Experiences
Experiences categorize projects our paratheaterically engaged work- in which there is no boundary between viewer and spectator, and participants direct experience of doing is the closest thing to an aesthetic experience. They often aim to explore to uncover some specific thread, though differ greatly in design.
Excavation I
Using a repeating daily structure, this project created the conditions to engage with Emergent Action in the context of our work. Each day started with a series of hilltop Motions with the sunrise, followed by a three hour structured work period. This opened into an open period where participants brought in offerings or engaged in Uls (Beehives). We repeated the Motions at sunset. Throughout the process our attention was turned towards creating a space where collaborative events could spontaneously rise out of a situation.
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.
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.
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.
