Third Rail Projects Blog

Join the Tenth Anniversary Season Campaign for Third Rail Projects and Help us Meet the Challenge!

2011-11-29T22:02:00.002-05:00

A Special Message from Third Rail Advisory Board Members and Campaign Co-Chairs, Christy Burke & Judy Gluckstern...

Join the Tenth Anniversary Season Campaign

for Third Rail Projects and Help us Meet the Challenge!

Now through December 31, 2011:

CLICK HERE

to make an instant online tax-deductible

donation through our fiscal sponsor (Fractured Atlas)

and have it matched dollar-for-dollar!

November 29, 2011

Dear Third Rail Projects Friends & Family,

As Advisory Board members and long-time supporters of Third Rail Projects, it’s hard to believe that we have now reached a ten-year milestone…

From its beginnings as a scrappy self-produced dance company to its evolution

into an established collective of Bessie award-winning artists, Third Rail has grown exponentially this past decade. Their diverse work in an array of media has garnered a vast community of local, national and international audiences and collaborators. This year alone, Third Rail has supported more than 50 professional artists, worked with over 100 students, and presented five major works experienced by more than 100,000 audience members. This summer the Los Angeles Downtown News summed it up beautifully, calling Third Rail a “Terpsichorean perfect storm.”

In celebration of the Tenth Anniversary Season, to honor Third Rail's ongoing

commitment to bringing sophisticated art into the public sphere, and to lay the first cornerstone in the foundation for the next decade, we are proud to match any gift amount donated to Third Rail by December 31st, dollar-for-dollar, up to $20,000.

We want to ensure that Third Rail Projects will continue to bring us beautiful and inspiring works for another ten years and beyond, and we challenge you to help us meet this fundraising goal by making your tax-deductible contribution in conjunction with this special opportunity. Now is an important moment to show our steadfast support to help launch Third Rail Projects forward. Our donations at this time will help strengthen Third Rail’s foundation, fortify organizational infrastructure, supplement production budgets, and pay the artists, performers, designers, collaborators, and staff.

CLICK HERE to make your instant online tax-deductible donation through Third Rail's fiscal sponsor (Fractured Atlas).

We hope that you will join us in the Tenth Anniversary Season Campaign to lay the foundation for future works and fan the creative fires of the incomparable artists of Third Rail Projects.

Our Warmest Regards,

Co-chairs for the Tenth Anniversary Campaign for Third Rail Projects

Remember, if your company has a matching gift program, you may be able to increase the value of your donation on your end by doubling the impact. Ask your employer about matching gifts.

To donate online Click Here. To send a check by mail, please make check payable to our fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas [not toThird Rail Projects]; please note in the memo line "for Third Rail Projects."

__________Mail Checks to:
__________Attn: Tom Pearson
__________Third Rail Projects
__________48-45 46th Street #4F
__________Woodside, NY 11377

Third Rail Projects is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the purposes of Third Rail Projects must be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

In Just Ten Days...

2011-10-12T14:24:00.003-04:00

If you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later...

Steampunk Haunted House Official Website

Tickets

Third Rail Projects Launches Tenth Anniversary Season

2011-09-29T10:17:00.005-04:00

THIRD RAIL PROJECTS is thrilled to announce that it has been given a tremendous gift to launch its 10th Anniversary Season.

Through generous donations from CHRISTY BURKE, Founder & President of Burke & Company LLC and from JUDY & STEVEN GLUCKSTERN and The Lucky Star Foundation, THIRD RAIL has been challenged to raise $20,000 towards its $80,000 campaign goal by year end.

Every dollar donated by December 31, 2011 will be matched up to $20,000.To be a part of this remarkable opportunity, please visit thirdrailprojects.com to donate securely online and to find out more about what your support can do and the many ways in which you can be involved.

Thank you for making the past ten years so successful and for joining us as we embarkon the next decade of exciting work.

