Beads

climbing
the coloured
knots





rejecting
conformity
passivity
inevitability

distinquish
public language
enormous rich
varied and powerless

from corporatist
rhetoric
propoganda
dialect

please
move towards
peace

Artaud

"Artaud wanted to make a spoken language metaphysical by making it "express what it does not ordinarily express." If words are to be effective, they must be manipulated like solid objects by the muscles of the chest, throat and diaphragm to act upon each other and upon the spectator. Artaud intended to make use of the language of words: . . . in a new, exceptional, and unaccustomed fashion; to reveal its possibilities for producing physical shock; to divide and distribute it actively in space; to deal with intonations in an absolutely concrete manner, restoring their power to shatter as well as really to manifest something; . . . and finally, to consider language as the form of Incantation." (RICHARD LEE GAFFIELD-KNIGHT)

Yearnings

"He proved long ago that the intimate yearnings of ordinary people are destructive . . . " (nytimes:arts)

define theater

" . . .theater is not just another genre, one among many. It is the only genre in which, today and every day, now and always, living beings address and speak to other human beings. Because of that, theater is more than just the performance of stories and tales. It is a place for human encounter, a space for authentic human existence, above all the kind of existence that transcends itself in order to give an account of the world and of itself.

It is a place of living, specific, inimitable conversation about society and its tragedies, about people, their love, anger and hatred. Theater is a point at which the intellectual and spiritual life of the human community crystallizes. It is a space in which it can exercise its freedom and come to understanding." (wish more was available)
- Vaclav Havel International Theater Institute World Theater Day 1994

". . . The theatre is one of humanity's great inventions, equal to the discovery of the wheel and the taming of fire" - Tankred Dorst

"This is why we believe more in the importance of listening closely to the words of actors in the theatre than to speeches made by politicians and scholarly theoreticians. We hope in this way to see the tragic situation of the twentieth century transformed in such away as to enable the twenty-first century to fulfil its true potential - to see a world that has become inhuman evolve into one that is more altruistic and generous."(more . . .)
- JEONG OK KIM a new site launches today - ArtsAlive.ca

work sessions

Partner work AeRan & Rod / Phase 1

Session 1: Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Establish beginning (the space and centering) Free Improvisation Song exchange Contact Improv. Terminology: impulse Impulse digging the well & finding the source. . . two people in the empty space touching the elements of impulse through body and voice . . . moments of contact . . . song . . . pause . . . follow . . . drink from the well . . . the water is fresh . . . " And now, what is impulse? 'In/pulse' - push from inside. Impulses push from inside. Impulses precede physical actions, always. The impulses: it is as if the physical, still almost invisible, was already born in the body. . . . impulses are the morphenes of acting. " (Grotowski in At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions by Thomas Richards.)

Session 2: Friday, March 21, 2003
Focus - Exchange begin with repetitive gesture exchange and transform Vibration exploration Terminology: reaction, response, intention [Sunday, March 23, 2003 Individual session with AeRan working on transformantion of movement.]

Session 3: Tuesday, March 25, 2003
Focus - Body/Voice connection begin with gesture and organic sound full exchange followed by transformation ending with physical impulse Session

4: Thursday. March 27, 2003
Focus - Giving physical impulse begin with gesture/organic sound exchange - transformation - physical impulse - sharing creating the living action

Session 5: Tuesday. April 1, 2003
Focus - Sharing the action begin with strict exercise: switching between mirror/delayed mirror/pose/contact followed by gesture exchange & impulse giving with opening the moments of sharing.

Session 6: Friday. April 4, 2003
Focus - Discovering the territory begin by preparing the space with materials (cloth, cattails, sticks, basket . . .) Active meditation to work with elements and finding place & relationship.

Terminology: convention, stereotype, archetype tradition & ancient/archiac

Digital Art Museum

Digital Art Museum (DAM) is a joint research project between London Guildhall University and two independent galleries, one in London England, and the other in Wiesbaden Germany. It aims to become a leading on-line resource for the history and practice of computer art. At the time of writing the focus has been on the Pioneers of computer art from 1956 to 1986, which is delineated as Phase 1 of the project.

tracking students

A new electronic system to track foreign students at American schools and universities, presented as a cornerstone of the response to lapses in the student visa system after Sept. 11, 2001, is riddled with computer malfunctions and other problems, university officials and the inspector general of the Justice Department say. . . . The chief lobbyist for the American Council on Education, Terry W. Hartle, called the tracking system an unmitigated disaster. . . . Congress began focusing on lapses in student visas after the first World Trade Center bombing, in 1993. Sept. 11 exposed more disarray, with the I.N.S. issuing student visas for two of the hijackers to attend flight school six months after they had destroyed the World Trade Center.

