From Abby Crain
Thanks so much for Turbulence. I thought it was brilliant.
When I left the theater I was left with a sense of vague unease..probably the feeling I get when those perhaps illusory structures of security that you alluded to, the ones that that I personally rely on quite heavily, are removed from the situation. I was also left with a sense of exhilaration from what this complete abandonment of security structures did in terms of creating the spectacle of the performance. You guys blew those european folks who attempt to stage chaos and collapse right out of the water. I appreciated so much the environment in which performers could do absolutely nothing that was visible to the audience for the first 45 minutes, or probably all of the piece if they wanted-- this implied a lack of desire to please, to perform, to produce. I like this. I don't like it when folks try to please. I liked watching you guys please yourselves.
I was blown away by the boldness of the groups refusal to deliver. The piece refused to coalesce. It refused to make sense. I was hoping for answers and I got none. Even as I wanted my favorite indie dance stars to do more, I love that they/you didnt give it to us.
Things fell apart.
Things were wasted.
The value system that was functioning seemed nebulous and based on pleasure, sex, attractiveness, and quick fixes.
Sloppiness was embraced.
Failure was normalized.
Performers made dangerous and seemingly unscrupulous choices.
There were no solutions, analyses, or cures.
There appeared to be no theatrical safety net. When the action stopped, when the flow stopped, it stopped. We saw your confusion and you asked us what time it was. The plan that seemed to be in place for such a failure was the pyramid. The pyramid seemed hardly an adequate safety net for the disintegration of the piece, but it was all there was so we looked at it.
This felt familiar, like hearing about subsidized health care for dependant children, only to find out that family income had to be below $500 a month to be eligible, and that further, one had to let their kids go three months without healthcare before they could qualify, and would have to reapply bimonthly....A safety net that is less even than a net, more like a mirage.
At first I was amazed by the spectacle.
Then I was confused, but somehow elated and spellbound,
Then i was grossed out,
Then I was self righteous...
Then I was like, but oh my god thats what its like isnt it. the economy?
I went home and stressed out about bills to pay.
I wanted to come back the next night, but couldn't.
I wanted to sit there again and watch this thing-- this beast, this behemoth, as it grows and morphs and dissipates.
I love that it closes with a circle, even though I was too dumbstruck to speak.
Thanks and onward
I am grateful for this
-------------------------------
Subject: From Imago Jeff
Keith,
A book that combines economics and anthropology was a great choice for me so I wanted to thank you again for the gift.
There were a few things that I might've said at the time I was presented with the book but I was still internally preoccupied with processing the falling of the truss. (I was very glad that I had mentioned shortly before the truss fell that the tech work which was being done beneath the truss would be safer if it were shifted out from under it. I know my safety themed interference can be annoying and constraining but occasionally it does prevent injury. On a related note, I would like to thank your company for always respecting any limitations I put on them.)
Anyway... Although I've been on the periphery of the theater/arts world for over 15 years, I still find much of it inaccessible. In my opinion, art, especially abstract art, is primarily an emotional form of communication rather than a rational form of communication. But I've got a stick shoved so far up my ass that it's reached all the way to the emotional section of my brain and blocked most emotional functioning. Not even art can penetrate. (Occasionally I meet a woman capable of bypassing this blockage but that's a different topic.)
How I experience abstract art is like when you asked Roya to give her personal interpretation of a quote that she had just read (I think it was on the 2nd or 3rd night) and Jassem cranked up the distortion and noise which thoroughly mutilated her speech. I knew something was being communicated but it was completely unintelligible to me.
But the result of this failure in communication is that the work becomes irrelevant to me.
Therefore, for me it's never about the performance but about the performers. And your company is the most enjoyable and memorable group that I've had the pleasure of working with (and I've worked with some very nice people in the past).
A note of awareness: I know that "Big Gold" is a significant element of your show but it's a big problem from a facility's perspective. There are sequins everywhere. And at least on our painted floor surface the sequins resist sweeping, mopping and vacuuming so I've spent hours and hours so far trying to pick as many sequins up as I can (by hand) in order to forestall a glitter cleaning fee being charged when the space gets it's rental inspection. The last person subject to this fee was billed $600 and that was supposed to be a significant discount because they were friends with the owners. Assuming that you'll continue to use the fabric I suggest that you mention it in future riders so that you or your presenter don't get penalized for it.