Special Ticket Offer to BLOG Followers

2011-09-29T10:10:00.003-04:00

As a thank you to all of our TRP BLOG followers, please use the discount codes below for online ticket purchases to this year's Steampunk Haunted House:

Opening night 10/22: "REDQUEEN" = $20 tickets

10/23, 10/26 (except for special Halloween party tickets), and 10/27: "JABBERWOCK" = $15 tickets.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS.

Offer ends October 10th, so get them fast.

More information on SPHH at steampunkhauntedhouse.com

Tickets are on Sale Now!!!

2011-08-31T00:37:00.002-04:00

Tickets for Steampunk Haunted House 2011 are available for online purchase via steampunkhauntedhouse.com, and this year's theme is announced.

Coming Soon

2011-08-15T16:32:00.006-04:00

"Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder

what was going to happen next."

--Lewis Carroll

LA "Looking Glass" Trailer

2011-06-18T15:47:00.003-04:00

Marissa Nielsen-Pincus and Tara O'Con as Alice

photo by Wendy Le

The new trailer for our Los Angeles premier is now available on vimeo. Click link below.

"Looking Glass" at Bank of America Plaza - Downtown L.A. from Third Rail Projects on Vimeo.

First Day On Site in Los Angeles with Looking Glass

2011-06-15T01:42:00.016-04:00

Tori Sparks as the Red Queen and Tara O'Con as Alice

On Saturday, ten-foot tall signage went up on the side of the Bank of America building, an incongruous art installation of antique ephemera appeared in the West Lobby, and Zach and my first week in LA came to a close.

Yesterday afternoon, Tara O'Con, Tori Sparks, Marissa Nielsen-Pincus, and Elizabeth Carena arrived in LA (Jennine Willett will join the company next Monday). We did massive grocery shopping, started to figure out this whole driving-in-LA-thing, and settled into our house in Silver Lake. Later, we travelled to the Bank of America Plaza for a site observation, unpacked the costumes and trunk, and then we celebrated our arrival with cocktails on a downtown rooftop.

But today was what it's all about. Really hitting the pavement or, rather rolling on the brick wall as the case may be. The first day is always pivotal. It's a kind of ice-breaking moment all around. It's the first time we get to physically interact with the site full-force, and it's the first time that the denizens of the site see us here. We are coming in as the foreign element again, but after years of working in this way, we've started to know how it goes. We get to know everyone as they get to know us, and by the time we leave, we seem as natural to the site as the waterfalls and Tasmanian tree ferns.

We are excited to have our rehearsal time on site open for audiences to watch as we build the work. Over the course of these two weeks, they will have the opportunity to see the creative process from start to finish, and along the way, we get the opportunity to try out material in front of them. It will certainly tell us quickly what works best and what doesn't. We know when we have their attention and where we lose them, and this kind of on-site process affords a much quicker development period and a chance to gather interest and momentum along the way.

But getting back to today... today was also a photo shoot! So, enjoy a sneak peak with some of shots from Wendy Le.

– Tom

Marissa Nielsen-Pincus and Tara O'Con as Alice

Elizabeth Carena as the Mad Hatter

TRP Premieres New Work in Los Angeles & New York

2011-06-11T11:58:00.015-04:00

Third Rail Projects Premieres

LOOKING GLASS
presented by Arts Brookfield,
this summer in LA and NY
Save the Dates!

Click through to each individual event below for more information.

photo courtesy of Starboard photos

LOOKING GLASS by Third Rail Projects

Zach Morris, Tom Pearson, Jennine Willett, Co-Directors

Featuring Collaborators:
Elizabeth Carena, Marissa Nielsen-Pincus, Tara O'Con, Tori Sparks

Costumes:
Karen Young

Looking Glass is a site-adaptive, immersive performance experience utilizing and highlighting pre-existing architecture at four sites this summer in LA and NY. The work invites audiences to see their surroundings anew and encourages them to explore the environment, choose and follow a performer, discover hidden scenes, and chart their own path through a cutting edge, fierce, and sophisticated re-imagining of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through The Looking Glass. The work is a durational performance, presented on a loop for roughly two hours (LA site) and one hour (NY sites), affording the public an opportunity to move throughout the space and providing multiple vantage points from which to engage with the work. All performances are FREE. No tickets required.

