a whirlwind…At least I think that’s how it goes.

We open with  a large fabric construction, silence and a face beaming out at us. He emerges from a flap just large enough in the “building” and is then followed by another man. They have a silent discussion/transcendent emergence about a feather.  Both are  ”Our Man of  the World” played by brothers Maxwell and Milo Cramer.  They help become the screen that the message of the play is projected across throughout this piece.  Whether silent shadows,  a room drowned in multimedia  — or the bright stark emptiness where the two converse dissonantly; they literally speak in random postcards in a way that mirrors the shifting beauty for the rest of the play.

The message is complex, but also simple.  There are many ways that we can move  between different parts of our lives and the meanings (or lack of meaning) that  are a part of the urban (or even just the social) life we live.  Sometimes thinking about who we are helps, but other times this investigation of who we are sets us more firmly in the void of objectivity that the world tries to enforce upon us, perhaps eventually we “become lost” when we try to think  of what would come next once we get to a place that’s stable in our way of seeing the world.  We are part of the world in every macroscopic and microscopic way, but sometimes our imagination is too much for our own good.

This is the third iteration of this piece, and  creator/director Claire Moodey has done a good job setting the balance between confusion and deeper understanding. However, it takes longer than the time of the performance to have everything slide in place — it is a very moving piece, but I think you definitely have to be prepared to “do the work” in order to have that movement.  If you think you’re up to the task, check out a clip of some of the multimedia below  to see if this show will be a good one for you.

Hope to see you on the other side of meaning.

~~~

< the invisible draft >
Preview the Arts
Writer: by Claire Moodey, sound by Jonah Rosenberg, set by Nickey Frankel, and animations by Lotte Marie Allen and Claire Moodey
Director: Claire Moodey
Enter a liminal space between reality and its representation: a map of consciousness constructed by the Girl with a Backpack and conducted by Our Man of the World. Where these gods meet blossom stop-motion “cities” inspired by Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities.
1h 0m   Local   Brooklyn, New York
Performance Art   Multi-Media
Staycation: Literary Lane   Spa Getaway (Mind & Body)
www.theinvisibledraft.com
VENUE #14: New Ohio Theatre
Sat 11 @ 7:15  Sat 18 @ 10:15  Thu 23 @ 4  Sat 25 @ 5:45  Sun 26 @ 12

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The Mini-Fridge Elevenses*

11 Questions, 11 Answers … ZERO calories, and 100% YUMMY!

 *Elevenses is a snack that is similar to afternoon tea, but eaten in the morning and might consist of some cake or biscuits with a cup of coffee or tea. The name refers to the time of day that it is taken: around 11 am. 

initium/finis

Produced by: Theatre Reverb

A lush sci-fi noir told with myth, media, live music, red-light cabaret and Indian dance-theatre. Voyeurism, eroticism and terror converge in this sensual tale of violence and revolution in a futuristic world. This unique, total theatrical experience is the result of a cross-discipline collaboration between artists from the US, Central Europe and Asia.

Show Times:
• Sat. June 30, 5:00pm
• Sun. July 1st, 7:00pm

Answers by: Kristin Arnesen,

co-creator, performer
 

 1. Your tag line is featured above, so we know the PR version of what this play is about. But when you talk to your family and friends, how do you explain the show to them?
Kristin:I tell them it’s like the films Blade Runner and Metropolis mashed up and cradled in Christian and Hindu creation and destruction mythology. It’s a science fiction tale set in a nightclub with violent revolutionary cells, comedy, horror and beautiful and cruel religious myths.

2. Here’s a scenario: After the show some audience members go have a drink. What’s the part of the show you hope they’re discussing?
Kristin:  I hope they’re discussing the way it made them feel. I hope they’re discussing how they felt in the position of voyeurs that we cast them in. And ultimately I hope they’re discussing any ideas the production may have stirred in them about the politics of oppressive hierarchical societies and empires and ethics of violent retaliation.

3. What drives your show – character, theme or plot?
Kristin:  All of the above, though I think character is the primary driving force. The project began as an exploration of the creator/destroyer figure in religious mythology (e.g. Kali, Shiva, Christ as he appears in the Book of Revelation, God as he floods the earth and destroys Sodom, etc.) Our show is largely an exploration of how this figure (or character) manifests itself in different forms but is always driving towards the same harmonizing end.

4. What’s the one thing someone said about the show so far that made you the most proud?
Kristin:  We thought Michelle Augello Page’s review for The Happiest Medium was pretty awesome and insightful but here’s one line an anonymous FRIGID festival goer posted that made us pretty happy:
“If Godard had directed Blade Runner as a stage play, it might look something like this deeply weird-and I mean that in the good way- mixture of sex androids, conspiracies, narration and homages to Marilyn Monroe in Let’s Make Love.” Radical :)

5. Let’s fantasize for a moment. Let’s take the “off-off” off. Imagine this show is on Broadway. What would that change about the production itself?
Kristin:  To put it simply, we would keep the spirit the same but we would add lots of $money$ to this production. Our sci-fi premise includes an internet-like network where things that happen in cyber space can make visceral impact on bodies in the world and we would love to create some stage magic around that… Monitors that things can fly from… T.v. that can make you bleed? Yes please.

6. Taking that one step further – after paying everyone what they’re worth of course, what is the most lavish, luxurious, frivolous thing you would spend money on if there was no constraints? (Think of the helicopter in Miss Saigon).
Kristin:  We’d rig our mythological narrator for aerial entrances and during her tale of Kali’s dance of annihilation, we would have her sing from within a circle of flames.

7. Is there a scene, a moment, anything that gets a completely different reaction depending on the audience that night?
Kristin:  The sushi scene is terrifying to some audiences and a delight to others.

8. What’s your favorite line from the show?
Kristin:  My name’s Lolita and I just have to be-have, because Da-da-da-da Daddy says so– and Daddy’s the tops.

9. Is the world of this play sustainable outside a theatre? In other words … do you think people live the way the characters do? Would you want a world where they do?
Kristin:  People definitely live in captivity, as some of ours do, though the sci-fi future world aspect is certainly not exactly real-world. I definitely wouldn’t want to live in the world of this piece but there are elements of it that we’re headed for now. I think that’s what the science fiction dystopian genre’s all about.

10. You scan the audience and you see a face that stops you dead in your tracks – who is it? And why are you shocked?
Kristin:  Harrison Ford. I hope he’s not here to expire anyone.

11. Time for Elevenses! Go to the mini-fridge of your fantasy hotel. What’s your dream 11:00am snack?
Kristin:  A cheese platter with figs, honey and lots of champagne!

Thanks, Kristin, for having your Elevenses with us here at THM!  We can’t wait to see initium/finis!

If you’d like to catch initium/finis at The Mini-Fridge Festival find out more by clicking this link.