(nytimes: A Nation at War)

:: comment :: . . . am near and dear to a foreign student and whatever the USA deems necessary, in most cases, Canada follows . . . our borders close as do our hearts & minds . . . tension, suspicion, control breed conflict, contempt, fear . . . all around institutions snarl at humanistic tolerance . . . shame on us . . .

Share Lent Share the Arts

. . . grappling with the voices . . . the anger & futility expressed by students as well as the deep sense of betrayal . . . don't we have a zero tolerance for fighting & bullying at the school . . . complex issues reduced to the personal . . .

moments from the share lent/share the arts continue to burn . . . a young singer stands alone under the white spotlight . . . acoustic guitar gleaming as chords pound out a relentless rhythm underneath the thin white voice singing a self composed song called "Hypocrite" . . .

a young dancer dressed in a flowing black wrap moves in the tradition of Isodore Duncan leaving traces in the air of brokenness yet hope . . .

she dances to the song Blackbird Artist:
THE BEATLES: The White Album Title:

Blackbird Blackbird singing in
The dead of night
Take these broken wings
And learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting
For this moment to arise
Blackbird singing in
The dead of night
Take these sunken eyes
And learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting
For this moment to be free
Blackbird, fly
Blackbird, fly
Into the light of
A dark black night
Blackbird, fly
Blackbird, fly
Into the light of
A dark black night
Blackbird singing in
The dead of night
Take these broken wings
And learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting
For this moment to arise
You were only waiting
For this moment to arise
You were only waiting
For this moment to arise

. . . peace is to listen . . .

hashirigaki

". . .the 90-minute work submerges an audience in an exotic pool of music, image and text that is certainly without the life raft of literal meaning that some theatergoers need to keep their interest afloat. But if you are willing to be seduced, the bewitching and breathtakingly eclectic spirit of the show, which runs through Sunday, can make you feel fluent in a new language. . .

The Japanese word hashirigaki refers both to a flowing, cursive script and to the idea of talking while walking; the word suggests a forward motion on the one hand and the attempt to capture a moment on the other. And though the show has no plot in the conventional sense, it does render abstractly - and with great beauty - this conflict between life's evanescence and the natural human yearning to give it some kind of concrete meaning. And it does build to a kind of sweetly melancholy climax of resignation. . . ."

(nytimes: Arts) (Reviews)

Anti-War Performance

. . . last week the Grade 11/12 Drama class felt so much anger towards the coming war but also felt a sense of futility . . . no one listens to us . . . they decided to create a piece that would somehow express their feelings . . .

they presented their performanace last night to their peers and family at the Share Lent/Share the Arts benefit for world peace & development . . . the script is the skeletal body . . . what can't be communicated is the spirit . . .
they spoke & were listened to & they light a candle in the darkness . . .

ANTI - WAR PERFORMANCE / Drama 20 & 30
Scene 1: Order to Chaos Mask Dance/Glow in the Dark Masks/Shirts Reading NO WAR! Two equal lines: crossing two groups at a time three groups at a time revolving diagonal running pace increasing with each pass into full energy/ start slow.

---------------------------Blackout--------------------------------

Scene 2: Poses Projections & News Report of 9/11 Four Groups:each group has 4 poses. Soldiers/Victims/Horror/Battle . . . Followed by slow motion movement to places on the stage.

---------------------------Blackout--------------------------------

Scene 3: Voice Calling Out 1. Peace keeping 2. System 3. Fear of the unknown 4. Destruction 5. Tyranny 6. Ignorance 7. Sadness 8. Pain 9. Anger 10. All is fair in love and War 11. Destruction 12. Suffering 13. Mistake, mistake, mistake, mistake, mistake . . .