SUMMER PERFORMANCES:

Looking Glass – Los Angeles, CA

"... an immersive experience that thrives on audience engagement...
major points for visuals, as well as for some very enthusiastic players."
– Perrin Drumm, SUNDANCE CHANNEL | SUNfiltered

Presented by Arts Brookfield at
Bank of America Plaza
Performance Dates:
June 23– 25, 2011
Thursday– Friday, 12:00PM–2:00PM
Saturday, 2:00PM– 4:00PM

CLICK HERE for more information about this event.

Whether or not you are in LA, you can follow our open rehearsals and creative process on TRP's BLOG. We will begin posts on June 14th. View online or on your hand held device with our new mobile version.

Looking Glass – New York, NY
"..a lavish delight for the senses." – Caroline Ballard, THE VILLAGE VOICE

New York performances presented by Arts Brookfield
as part of Extraordinary Moves and the River to River Festival

One New York Plaza

Performance Date:
Tuesday, July 12, 2011, 12:30PM
CLICK HERE for more information about this event.

Zuccotti Park

Performance Date:

Wednesday, July 13, 2011, 12:30PM

CLICK HERE for more information about this event.

World Financial Center Plaza

Performance Date:

Thursday, July 14, 2011, 12:30PM

CLICK HERE for more information about this event.

Looking Glass is presented by Arts Brookfield as part of its 2011 summer program, premiering in Los Angeles at Bank of America Plaza, and in New York City at One New York Plaza, Zuccotti Park and World Financial Center as part of Arts Brookfield's Extraordinary Moves dance festival produced for the 2011 River To River Festival.

Brookfield Office Properties enlivens its public spaces through an acclaimed visual and performing arts program. Arts Brookfield is committed to working with regional artists and commissioning original works of art in all disciplines including visual art, dance. theater and music. These events offer artists unique opportunities to work in new and unusual spaces while providing provocative cultural experiences for tenants and visitors alike.

Third Rail Projects' performances of Looking Glass are also made possible, in part, by Materials for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Department of Sanitation, The Lucky Star Foundation and with support from Third Rail Projects' individual and institutional donors. New York Costumes and Gothic Renaissance proudly sponsor Third Rail Projects' ten-year anniversary season and offer audience members a 10% in-store discount. Simply mention Third Rail Projects at the time of purchase.

A Series of Reveals: Final Week and Open Studio

2011-03-14T14:59:00.005-04:00

Arts Brookfield presents
Zach Morris Third Rail Projects
A Series of Reveals
an evolving art installation inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass

One New York Plaza Art Space, Concourse Level

Project Webpage

Open Studio: March 14 - 18: 12pm - 6pm Daily
This Event is FREE and open to the public

For the last ten weeks, a tiny window display in an empty storefront in the Financial District has been slowly expanding into a lush dream world, evolving before visitors' eyes.
This week A Series of Reveals culminates when the art space is fully opened to the public. Visitors will be able to explore the space's interior, see a cross-section of the completed installation, and meet the artist from 12-6pm each day.

Created by site-specific artist Zach Morris of Third Rail Projects, the evolving piece evokes the dense, mysterious Victorian dreamscapes that are a hallmark of his artwork.

Sponsored by Brookfield Office Properties

Brookfield Office Properties enlivens its public spaces through an acclaimed visual and performing arts program. Arts Brookfield is committed to working with regional artists and commissioning original works of art in all disciplines including visual art, dance. theater and music. These events offer artists unique opportunities to work in new and unusual spaces while providing provocative cultural experiences for tenants and visitors alike.