Also, please apologize to Ellie for me on behalf of the guy that was blocking her van with his truck. He was the owner of the truss that fell and since it's aluminum a blow like that will probably require him to throw it away. So he probably wasn't in the best of moods.
Closing anecdote:
I didn't lock up our recycling dumpster after your final performance because there was too much cardboard in it to close the lid. When I arrived the next morning all the contents of the dumpster had been removed and strewn across the parking lot. But there were 2 distinct piles of cardboard amongst the chaos. A homeless guy was sleeping on one of the piles. He wasn't the high functioning guy that normally sleeps in the area but a truly pathetic carcass of humanity. I couldn't be upset with him even if he probably was the one responsible for the mess. The other pile had been pissed on. It seemed like a fitting addendum to your show.
-JD
---------------------------
Interview:
1. Keith writes “I set out, over two years ago, to challenge my own ignorance about financialization, about the roots of economic turbulence, and to sharpen my understanding and critique of extreme wealth disparity.”
What were the collaborators’ perspectives on the economy at the outset of Turbulence? Were you also “ignorant about financialization” ? For all three of you, did the piece shift (or how did the piece shift) your understanding of the economy?
The economy is cryptic, and probably intentionally designed to be as such. Even still it is difficult to not have a very personal relationship to it, outside of ‘understanding’ it. To say that I was ignorant about the financialization or the economy more broadly is a sort of avoidance that is not satisfying. That is, it forgives or sidesteps the ways that the economy is designed to be opaque and seem beyond personal control, inviting us to forget that it is actually impossible for us to avoid the real effects of the financialization of our daily life.
At the outset of Turbulence I knew little of the causes of the economic effects that I saw all around me – people out of work, people losing their homes, people going to prison on drug charges. This project has been truly educational in some of the moving parts of the economy and how it has led to vast wealth disparity and real violence. Yet, it remains a rabbit hole of sorts - the more you think you know the more you realize a certain level of incomprehensability. However, there has been something empowering in my inevitable failure to understand, releasing me into my instincts and my body and my dreams of alternatives.
2. For all three, it was interesting to read that your engagement with Turbulence preceded the Occupy movement. How did Occupy influence Turbulence and vice versa?
The most notable influence of Occupy was the sense of being embedded within a larger conversation that both affirmed our work and promised us that we were not special in our questioning, dissatisfaction and sense of injustice. Functionally, Occupy’s hallmark decentralized model and multi-missioned agenda problematized my expectations of how we as a group should strive to make a unified proclamation or manifesto. We have increasingly decentralized and destructured our way of working, turning and returning to improvisation as a sort of anarchistic experiment to explore the tensions, exchanges, demands and supplies, and value creations that happen in between; in between individual(s) and the communal(s), between structuring and restructuring, between knowing and not knowing. Within this imaginal, but very real, space I have not come closer to ‘understanding’ the economy, but I have felt the economy, danced the economy.
3. Maybe more for Keith but I’m curious how Julie and/or Ruairí reply: Keith’s last piece that I read about extensively but never got a chance to see live – Crotch – referenced Joseph Beuys. I imagine audiences in theaters where it was presented had some familiarity with Beuys. When Turbulence began at CounterPULSE and there was the reference to Keith Hennessey the former economic advisor, it felt like lots of people had no clue who he is. With widespread ignorance in the States about the economy, do you think Turbulence shifts our understanding or knowledge of problems with the economy? Another way to ask this: what do you want audiences leaving the theater after Turbulence to know or think about the economy? Are there other outcomes you consider important?
In a certain way I feel like I have answered this by proxy in my above responses. I think that there are some very real ‘facts’ that will be presented and absorbed by the audience, however I think the undertaking of making a ‘dance about the economy’ is that of communicating things that are not spoken or written or capable of existing in words. I can’t really think of what I hope the audience might take away except that they further understand their own relationship to the economy as a real power in the world and also an implicit force in how we build our world of relations to each other, in how we self (e)valuate, in how we exercise self policing and violence.