---------------------------Blackout--------------------------------

Scene 4: The Box Scenes The Newspaper/ Jordan: war fanatic, totally into war Sarah: totally upset - her brother has been killed in action Sarah: tries to console, reads the newspaper, is cynical US involvement and is critical about so-called war in the name of peace. Leah: "Do you believe that! It's all propoganda - " The Gun/ Alanna: a para-military freak protecting the park from terrorists. Brad: a non-violent activist has never handled a gun & leaves the gun on the box. Kaylee-Jo: an innocent little girl who discovers the gun and doesn't realize the danger. Kevin: police officer disarms the little girl: "What is the world coming to!" The White Powder/ Bryan: a normal dude drinking a Starbucks coffee needs more sugar and leaves a bunch of sugar on the box Josh: a biology freak who diagnoses substance as Anthrax "Oh my - Anthrax! I've got to call 911 - no the disease control - no the ministry of defense - they'll want my name - I've already touched it - I'm contaminated they'll quarantine me. (Spots dealer) Stay back it's anthrax!" Ariik: "Hey that's my stuff. Wasn't I supposed to meet you here? You trying to rip me off - put the stuff away man - get out of here you trying to ge us arrested - take off -" Little girl: "What's this? Taste and hmmm. . ." Mother enters : "How many times have I told you not to touch or pick up things off the ground - you will get sick - why don't you ever listen to me." Bryan: returns with his coffee oblivious to all that has happened - Iraq/ Individual stands on box looking towards the sky/Air Raid Siren jumps under the box Soldier: wants to take him as prisoner (victim doesn't understand) threatens - gets called away. Red Cross Worker attempts to help 'victim' however he doesn't understand & is frightened by any foreign person Voices of Children crying out for parents

---------------------------Blackout-------------------------------

Monument created from masks and candles lit surrounding "the dead" Politician emerges from crowd and prepares to make announcement of war The voice of conscience (good and evil) vie for attention. The politician announces war ending with the statement god save our souls. Candles extinguished

Final Statement "It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness" - Mother Teresa (via Bb)

REGINA - Acclaimed Regina artist and teacher Wynona Mulcaster has opened up her private studio in Mexico to a group of emerging painters from Saskatchewan. The 88-year-old painter, considered one of the most accomplished landscape artists in North America, will spend the next several weeks working as a private mentor. Mulcaster invited the artists to work with her at her San Miguel de Allende studio. "At age 88, to still be so committed to the giving of oneself is tremendous and I am really grateful that I have this opportunity to work with her," said artist Benita MacNeill, from Outlook, Saskatchewan.

:: comment :: ... it was a decade ago that Wynona passed before my vision . . . through the eyes of Lindner and a project called "UpRooted" . . . need to document the experience . . . later . . .

Impulse

... digging the well & finding the source. . . two people in the empty space touching the elements of impulse through body and voice . . . moments of contact . . . song . . . pause . . . follow . . . drink from the well . . . the water is fresh . . . " And now, what is impulse? 'In/pulse' - push from inside. Impulses push from inside. Impulses precede physical actions, always. The impulses: it is as if the physical, still almost invisible, was already born in the body. . . . impulses are the morphenes of acting. "
(Grotowski in At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions by Thomas Richards.)

insanity

. . . 'in Sanity' explores the relationship between art and the human condition. This show goes beyond the notion of art as therapy, or art as object, to the interconnection between art and society, as the restorative mirror that is created through various forms of community. It addresses the direct experience and issues of isolation, alienation and connection where art becomes the medium that provokes, interacts and restores. . ." (more . . .) Madness and Arts 2003 World Festival

Freedom

. . . the phrase "the voice of the community" does not appear at all (nor does "the muse" although I accept that it's implied in what he wrote). I believe he is suggesting that "the muse" arises from what he calls "the cultural narrative of communities" (then later the "communal narrative"). I take this to mean the cultural tradition to which The Tutor refers: "a succession of masters under masters going back generations within a living community of practice."

. . . The freedom I describe is not the freedom of the indifferent, it is the hard won freedom that comes from devoting oneself wholeheartedly to a practice (in my case, photography then writing). It is not a "go along to get along," "fake it until you make it" sort of freedom. It is hard, lonely, demanding.