A Series of Reveals, Now Open, Unfolds Over 10 Weeks at One New York Plaza

2011-01-26T12:51:00.012-05:00

photo by Starboard Photos

Arts Brookfield presents
Zach Morris Third Rail Projects
A Series of Reveals, an evolving art installation
inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass

One New York Plaza Art Space, Concourse Level

Project Webpage

Exhibit: January 10–March 18, 2011;
on view Mondays through Fridays 7am – 7pm

Open Studio: Through March 11: Fridays 12pm–6pm
March 14 – 18: 12pm – 6pm Daily

A tiny window display in an empty storefront in the Financial District is slowly expanding into a lush dream world that will continue to evolve before visitors’ eyes through the middle of March.

A Series of Reveals, an art installation from the arts collective behind last fall’s Halloween sensation Steampunk Haunted House, will animate the windows of the One New York Plaza Art Space through March 18th. Created by site-specific artist Zach Morris of Third Rail Projects, the evolving piece evokes the dense, mysterious Victorian dreamscapes that are a hallmark of Morris’s artwork.

Tucked in between fast food eateries Dunkin’ Donuts and Subway, the work will unfold before viewers’ eyes in weekly increments with each new layer drawing passersby deeper and deeper into an increasingly detailed world. Partly inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, A Series of Reveals began as a small, sparsely furnished “rabbit hole” and is slowly expanding to include plants, portraits, strange Victorian machines, mannequins, and other intriguing oddities.

A new stage of the piece will be unveiled each Monday and remain in place throughout the week. Each Friday, Morris will begin work on the next stage in full view of the public, who is invited to come into the art space to get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the process and learn more about the project.

The project will culminate with its final reveal during the week of March 14th when the art space will be fully opened to the public. Visitors will be able to explore the space’s interior, see a cross-section of the completed installation, and meet Morris who will be present from 12-6pm each day.

Third Rail Projects is dedicated to creating work in the public sphere that engages local communities. Known for its immersive, site-specific art and performance projects, the group has received popular and critical acclaim for its Steampunk Haunted House, “a lavish delight for the senses,” as described by The Village Voice. A Series of Reveals marks the company’s third partnership with Arts Brookfield.

“Zach Morris and Third Rail Projects have an unparalleled talent for drawing audiences into their distinctive world, one enthralling step at a time,” said Debra Simon, Artistic Director of Arts Brookfield. “We’re thrilled to partner with them once again on a journey that will bring whimsy and surprise to the daily lives of everyone passing through the concourse at One New York Plaza.”

Zach Morris and Third Rail Projects acknowledge Caroline Williams and The Fund for The Drifting Encyclopedia for making this project possible. “A Series of Reveals” is also made possible in part by Materials for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Department of Sanitation, The Lucky Star Foundation, and support from individual and institutional donors.

About Third Rail Projects
Third Rail Projects, led by Zach Morris, Tom Pearson, and Jennine Willett, is dedicated to reframing dance and performance and bringing art to the public through an array of media and within a variety of contexts including site-specific performances, dance theater, installation art, video and multi-media projects, and immersive performance environments. Collectively, Third Rail artists have been granted commissions, support, and residencies from presenters, organizations, and foundations including: Arts Brookfield, Danspace Project, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation, Abrons Arts Center, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Dance New Amsterdam, Dance Theater Workshop, Topaz Arts, La Mama ETC, 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center, The American Music Center, The Lucky Star Foundation, and Materials for the Arts, among many others. Third Rail artists have also received numerous awards including two 2008 New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Awards for Vanishing Point, a 2001 New York International Fringe Festival Award for Choreography from the Present Company, and others.

For more information please visit www.thirdrailprojects.com.

Sponsored by Brookfield Office Properties

Kissing the Gunner's Daughter

2011-01-24T16:50:00.010-05:00

All photos by Tom Pearson

Below is a photo slideshow from the installation (Flickr), followed by an excerpt of the film component within the installation:

"If you want to get your weird installation on, time is ticking... we're calling this one out as can't miss." – New York Press

