A site specific performance with WE Players.
Video credit: Rapt Productions
Sacred Texts
In-Out, Sacred Texts Installation
Gallery Route One, Point Reyes, CA, 2011-12 Incised words on paper with sumi, gold or red ink.
Video credit: Stuart Rabinowitsh
Performance Images
Sacred Texts
In/Out Sacred Texts
This is a culmination of my yearlong encounter with cruelty and grace. The journey began with a visit to the Topography of Terror on the demolished SS Headquarters in Berlin and came full circle in collaboration with the site specific performance troupe, WE Players in the cellblock house at Alcatraz in October, 2011.
During the rehearsal process, we spent 2 nights sleeping in cells. I slept on the highest tier. At dawn I awoke to see the light coming from windows in the western most wall. The light projected shadows of the metal grids covering the windows along with the metal bars at the entrance to my cell, creating a holographic cage in the empty space.
In rehearsal we experienced lockdown, when an entire row of cells are slammed shut simultaneously. How simple, to have the freedom to step in and out of a threshold. How quickly it can be taken away.
I also performed in a solitary confinement cell, next to one in which a cellist was deconstructing Ode to Joy into madness.
I brought a selection of these texts to Alcatraz when I spent the nights. Paper has healing and mystical properties that I learned about while living in Asia. It is in this spirit that I offer this installation