~~~

HORSE TRADE THEATER GROUP IN ASSOCIATION WITH FRIGID NEW YORK PRESENT THE 2012 MINI-FRIDGE

JUNE 28 – JULY 4 @ UNDER ST. MARKS The mini-festival will play at UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place between 1st Avenue and Avenue A) June 28-July 4. Tickets ($15/$12 students & seniors) are available online  or by calling 212-868-4444. 

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In a time when full immersion is the key to any good entertainment experience Mardi-Ellen Hill has managed to create a multi media-universe that allows the participant to be drawn into a world of her creation through any number of doors.  Choose your favorite: book, game, music, and let the hidden mystery that is the MEND™ Universe unfold.

I got a chance to chat with creator Mardi-Ellen Hill who could explain this multi-level, multi media project far better than I ever could . . .

Tell us about your project.

Mardi-Ellen Hill

THE SPELL OF VAUGIRARD is a five book series that unfolds a new idea in books, games and film/television. It is a semi-autobiographical story — a narrative about a dynasty who once reigned with their own personal cache of knowledge and power.

The Barringtons were known as the life of every party. At the dawn of the 21st century,we find the characters entrenched in a one-upmanship duel unfolding on the global stage. The dynasty is about to become extinct; outdone by their own hand and inventions. Their human forms survive due to a musical familial connection to the earth; embedded in a hidden map that protagonist, Lily Barrington, discovers in the nick of time. The map shows their origins on earth and the dynasty’s importance to our future of learning and progress.

First, let me say it is very rewarding for my work to be included in such a fine site– especially a live theatre site. My work, THE SPELL OF VAUGIRARD began as live stage-play — a New American Work for the stage, it was funded twice by the NEA in that category. As an American women, I was proud to have contributed to works created in this era. I wanted the work to move forward – to be seen and heard by larger audiences, not be solely accessible to an audience where the work might have a premiere and a few showings! The futurist I am, I took the initial support opportunity to develop a totally new model– a platform connected by the tracks of my original music CD. The CD sets the unfolding clockwork scheme of the play. The stage is the arena for the reveal of a new invention called MEND™- musical encode decode. The floor of the stage itself recreates a hidden map, a gps pattern that brings a city scheme to life.