Full project page at: thirdrailprojects.com

Kissing the Gunner's Daughter (2010), by Tom Pearson, is an interactive art installation that features fragments from a ship's interior, a captain's log of its travels, and the true tale of a man from Michigan who traded his home for a replica of the Santa Maria. The work simultaneously conveys the story of "The Santa Marias," a traveling band of Cherokee vaudevillians who find themselves immersed in the burgeoning roadside attraction performance culture of Florida in the Forties.Kissing the Gunner's Daughter was originally presented as part of The Drifting Encyclopedia in the Courtyard Gallery at the World Financial Center by Arts World Financial Center, and then subsequently as a larger installation (or outpost of The Drifitng Encyclopedia) at Dance New Amsterdam (DNA). At DNA, the exhibition was presented in conjunction with performances of Walking In Two, by Tom Pearson and Donna Ahmadi and enjoyed a run from September 9 through November 15, 2010 as the inaugural presentation of DNA’s Heritage Series Contemporary First Nation.

The film above is culled from family reels, specifically located in and around St. Augustine, Florida in the late 1950's and early 1960's. The film was encased underneath sand and oyster shells inside a bench/trunk within the installation. The bench/trunk lid also featured a collage of images from Florida roadside attraction culture. The above excerpt is five minutes of a 20-minute reel.

DNA's presentation of Kissing the Gunner's Daughter was funded, in part, by a grant from New York State Assemblymember Deborah J. Glick through the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation. The creation of Kissing the Gunner's Daughter, as part of The Drifting Encyclopedia, was originally presented by Arts World Financial Center and made possible, in part, by the River To River Festival. Additional support for the work came from Materials for the Arts/New York City Department of Cultural Affairs/Department of Sanitation, The Lucky Star Foundation, and by Third Rail Projects with support from individual and institutional donors.DNA’s Heritage Series Contemporary First Nation was made possible with support from American Express.

Beautiful Dreamer in Hudon, New York

2011-01-24T16:46:00.003-05:00

Beautiful Dreamer is a durational site-specific performance installation that inhabits the Great Hall of the Hudson Opera House. Evoking a dreamlike reflection of turn-of-the-century elegance, referencing the region's ties to whaling and maritime industries, and recalling performances and events that happened in the site in bygone eras, Beautiful Dreamer is an immersive performance that happens all around the audience, and is performed on a fifteen minute loop, without pause, for three hours during Hudson's Winter Walk Festival December 4, 2010.

Directed by Zach Morris and Tom Pearson

Designed, Created, and Performed by:Christopher Cummings, Zach Morris, Marissa Nielsen-Pincus, Tara O'Con, and Tom Pearson

Beautiful Dreamer is made possible, in part, by Kuumba Dance & Drum, Operation Unite, NY, Materials for the Arts/DCA and Department of Sanitation; and was developed during the TOPAZ ARTS Choreography Residency Program made possible, in part, by NYS DanceForce with funding from the New York State Council on the Arts. Additional material was created with support from Abrons Arts Center; and by Third Rail Projects, with support from the Lucky Star Foundation and individual and institutional donors.

The One You Love is Sick

2011-01-24T16:43:00.001-05:00

Trailer of the performance in Hong Kong, April 2010.

The One You Love Is Sick Documentary

2011-01-24T16:39:00.003-05:00

Here's the edited documentary from our work in Hong Kong in April 2010.

"Walking In Two" Opens on Thursday

2010-11-09T16:18:00.009-05:00

Tom Pearson Third Rail Projects

Donna Ahmadi Mantis Dance Theater

"People tend to think traditional when it comes to American Indian art. In “Heritage Series: Contemporary First Nation,” Dance New Amsterdam shakes up this assumption, presenting new work by two choreographers who very much belong to the 21st century. " – Claudia La Rocco, The New York Times

DNA PRESENTS: Heritage Series Contemporary First Nation Walking In Two

From The New Yorker:
"Two choreographers of Cherokee descent team up for an investigation of ethnic identity. Pearson’s “Walking in Two” restages and deconstructs a Wild West show, while his “Ceremony” casts a Japanese-American dancer in a solo that Pearson originally made for himself. Ahmadi’s “Scalp Lock” uses masks and puppetry to untie the metaphor of a warrior hair style. A gallery installation tracks the history of Native American performers and the story of a man who, in 1942, tried to make Columbus’s journey in reverse."

