Show Day

Today is the first performance of Q2: Habitat - Alison is still making last minute changes, which suits me just fine. We had a very productive rehearsal yesterday after a topsy-turvy Sunday of show changes, most to allow the piece some breathing room. Not only was it coming in short at 30 minutes (rather than the requisite 45), but the events, musical cues, and entrances were piling on to such a degree that there was no clear arc or stage picture. When everybody arrived at once: porcupines, seagulls, the excavator, birdwatchers, UHaul - their relationships didn't show up. The spaciousness of the new beginning really allows the audience to settle into the natural world of the Quarry before its augmentation and disruption through the human elements. So I was pleased! Also pleased that the community members accepted big changes and created something cohesive and clear out of them. They caught on quickly and were all about investing in the piece and seeing it thrive -- so I feel like we're doing something right. A little bruised by the subsumation of my circus vocabulary into the (far better) creative vocabulary of one of the community members, I got the necessary reminder from them as well as Alison: in a project like this, it is all about teamwork -- the generation of ideas that are improved upon by others, and may ultimately be perfected and performed by someone unconnected with the original thought.

The idea of community responsibility for art (and art's reciprocal responsibility to community) is central to what Alison and Mia have tried to accomplish with Q2, but for me it is better embodied in the process we've taken to get here. There's an added layer every time a new person jumps in. Right now, Paulette Moore, a documentary filmmaker and educator, is staying at the house and filling my head with restorative justice, art in research, and this big web of people who are doing creative vital things in the world. She pointed me to a colleague, John Paul Lederach, who recently spoke on the "Art of Peace" for Speaking of Faith. I pointed her towards some readings for her class on media and culture, most culled from Shevchenko's great syllabus in Memory and Identity. Delightful symbiosis begins anew.

Also, Tupelo Press's This Lamentable City was featured as one of the "Books of the Times" in the New York Times last week. More excitement in my expanding world of independent arts!

Dependent, in fact, on a special blend of circumstance and choice -- today, for instance, we're doing the sun dance to ward off downpours on our natural amphitheater. Add your soft-shoe, and check out some pictures and words from the Quarry, via the Bangor Daily News.