I went in with this insane piece, this musical phantasmagoria island site-specific thing — and came out with my most, sort of, small quiet piece I’ve ever made that really relies upon, for the most part, humans behaving based on characteristics that we can perceive.
It’s not always clear what we’re looking at, but perhaps Henry is tearing down the house, family, and narrative form itself with hope alongside rage.
Their arguments, even when hate-filled, are lucidly formed and difficult to penetrate. There’s a weird thrill of uncomfortable relief when we find ourselves half-agreeing with them.
I think there’s less a question of “what’s to be done” and more is a question of “how do we know what’s really going on.” It’s less about privacy in some ways and more about transparency of information
It’s the concept of being brave and having a safe space that is safe enough that you can feel brave — because it takes bravery to have those conversations that you know will be difficult, with people that might have a viewpoint that is different than yours, but in order to find common ground and to communicate with each other, those conversations must be had.
I think we do talk without words at this point and use shorthand in rehearsals, and to an outside eye it might look like an old couple having dinner in silence, yet a whole conversation is going on.
And as we talk, all of our conversations seem to circle back to time; the passage of time, generations over time, geologic time that the mind can hardly fathom. “It’s hard to ignore when you think about things like climate. Suddenly you feel really small – in time.”
You feel, given the virtuosity and care demonstrated onstage, that you owe this much. You can carry all this. If you let it fall, it’ll break the spell. Don’t spill the water.
They saw, “formalism with flair, and flights of fancy. Quirky, rhythmic, gestural phrases woven into broadly abstract works with exciting choreography. Cute moments that hint at a story.”
Watching the three Players go through an elaborate and very tightly regulated game for citizenship to “The Promised Land,” the dot game would have been more than enough to create a natural tension between the players, with which to fuel their antagonism, and eventual alliances, secrets, and betrayals.
Maybe the political statement is that it’s not political. We can exist together, we can live together, without it being some message or some signpost in the sand, some marker of who you are.
Each time we stumbled across a new challenge, we took note of how we could prepare for it in the future. Such is the reality of doing something new — you don’t know until you know, and once you do you never make the same mistake twice.