November 11 - 14
Performance Times: Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00pm,

Sunday at 3:00pm

Ticket Prices: $17 general,

$12 DNA members, $14 students/seniors

For tickets CLICK HERE

Plus Kissing the Gunner's Daughter in the DNA Gallery

DNA’s Gallery Hours are 9:00am – 10:00pm

Monday – Sunday

Closes November 15

There is no charge for admission to the exhibit.

Dance New Amsterdam

280 Broadway

New York, NY 10007

Entrance at 53 Chambers Street

212.227.9856

For more information, visit dnadance.org.

DNA’s Heritage Series Contemporary First Nation was made possible with support from American Express.

Walking in Two is presented by Dance New Amsterdam. Additional support for the work came from Materials for the Arts/New York City Department of Cultural Affairs/Department of Sanitation, Chashama (Scalp Lock), and by Third Rail Projects with support from The Lucky Star Foundation and individual and institutional donors.

My Experience at the Steampunk Haunted House

2010-10-28T14:34:00.002-04:00

Photo by Chad Heird, 2010.

It began with a horrified scream.

In front of us, a woman thrashed furiously in a bed, trying to wake up from a nightmare. But instead of opening her eyes, she sank into—and literally through—the middle of the bed. As soon as she disappeared, the bed flipped up vertically and the dreamer walked out of it. And we had to follow her.

Suddenly, I found myself alone, in a different room. Silvery music-box chimes were playing “Beautiful Dreamer” in the darkness around me. There was a small lantern in my hand. I was in a room with a display of dolls’ heads and carnations in a case. As I passed my lantern’s light across the floor, I saw that it was littered with fabric and paper. I felt lost, disoriented. Then people began to float past me—anachronistic ghosts in a trance, whispering, humming, dancing, and struggling with each other. They sped past me as if I weren’t there, but I instinctively backed away, until I heard a close voice in my ear. “Be careful what you covet.” I gasped and turned to see a young Victorian man, who began to hum and lilt away.

I then saw a few others with lanterns like mine and remembered that we could roam freely around the house. I stumbled into the theatre, where zombie-like creatures were crawling over the seats. In the stage was a hole, out of which a bluish-white light pierced upward into the haze of the room. Someone sat above it, slowly operating a pulley that fed a rope into the hole. I crept closer toward it, avoiding the man with a gas mask and bobby’s stick. Looking down inside, I saw the rope disappear into a bright light. Only later, at the end, would I see what was really there. It was the engine of the dream: the three Furies themselves, weaving the dream like the Fates with their thread.

After we emerged from this dream world, I spoke with some fellow audience members. They mentioned the great attention to detail: “I loved the little secrets, like when you go up the stairs and see a little display, when you thought nothing was there.” Another said he liked the fact that the haunt “wasn’t linear; you could just explore it on your own.” And another person said she loved the Steampunk elements: “Artistically it was fabulous!”

What is truly scary? There are unconscious, deep fears we all share, like darkness, being alone, irrationality, and incongruity. These are the things that haunt us in our dreams. The Steampunk Haunted House harnesses the power of these primal elements. It doesn’t just cause fear; it creates it.

Check Out Our Press

2010-10-26T17:43:00.003-04:00

Last weekend's opening of 2010's Steampunk Haunted House generated a great response from audience members and the press.

The Jaded Viewer describes the haunt as a "noir painting come to life" that leaves you with an "odd feeling that you're walking through a nightmare that isn't your own."

NBC New York's video offers a quick peek of some of the "uncomfortable moments and suspense" lurking inside the haunted house, and an interview with co-director Tom Pearson.

The Village Voice says, "This year's Steampunk Haunted House brings together [Victorian] elegance and the chills of a traditional scare house (sans the cop-outs of blood and gore used by most)."

NYC GO! characterizes the event as "the grinding horror of man-made machines meets Victorian science fiction (pre-industrial robots!) in the subterranean catacombs of this early 20th-century building."

