Art Works
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As far back as I can remember, I colored in my room. With outrageous intensity, I worked hard at getting the crayon marks in the boundaries of the black lines. I designed costumes for the future and drew endless pictures of animals from a drawing book my mother bought me. In the last art class I ever took in 5th grade, I made a painting from a photograph of the ocean crashing against some rocks. It was selected to be shown in some kind of local art show. That painting now sits above the mantel in my home. When people come over they believe that the ocean painting is exemplary of my current work.
I studied acting and stopped the day I was performing as Saint Joan in Carol Churchill’s play Top Girls. I was in the middle of a harangue in Latin, looked out into the crowd and realized how irrelevant it all was. I vowed never to act again – and haven’t. I thought the answer might lie in directing. I still liked the stage. The performative allows for such possibility. I began to create performances. I directed a series of new plays in collaboration with living playwrights. Soon, however, I began to question the authority given to the word. I became disinterested in stories told with words. I experimented with scripts that relied heavily on language (Shakespeare mostly) removing the language to see if meaning could prevail. Can we communicate adequately without words? How much can be communicated non-verbally simply with intention?
Reading Artaud, I came to agree that the authority of the stage itself was problematic. I began to create situations on street corners and cafes asking passers-by to consider their participation in the construction of the female, for example, and otherwise made works that aimed to re-invent my relationship to the "stage" and to the audience.
After deciding to better understand theoretical frameworks that could deepen my practice, I went to New York to study. Finding myself in Minneapolis 4 years later with a PhD in Performance Studies, I began working to integrate my learning with my practice. I made “Dark Circus”, “Number Seven” (in Blizzard in August), “No. 7", and “Untitled Installation" all in different venues, all part of a cycle of works that investigated the role of meaning and how it gets constructed. I learned the power of the venue and the expectation that it engenders. My recent work “for Shadows” poses new questions about how the audience can contribute to meaning making, and then further asks what happens to the “meaningless” parts of creation. I want to know how to create an economy of art-making that includes not just the well-crafted piece of “work/art” but the detritus of the making. How can I make work that does not privilege the selected aspects of the piece from the disregarded while still creating well-crafted works? I’ll let you know how it goes.
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for Shadows
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Creator
2007-2008
Installation
Spectators walk through an environment viewing a sea of faces below hearing abstract sounds. From the lights that project from these images, viewers can catch glimpses of writing circling above, as they simultaneously cast shadows on the walls of the space, partnering in making meaning in this work.
Minneapolis, MN
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Little Red Hood
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Creator
2004-present
Site-Specific Installation
Visual projections and sound on/at buildings around Minneapolis.
Location In Process
Minneapolis, MN
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Untitled
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Creator
2002
Installation
An installation created as part of the exhibit “Silent Witness.” This piece invites the audience to walk through the space, and listen to sections of a story projected through speakers dropped from trees. The speakers broadcast sections of a story of escape from the Armenian genocide. Bookmarked on either side of the room are two monitors (see the opening video to the right).
pArts Gallery
Minneapolis, MN
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No. 7
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Creator/Director
2001
Performance Installation
This piece incorporates two movers and one musician in an exploration of the sounds, pauses, stutters, images and content of a personal story. This piece is intended to function as a meditation on the role of personal narrative, the power of historical accounts against representations of such, and the transformation out of genocide both literally and psychologically as it passes on through generations.
Theater Garage
Minneapolis, MN
Commissioned by 3 Legged Race
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Blizzard in August
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Facilitator/Director
1999
Jeune Lune Theater
Minneapolis, MN
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Number Seven (In Blizzard in August)
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Creator
1999
A pre-pubescent girl, a projected image of an eye, a sound score, and a live bull collaborated on the meaning of this piece. The exploration was in how unknown elements of a piece (live animal, child) can make new meanings in a representational framework.
Jeune Lune Theater
Minneapolis, MN
Commissioned by 3 Legged Race
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Dark Circus
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Creator
1998
Performance Installation
This piece was a machine created to be manipulated by three performers. The elements of meaning - sound, words, light - occured according to the endurance and limits of the performers' bodies.
Green Chair Project Garage
Minneapolis, MN
Commissioned by 3 Legged Race
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Orgasmo Adulto Escapes From the Zoo |
Director
1993
A minimalist production derived from Franca Rame and Dario Fo's fuller text. This work explored character through gesture and story.
The Loring Playhouse Minneapolis, MN
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Click below to read review
City Pages |
King Henry IV
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Director
1986
An exploration of the famous text using no language. Situated outdoors, performers moved and sounded only their character’s intentions.
Public park
Arcata, CA
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Macbeth
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Director
1986
An exploration of text through intensive work with the actors to establish an inclusive and focused presence with character.
Humboldt State University
Arcata, CA
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