It requires every ounce of passion and commitment once can discover within one's own meager resources. It is only occasionally rewarding in the conventional sense (fame and fortune) but infinitely rewarding in many other ways. . . I place all my trust in the community to which I feel connected, most of whose members are physically dead but who live in and through me (and others) through the agency of tradition, language, and -- most of all -- practice . . .
(- Jonathon Delacour from the comments after Riding easy in harness)

Three Seasons song

The song of the women of the floating market of my childhood. I had forgotten my youth - the only time I was pure and whole until I heard your song.

Can anyone ever know How many stalks are in a rice field? How many bends are in a river? How many layers are in a monsoon cloud? Can anyone sweep the leaves of a forest? And tell the wind to shake the trees no more? How many leaves must a silkworm eat to make a dress of colours from the past? How much rain must fall from the sky before the ocean overflows with tears? How many years must the moon age before it is old? In the middle of the night, the moon comes and waits nearby. He can steal my heart. I will forever sing joyful songs.

(from the film Three Seasons) Vietnamese Songs Composer Vy Nhat Tao Script Translator Nguyen Lang

:: comment :: . . . apologies to any transposing mistakes or citation . . . have simply copied the subtitles . . .

questions

". . . Rather than answer the question (I am trying to stop being a teacher who has answers, and to teach students that the way to learn is not to treat their teacher as the knowledge source that fill's their empty minds) I suggested we try to find an answer in our first lab."(vog blog..vlog2.0)

Bellmer

(picture: Child and Seeing Hands - Hans Bellmer, c. 1950)

. . . The life-as-art metaphor can parse two different ways. It can suggest immersion in process, or it can suggest the display of a finished product to an audience in order to garner applause. Life-as-arters always pretend they mean the first, but they're always enmeshed in the second. Those who really want to get their lives unmeshed generally find another metaphor for expressing their desire. . . ."(Turbulent Velvet) "

. . . Of course, I thought, you can have all of my support. If you needed me to give you my skin, my lungs, my heart, to hand you the keys to my life, all of it. Whatever angels call you, go! Godspeed, Gregory Ford! I believe in nothing in heaven, but on earth, in this parking lot, I have faith in you." (Ftrain.com/Paul Ford)

Yann Martel

SASKATOON - Booker Prize-winning author Yann Martel is heading to Saskatoon to be the writer in residence at the Saskatoon Public Library. . . . "He's so looking forward to being in Saskatoon," Martel's publicist Sharon Klein told the Saskatoon StarPhoenix. "It's going to be very nice for him to stay put in a great city in Canada where he hasn't lived before."

"I've really been intrigued by those big skies -- those big, big skies, those brooding landscapes. (Saskatoon Star Phoenix)

:: comment :: . . . never heard of anyone who doesn't live in Saskatoon describe it as a great city . . . welcome . . . maybe a great place to write . . . sure want my students to talk to him about the accusations of plagiarism . . . how an artist handles such charges & what lingering impact such statements have on future writings . . .

Stan Brakhage

Experimental director Stan Brakhage, who was considered the most influential avant-garde filmmaker, died in Victoria after a long battle with cancer. He was 70. . . . Brakhage was a pioneer film technician who revolutionized the use of the abstract form. His methods included hand-painting black frames of 16 mm film, gluing objects to film and scratching blank film. (CBC: Arts)

:: comment ::. . . in the early '70's encountered Scenes from Under Childhood . . . Brakhage changed the way I watched . . . check out Frame Enlargements from Films by Stan . . .

The Banished Scholar

Clothing: traditional Korean clothing,overcoat with pockets, hat

Objects: pen, book, newspaper

Instruments: mandolin & oboe

History:
sings traditional songs of the world
Gilgamesh is his story

Animal: Snake

ever present like the wind

sometimes a warm, soothing breeze off the ocean

other times a cold, harsh gale sweeping from the north


banished from the King's court

I flee to the far away island for sanctuary

I am everything you banish to the dark recesses of your soul


highly critical of the authoritarian, political state

a refugee in my own land

listen to the protest songs of the past and the age old teaching
stories


Dance:
chimes of freedom

march forward

into battle

killing

death

weeping

fleeing away

stopped by walls

tortured social death

"It's all relative to likes and dislikes!"
(nytime:arts)

Solo Clown Portrait / "The Audition" / Script


The Wanderer's Pause


(Running in late for the audition - standing in front of impressive State Theatre - reading the sign.)


"Audition down the hall!"