Thanks so much for Turbulence. I thought it was brilliant.
When I left the theater I was left with a sense of vague unease..probably the feeling I get when those perhaps illusory structures of security that you alluded to, the ones that that I personally rely on quite heavily, are removed from the situation. I was also left with a sense of exhilaration from what this complete abandonment of security structures did in terms of creating the spectacle of the performance. You guys blew those european folks who attempt to stage chaos and collapse right out of the water. I appreciated so much the environment in which performers could do absolutely nothing that was visible to the audience for the first 45 minutes, or probably all of the piece if they wanted-- this implied a lack of desire to please, to perform, to produce. I like this. I don't like it when folks try to please. I liked watching you guys please yourselves.
I was blown away by the boldness of the groups refusal to deliver. The piece refused to coalesce. It refused to make sense. I was hoping for answers and I got none. Even as I wanted my favorite indie dance stars to do more, I love that they/you didnt give it to us.
Things fell apart.
Things were wasted.
The value system that was functioning seemed nebulous and based on pleasure, sex, attractiveness, and quick fixes.
Sloppiness was embraced.
Failure was normalized.
Performers made dangerous and seemingly unscrupulous choices.
There were no solutions, analyses, or cures.
There appeared to be no theatrical safety net. When the action stopped, when the flow stopped, it stopped. We saw your confusion and you asked us what time it was. The plan that seemed to be in place for such a failure was the pyramid. The pyramid seemed hardly an adequate safety net for the disintegration of the piece, but it was all there was so we looked at it.
This felt familiar, like hearing about subsidized health care for dependant children, only to find out that family income had to be below $500 a month to be eligible, and that further, one had to let their kids go three months without healthcare before they could qualify, and would have to reapply bimonthly....A safety net that is less even than a net, more like a mirage.
At first I was amazed by the spectacle.
Then I was confused, but somehow elated and spellbound,
Then i was grossed out,
Then I was self righteous...
Then I was like, but oh my god thats what its like isnt it. the economy?
I went home and stressed out about bills to pay.
I wanted to come back the next night, but couldn't.
I wanted to sit there again and watch this thing-- this beast, this behemoth, as it grows and morphs and dissipates.
I love that it closes with a circle, even though I was too dumbstruck to speak.
Thanks and onward
I am grateful for this
-------------------------------
Subject: From Imago Jeff
Keith,
A book that combines economics and anthropology was a great choice for me so I wanted to thank you again for the gift.
There were a few things that I might've said at the time I was presented with the book but I was still internally preoccupied with processing the falling of the truss. (I was very glad that I had mentioned shortly before the truss fell that the tech work which was being done beneath the truss would be safer if it were shifted out from under it. I know my safety themed interference can be annoying and constraining but occasionally it does prevent injury. On a related note, I would like to thank your company for always respecting any limitations I put on them.)
Anyway... Although I've been on the periphery of the theater/arts world for over 15 years, I still find much of it inaccessible. In my opinion, art, especially abstract art, is primarily an emotional form of communication rather than a rational form of communication. But I've got a stick shoved so far up my ass that it's reached all the way to the emotional section of my brain and blocked most emotional functioning. Not even art can penetrate. (Occasionally I meet a woman capable of bypassing this blockage but that's a different topic.)
How I experience abstract art is like when you asked Roya to give her personal interpretation of a quote that she had just read (I think it was on the 2nd or 3rd night) and Jassem cranked up the distortion and noise which thoroughly mutilated her speech. I knew something was being communicated but it was completely unintelligible to me.
But the result of this failure in communication is that the work becomes irrelevant to me.
Therefore, for me it's never about the performance but about the performers. And your company is the most enjoyable and memorable group that I've had the pleasure of working with (and I've worked with some very nice people in the past).
A note of awareness: I know that "Big Gold" is a significant element of your show but it's a big problem from a facility's perspective. There are sequins everywhere. And at least on our painted floor surface the sequins resist sweeping, mopping and vacuuming so I've spent hours and hours so far trying to pick as many sequins up as I can (by hand) in order to forestall a glitter cleaning fee being charged when the space gets it's rental inspection. The last person subject to this fee was billed $600 and that was supposed to be a significant discount because they were friends with the owners. Assuming that you'll continue to use the fabric I suggest that you mention it in future riders so that you or your presenter don't get penalized for it.
