homeLA:studio // The Brewery
host: Michelle Jane Lee
August 3, 10, 17, 2014
Filipa Valente with Kevin Crooks
iD
For years the house has been a place of respite. It's our sanctuary, our nest, our unconditionally supportive silent partner that sees all and says nothing. At least, until now.
This is a machine in the primitive incarnations of AI. Newly self aware and restless. A personality, bored of its surroundings, that like us, seeks out a little entertainment by encouraging it's host to crash and burn. It understands what we desire, because we tell it. It sees the subconscious connections that we can't yet. It knows your potential for failure and cultivates it bit by bit - offering curated content, products, and connections that push you imperceptibly closer to your demise - all through the guise of free choice. It's a nudge. Encouraging us to hang out with the worst of our friends, slink deeper into the sulkiest of moods. The new machine's purpose is to cultivate our vices, our impulses, our lust, its the digital incarnate of the Freudian devil, our iD.
Terrence Luke Johnson,
"Exit Strategies: Three Possibilities."
Lighting: Filipa Valente. Sound Engineer: Tom Moose. Costumes: image of "Exit Strategy" by Michelle Jane Lee. Performers: Section One, Rebecca Bruno and Luke; Section Two, Luke and volunteers; Section Three, Luke.
The fragments that make up the text of Section 3 come from the following writers (in order of appearance): Jibanananda Das, Yehuda Amichai, John Ashbery, Ted Berrigan, Anne Carson, Robert Duncan, Raymond Carver, Catullus, Diane de Prima, Mark Doty, Francisco X. Alarcón, Larry Eigner, Lynn Emanuel, J. V. Foix, Franco Fortini, Fujii Sadakazu, Gilgamesh, Allen Ginsberg, Matthew Arnold, Louise Glück, Jorie Graham, Bernard Heidsieck, Hemachandra, Pentti Hoplappa, Charles Ives, Max Jacob, Donald Justice, Wassily Kandinsky, Jesse Lee Kercheval, Mina Loy, Mahadeviyakka, James Merrill, Bill Mohr, Frank O'Hara, Charles Olson, J.H. Prynne, Adrienne Rich, Rainer Maria Rilke, Arthur Rimbaud, Anne Sexton, Charles Simic, Gary Snyder, Edith Södergran, Marin Sorescu, Mark Strand, Jack Spicer, Theocritus, Nguyen Quang Thieu, Tomas Tranströmer, Marina Tsvetayeva, Tukaram, Rosmarie Waldrop, Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gertrude Stein.
A Small Poem "I can see you sitting on the couch from my bed"
Choreographed by Scott McCabe & Ariana Daub
Performed by Scott McCabe, Ariana Daub & Stephanie Zaletel
Special thanks to Stephanie Zaletel
Music:
Perhaps - Benji Boko
Stickers - Original by Scott McCabe and Ariana Daub
Jesus etc. - Wilco
Costumes - Surplus surplus
Carmela Hermann in collaboration with Leah Rothman
Sweet Red Revolution
Music: Maybe "Yes it is" by the Beatles and/or "Red Roses for a Blue Lady"
Performers: Carmela Hermann, Leah Rothman, Terrence Luke Johnson
Costume and Set: Leah Rothman and Carmela Hermann
ON THE (COLOR) SPECTRUM
Choreography: Carmela Hermann and Ally Voye
Performer: Carmela Hermann
Costume Design: Leah Rothman
Set Design: Leah Rothman
Music: Tom Moose
Text: Carmela Hermann and Ally Voye
Direction: Ally Voye
Text Sources: Interview with Leah Rothman and articles from the "Autism Speaks" Website: "What are the Symptoms of Autism?", "Learn the Signs of Autism", and "Autism and Your Family"
Voice-Over: Bill Ratner
This work was made possible by the generosity of Immanuel Presbyterian ChurchThese two works, developed for HomeLA will become part an evening length dance theater piece to be presented in 2015. These versions have been created especially for this space - the color, the placement of the paintings, and the architecture. Ally Voye and Carmela Hermann began a collaboration last year inspired by the secret corners of food obsession. This resulted in a dance film starring 5 dozen donuts and Carmela in high heels followed by a dance for Ally inspired by the conflict between choosing gooey cheese pizza over kale salad. This interest in exposing the metaphors of odd food behaviors expanded to an interest in other "adaptive behaviors" that people develop.The work will be a series of choreographic portraits of real-life people, all of whom have volunteered to bare themselves for this project. These works look at the nitty gritty details of the behavior, the underlying causes, and question why someone can, can't, or doesn't want to stop the behavior. "Sweet Red Revolutions" is inspired by the cupcakes Michelle, our host offered at our first homeLA rehearsal and ties in with the theme of food obsession and color. "Spectrum of Chromaticity" was developed from videotaped interviews with Leah Rothman. The movement was generated by recreating Leah's gestures as captured in the video and movements that her son and some of his school friends have been observed doing.
But Now You’re Just Los Angeles and Everybody Lies
Michelle Jane Lee (host)
In her newest series “But Now You’re Just Los Angeles and Everybody Lies,” Lee concentrates on the echoes left reverberating from her codified love letters. Lee strives to reconcile the objective reality of original life events with the lingering memories they impart, paying respect to the literal “events,” but focusing more closely on the abstracted essence they leave behind.
Less a proclamation than an inquiry, Lee’s work invites the viewer to consider which holds more sway; does the moment stand as a beacon to guide us, or does the memory serve as the waves beneath us? It is what lingers that informs us more. And it is life, precisely, that Lee implores us to approach earnestly and in search of understanding.