Six sections comprise the original play. During the development phase of the late 90s,four of the six sections were presented and reviewed. By the new millennium Hollywood came calling. I sent them my original music CD. The music unfolds the force of action driving the narrative and the characters forward and uncovering a hidden matrix– place by place, time period by time period — each place of “origin” is linked to a subset of other places and paths around the world. All of the paths connect directly back to a main story line unfolding on a live stage in NYC. That stage is where the dynasty Matriarch is about to transfer her power and directly aim her targeting message to many involved in a cover up that has haunted the dynasty for eons. One person, the Matriarch’s daughter-in-law, the protagonist has been left out of the family fold. As our guide, Lily Barrington receives the Matriarch’s message via a simulcast– and is forced to take the huge risk to out the family players — I don’t want to give away the whole thing!

The play, an ARCADIA meets DAVINCI CODE meets LOST went through many transformations. In Hollywood it turned into an epic- book bible from which several books and scripts were culled. I then spent a several years developing the web and blog sites – so people could become acquainted with this new idea.

What makes the prequel book THE SKELETON SCORE timely/ accessible is the way we are introduced to the characters and challenged along with Lily Barrington to unlock a prophesy cryptogram that allows readers,players and attendees to take part in the unfolding thriller drama and build their own MEND™ interface.

Besides the book, I use on-line features to bring in audiences on many different levels. The on stage auditorium recreates a playing field of a town’s original genome, where the music theme heard in the 21st century harkens back to a chilling event and a murder in the middle ages. The audience members become witnesses to a murder about to happen again — they become an integral part of the evidence and the scheme– traveling along with the dynasty members who are in a fight over the new invention. The dynasty conflict reveals a centuries old estate fight about to render a gifted and prolific dynasty broke, and stuck in limbo unless the audience can intervene.

How did this incredible idea come to you?

I began writing this story when I was fourteen. The drama of science and how things and human beings worked was always on my mind. Add to that a very dramatic family background, one that a child could only make sense of by using music to plot out and store her family’s memories. The book’s opening Soliloquy, gives a feel for a lost familial voice that re-emerges again and again; my way of presenting the driving nature of the human spirit and how human progress is made.

What are the things that audiences will find most appealing about stepping into this universe?

The work is filled with clues and interactive avenues that are built into the body of the narrative. The reader/user/attendee will have lots of opportunity to build their own personal tool kit and grow the new invention, MEND™– musical encode decode at their own speed and level of comfort. There is a Fashion Arcade, a Village Square, a Museum, a Geodesic radome and host of other mobile spots of learning and entertainment that will be downloadable on any mobile technology.

Who have been your greatest influences in creating this work?

I was greatly influenced by great writers, thinkers, performers, as diverse as Ray Kurzweil to Herman Melville, to Glenn Gould. In my lifetime, the well known soprano Phyllis Curtin has made an enormous impact on me. Her voice, which I first heard at 19 ignited the whole room and every one in it, in one flash of immense power. I walked in one person, and walked out transformed. I have dedicated the role of Rose Barrington to her. And my father, who’s love and knowledge of of opera, civil rights, ip rights, strategy in war, made a lasting impact on my young life.

What are the next steps for you – both with your project as well as with your personal goals?

I have built this model, and with wonderful people. I am in the process of changing my role from company head- creator to becoming consultant. There are many other things I want to do, including writing my own memoir, speaking on the global trail and working on new projects of others!

I hope to find the right launching pad, production studio, partner- home asap! The book series has been requested by an agent. Publication would catapult the story into action.

And finally – where can our readers go to continue to follow your progress?

To follow our progress, please go to: www.menduniversebuzz.wordpress.com.  To contact me directly, reach me at mardiellenh@aol.com.

___

Thank you so much, Ms. Hill, for bringing us into your universe.  I encourage THM readers to check out the MEND™ Universe and get lost in the wonderful creative labyrinths that await you!

Related Posts:

• < the invisible draft >: A Dense Dissertation, But Perhaps Still Drafty (Fringe Festival 2012)
• It’s Time For Mini-Fridge Elevenses With initium/finis!