(Marching down the hall. Stopping at door and next sign)


"Please wait."


(Putting down all things to wait. Decide to prepare by calming down with centre exercise.)


"Oh I hate this. I hate boundaries. I hate when I stand at the bottom of a mountain and someone says you can't climb that. I hate the one who says No! You Can't! Don't! Yes. I Will. I Can and I do."

(Scratch head discovering a flea)

"Oh a flea. You know that this tiny little insignificant creature can jump higher than any other insect in the whole world."



(Flea escapes into audience. Catching it.)

"Whoops - I told you. But if the flea is caught and put into a bottle and released some time later, than this flea can only jump the height of the container in which it was trapped. I hate the bottle. I hate catching, trapping and killing. Break the bottle. Break the container. Break the boundaries. Break them all and throw it away!

(Being called to audition)

Oh, my turn."


(Being asked to leave the walking stick, shoes and bag at the door. Refuses to leave bag.)


"Yes I will."


(Enter Audition room and introduce canvas. Begin in Korean but when no response slip into English.)


"I am the Wanderer. I come from no where and I am going everywhere.

(Hiding)

Tiny, insignificant, but I could be your sister. I am young, very, very young but I follow the ancient wisdom of the universe. I am the Wanderer."


(Move to side and remove back pack and begin to unpack.)


1. Small bags one after the other till discover whistle.
2. Reach in to discover shaker. See the sky and sing song:


Twinkle, Twinkle little star.


Twinkle, twinkle little star

How I wonder what you are?

Up above the world so high

Like a diamond in the sky

twinkle, twinkle little star how I wonder what you are!


(Repeat three times last time in Korean ending with "How I wonder what you are" as pensive question to "What am I?")


3. Reach in and get caught by scarf.


Taped Korean song: Flower. Dance Free the People.


(Dance concludes.)


"I have to go now. This is not my place. Thank you very much."


(Return to shoes and stick.)

Leave to find it raining.

Unpack umbrella & get caught by the wind. Flying high over everything using whistle for sound effect and gently landing.

Land right in a river and use umbrella as boat.

Singing:

Row, row, row your boat


Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily life is but a dream.


(Reflecting on the line, Life is but a dream, exit boat putting umbrella away.)


"Oh I love the wind, rain and sky. Sky - there was a wise man who loved the sky. Do you remember the flea trapped in the bottle. Well this man was trapped in jail. A political prisoner but his spirit jumped further than any other man in the whole world. He wrote a poem.


(Catching his spirit in the heart of an audience member.)


Look to your sky

That is why you keep falling down

for you have something to achieve

That is why you are lost

for you have a path to walk

that is why you go crying again

for you have something blossoming

When you are too tired to see ahead

Look to your sky

The sky you care for

cares for you/When you have tears because it is so hard

Quietly

Go to the deep place of your heart

Look to your sky."


(Exit wandering singing Korean dance song.)

Mortal Man meets Death

The Room of Decision

Black lady lies invisible beneath the chair of decision, death's messenger with the task to escort souls to the afterlife.

Mortal Man enters. Walks slowly & deliberately towards the chair - last breath.

The characters contact each other through breath.

Black lady breaks into the room, cracking through into the realm of the visible and reaches out for contact.

Mortal Man first hears then sees Black Lady.

The characters contact through sight.

Black Lady is pulled away from Mortal Man to a gateway of the afterlife. She has violated her task by attempting to talk.

Mortal Man, as a child or newborn to this afterlife, watches and is curious about this light cloth. Examines where it begins, where it goes, touches it . . .

The White Lady emerges & introduces the game of hide & seek. A mother calling her child to come.

Mortal Man hesitates then begins to play - even when he hides among the living (the audience) he is found.

The characters contact through play.
The White Lady coaxes Mortal Man to rest his head on her lap and then shocks him with the voice of terror.

Mortal Man experiences the full pain of the physical self collapsing.

The characters contact through voice.

The White Lady prepares the body for the afterlife (washing ritual)

Mortal Man rises looks to audience & consciously decides to stay in the world of the living or to enter the afterlife.