Also, please apologize to Ellie for me on behalf of the guy that was blocking her van with his truck. He was the owner of the truss that fell and since it's aluminum a blow like that will probably require him to throw it away. So he probably wasn't in the best of moods.
Closing anecdote:
I didn't lock up our recycling dumpster after your final performance because there was too much cardboard in it to close the lid. When I arrived the next morning all the contents of the dumpster had been removed and strewn across the parking lot. But there were 2 distinct piles of cardboard amongst the chaos. A homeless guy was sleeping on one of the piles. He wasn't the high functioning guy that normally sleeps in the area but a truly pathetic carcass of humanity. I couldn't be upset with him even if he probably was the one responsible for the mess. The other pile had been pissed on. It seemed like a fitting addendum to your show.
-JD
---------------------------
Interview:
1. Keith writes “I set out, over two years ago, to challenge my own ignorance about financialization, about the roots of economic turbulence, and to sharpen my understanding and critique of extreme wealth disparity.”
What were the collaborators’ perspectives on the economy at the outset of Turbulence? Were you also “ignorant about financialization” ? For all three of you, did the piece shift (or how did the piece shift) your understanding of the economy?
The economy is cryptic, and probably intentionally designed to be as such. Even still it is difficult to not have a very personal relationship to it, outside of ‘understanding’ it. To say that I was ignorant about the financialization or the economy more broadly is a sort of avoidance that is not satisfying. That is, it forgives or sidesteps the ways that the economy is designed to be opaque and seem beyond personal control, inviting us to forget that it is actually impossible for us to avoid the real effects of the financialization of our daily life.
At the outset of Turbulence I knew little of the causes of the economic effects that I saw all around me – people out of work, people losing their homes, people going to prison on drug charges. This project has been truly educational in some of the moving parts of the economy and how it has led to vast wealth disparity and real violence. Yet, it remains a rabbit hole of sorts - the more you think you know the more you realize a certain level of incomprehensability. However, there has been something empowering in my inevitable failure to understand, releasing me into my instincts and my body and my dreams of alternatives.
2. For all three, it was interesting to read that your engagement with Turbulence preceded the Occupy movement. How did Occupy influence Turbulence and vice versa?
The most notable influence of Occupy was the sense of being embedded within a larger conversation that both affirmed our work and promised us that we were not special in our questioning, dissatisfaction and sense of injustice. Functionally, Occupy’s hallmark decentralized model and multi-missioned agenda problematized my expectations of how we as a group should strive to make a unified proclamation or manifesto. We have increasingly decentralized and destructured our way of working, turning and returning to improvisation as a sort of anarchistic experiment to explore the tensions, exchanges, demands and supplies, and value creations that happen in between; in between individual(s) and the communal(s), between structuring and restructuring, between knowing and not knowing. Within this imaginal, but very real, space I have not come closer to ‘understanding’ the economy, but I have felt the economy, danced the economy.
3. Maybe more for Keith but I’m curious how Julie and/or Ruairí reply: Keith’s last piece that I read about extensively but never got a chance to see live – Crotch – referenced Joseph Beuys. I imagine audiences in theaters where it was presented had some familiarity with Beuys. When Turbulence began at CounterPULSE and there was the reference to Keith Hennessey the former economic advisor, it felt like lots of people had no clue who he is. With widespread ignorance in the States about the economy, do you think Turbulence shifts our understanding or knowledge of problems with the economy? Another way to ask this: what do you want audiences leaving the theater after Turbulence to know or think about the economy? Are there other outcomes you consider important?
In a certain way I feel like I have answered this by proxy in my above responses. I think that there are some very real ‘facts’ that will be presented and absorbed by the audience, however I think the undertaking of making a ‘dance about the economy’ is that of communicating things that are not spoken or written or capable of existing in words. I can’t really think of what I hope the audience might take away except that they further understand their own relationship to the economy as a real power in the world and also an implicit force in how we build our world of relations to each other, in how we self (e)valuate, in how we exercise self policing and violence.
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