__________________________________________________

We do not die because we have to die: we die because one day, and not so long ago, our consciousness was forced to deem it necessary.- Artaud
__________________________________________________

Oh,

I

know


I too shall cease and be as when I was not yet, only all over instead of in store. That makes me happy, often now my murmur falters and dies and I weep for happiness as I go along and for love of this old earth


that has carried me so long and whose uncomplainingness will soon be mine. Just under the surface I shall be, all together at first, then separate, and drift through all the earth and perhaps in the end through a cliff into the sea, something of me.


A ton of worms in an acre, that is a wonderful thought a ton of worms, I believe it. --- Samuel Beckett From an Abandoned Work

. . . still contemplating the "aestheticized monoculture of theater" . . .performance events where performers and spectators intervene in a genuine cultural problem Schechner calls "Actuals" . . .five qualities of actuals . . .process, something happens here and now . . . consequential,irremediable, and irrevocable acts, exchanges, or situations; . . . contest, something is at stake . . . initiation, a change of status . . . space is used concretely and organically = artists/teachers and spectators/students learn to "actually" intervene in the liminal spaces of codified culture through performance . . .

no narrative structure . . . but an active culture . . .

"Picking Apart Pick-A-Prof The author of this article asks whether the popular professor ranking service, Pick-A-Prof, helps students find good professors "or just easy A's." It seems to me that this is the wrong question to ask. If what motivates students in theirselection of courses (and hence, the allocation of the bulk of their learning time) is "easy A's" then the system - not the student, who is just playing the ropes - is deeply flawed. If an "easy A" grants a student more prospects for success in the future than genuine (and sometimes hard) learning, then we need to rethink how we assess and value learning. Of course this article raises none of these issues, preferring instead to stay in the comfortable old online versus offline rut. By Andrea L. Foster, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 7, 2003"

(via my favourite newsletter OLDaily)

Spring Awakening/Summer of love
is clearly a structured work and in performance the director has the power to create a montage oriented to you watching, and through this montage, to capture your attention and tell you something . . . nevertheless there are moments where this function of the director - to direct the attention of the spectator, the associative flux - is as if given up: as if abdicating from this position . . . what happens if one lets an "action" have its natural development, even in a situation that up to that moment was adhering to a theatrical logic? . . . at some moments during Spring Awakening/Summer of Love (SA/SL) this abandoning is attempted . . . as an experiment to let go and see what happens . . .

questions: . . . what happens . . .

[preamble]. . . the working premise seemed: it's exhilarating to be alive in a time of awakening sexuality . . . it can also be confusing, disorienting and painful . . . awakening is like the crossing of a frontier - one step and you are in another country . . . the eye of the cast of SA/SL reveals a deep fatalistic pessimism . . . isolation, self-pity, numbness . . . creative sexual energy is fast running out . . .what remains is its self-generating energy for destruction . . . SA/SL is a hybrid that combines a variety of performance conventions

[traditional response] . . .the vignettes/numbers are either mundane, elliptical or opaque . . . and though thematically related the connection is obscure . . . most involve sexual repression . . . in one or two instances, images reappear, and previous events are referred to, but for the most part the only consistent link is a dubious one: the lights come on, the curtain is pulled, the blindfold removed, the door opens, (an awakening) . . . at best there were promising theatrical devices yet each felt a little anti-climatic and what was achieved reminded me of a phrase by Kate Bligh, "What was achieved in every case was the banalisation of the dramatic, rather than the dramatisation of the banal. Perhaps this is what Jerzy Grotowski meant by 'post-theater'." . . .

[the process] . . . SA/SL is incomplete . . . now if the nature of the approach demands an ensemble and rehersals require not a preparation for the opening but are for the actor a terrain of discoveries . . . what happens . . .

[speculation] . . . SA/SL acknowledges our shadow, the personal unconscious.

"Jung called the shadow "a moral problem which challenges the whole ego personality." The complete personality is composed of light and shadow. Primitive thought defined a man that cast no shadow as a demon - and we're surrounded in every age by the rankness of the virtuous. The strain of a life spent portraying excessive goodness tends to exaggerate the darkness we all shelter and defend."(Dressing Saint Sebastian by jessica kardon)

. . . what happens . . . the work under "touristic" hands wallows . . . i can only refer to a previous statement: open lesson

"THAW out for PEACE at a theater near you! - on March 2, 2003 over 120 theaters and hundreds of theater artists throughout New York will stand up against the impending U.S. war in Iraq."

more . . .

"The horrors of history are not - nor can they ever become - everyday and banal. Kantor teaches us to be afraid of how much we dare not evoke, of the things we wish completely to ignore. He opens our eyes, so that we can say that we're right to be afraid. This reestablishes real connections between things. . ."

. . .the artist/the soul of the artist/what it is to be human. . . a hazardous pilgrimage beyond the moment of resignation . . . an individual and yet universal meditation on the theme of living in a world of stress, doubt and peril . . . a symbolic expression on the perception of lonliness - and the inextinguishable hope for an existence beyond bodily death . . . a redemption . . . . a ressurection . . .

When you don't have this dying and becoming.
You are only a sad guest on the dark Earth. - Goethe


Resignation Redemption (screenplay by niki, kristin, matthew, jeremy, anna and andrea)

INT. STAGE - DAY

Two actors on stage rehearsing a scene from Dracula. Half painted flat behind them being painted. Director off-stage.

ACTOR (playing Dracula, full emotion) The children of the night! As you say, Mr. Harker - six wolves. Listen! The Director howls for Wolves.

ACTOR (stepping out of character) There's going to be a real wolf howl, isn't there.

DIRECTOR (voice exasperated) Of course. Please continue. Stay in character. The Actor fumbles with the script just finding the lines, reading, then mumbling them and towards the end slipping into character.

ACTOR Mmmmm. Come now. There are many things you must tell me tomorrow - of England and of the estate there you have purchased for me.

ANTAGONIST (playing Harker) Ah yes.

ACTOR (playing Dracula with full intensity) The estate is called . . . . (long dramatic pause) . . . Carfax, I believe.

ANTAGONIST (Playing Harker quickly replies) Yes, that's so.

ACTOR (playing Dracula fully engaged now) But now, I will detain you no longer.

DIRECTOR (side-coaching) Try it with an accent.

ACTOR/DRACULA I vill detain you no longerrr. You vill find your rrroom in rrreadiness. DIRECTOR (side coaching) Sinister now.

ACTOR/DRACULA (over dramatically) And I advise you not to leave it during (sinister laugh) the night.

DIRECTOR Not so much this is not a melodrama.

ACTOR/DRACULA (frustrated and angry) Accent. Sinister . . . too much . . . I give up . . . (throwing script in the air) . . . I QUIT. Papers flying everywhere.

INT. STAGE ENTRANCE - DAY

Door slams. Actor runs in carrying a mirror, watch, books,binders, agenda and heavy backpack Constantly stumbling and dropping things in haste. Reaches the stage and drops everything. Agenda lands open and a messy schedule of scratched out and replaced times and dates is displayed. Actor rummages through backpack looking for something and pulls out papers throwing them about till at last finds a stapled booklet. A script. As the script is pulled from the backpack it falls apart. Papers flying everywhere blowing across the stage transforming to silver, surreal foil.

INT. BACKSTAGE - DAY Actor curled up into a ball in a corner.

ACTOR (Despondent) I can't do this. It's just not who I am.

ANTAGONIST (with authority) You've got to. You've done it before. Snap out of it.

ACTOR (looking up) You don't understand. Papers ripping, garbage swirling, dishes smashing.

ANTAGONIST (pleading) You're an artist it's in your soul! Ripped papers reassemble, dishes repair, garbage is sucked back.

ACTOR (Long deep breath. Inhale . . .hold it . . . exhale.) Scream

INT. WINDOW - PITCH BLACK

Tape of voices and collage of imagery. STRANGE RASPY VOICE Give up - it's useless you'll never make it.

ACTOR I can't do this. STRANGE RASPY VOICE Jump! Jump! Tiny spot of light magnifies into blinding light which then focuses to rooftop.

EXT. ROOFTOP - NIGHT

Actor on rooftop looking down with one foot dangling. STRANGE RASPY VOICE (very faintly like the whisper of the wind ) Jump. Actor jumps off roof. Antagonist running to roof edge eyes wide biting lip shouts.

ANTAGONIST NO! Cut back to actor looking over the edge in defeat. Antagonist stands behind both looking tired and defeated. Antagonist sits down and grabs the actors elbow motioning to sit down. The two sit and lean on each other. A chorus of dismal, lifeless people walk up from behind them and pass by. All assemble on the edge of the rooftop, hands on their sides falling one at a time.

THE END