Time Out New York says, "What's scarier than a regular haunted house? A mazelike haunted house that's been taken over by demented robots and spiders made of clockworks."

This is the final week of the Steampunk Haunted House, so make sure you don't miss it!

Load In

2010-10-21T23:25:00.005-04:00

Earlier this week, Third Rail Projects took over the Abrons Art Center, unpacking props, designing sets, and building machines for the Steampunk Haunted House. I cannot show too many photos of the installations--only a few details. But in the following images, you can see the dream beginning to take shape.

Starting this weekend, those who dare to enter will experience firsthand the beauty and horror of this mysterious world.

Photos by K.O., 2010.

Rehearsal

2010-10-20T01:24:00.008-04:00

Anticipation: for people who like to be scared, the dread-filled moment before we see the monster offers the biggest thrill. It is when we know that something is lurking around the corner--but we don't know exactly what it is--that our imagination runs wild and our senses sharpen.

At rehearsal last Saturday, a similar sense of anticipation filled the venue as the actors practiced their movements and geared up for opening weekend.

Photos by K.O., 2010

The Three Furies

2010-10-18T13:49:00.004-04:00

The Three Furies torturing Orestes.

You may not know about the Three Furies because these powerful female archetypes are mostly hidden today. But when you face their wrath in the Steampunk Haunted House, a part of you, deep down, will understand. Their anger is ancient.

This powerful triumvirate has appeared, in some form or another, in myths since before the Greeks, who gave them the name Erinyes. This name translates to “the angry ones,” and these demons were greatly feared. Some believed the three were born out of the blood of violence, and thus represented vengeance. Others thought they were the offspring of Nyx (the goddess of Night) and embodied the anger of the dead, restless in the dark.

They were also known as the sisters or counterparts of the Fates, representing the bleakest part of the inevitable future—for example, death and retribution. The Fates’ number was always three: one Fate spun the thread of life onto a spindle at a person’s birth, another measured the thread and decided the life’s events, and the third cut the thread, determining the time and manner of the person’s death. The Fates and the Furies were equally feared, even by the gods. Because they controlled destiny, their power was unmatchable.

In Aeschylus’s Eumenides, Orestes is driven mad by the Furies, who ruthlessly punish him for killing his mother. They haunt him with visions of his mother’s ghost and the scent of her blood. In the Steampunk Haunted House, the Furies take on yet another form. Here, they represent how the unconscious mind haunts the conscious. They are causing the perpetual nightmare that ensnares and torments the audience.

“Man knows not Fate’s approach, but onward fares, till on the scorching fire his foot treads unawares.” (Sophocles, Antigone)

Consider yourself warned.

The Workspace

2010-10-13T00:42:00.009-04:00

There is something about Halloween that inspires creativity. Last week I visited the workspace for the Steampunk Haunted House (pictured), where Third Rail Projects' artists and designers plan their installations. It was like a mad scientist’s laboratory: among the chaos were a table of metal gears, a chair with vertebrae along its back, and piles of fabric carnations on the floor.

In the corner, lighting designer Kryssy Wright was experimenting with light bulbs and color gels. Haunted houses are obviously supposed to be dark, but they need just the right amount of light to give the audience a hint about what’s lurking in the room. But light is like watercolor; if it’s not painstakingly controlled, colors can bleed into each other or light can flood the room. Kryssy has this skill mastered. She turned off the overhead lights in the workspace, and I was astonished to see her two lights—one amber and one blue—create an amazing shade of violet. “To me, that’s the color of a dream,” she said.

I also met scenic designer Chris Cummings, who’s been planning the flow of the venue for this year’s immersive, free format. Because audience members will be wandering through the house uncontrolled, Chris must carefully arrange the space, making sure that the Steampunk Haunted House has an underlying logic to it and that the sets are all blend seamlessly into each other. He also showed me some top-secret mock-ups of a machine he designed for one of the haunted house’s special effects. I can’t describe it in detail, but let me just say that he has created a device that perfectly balances the mechanized science fiction of Steampunk with the ethereal, nightmarish quality of this year’s theme.

These two designers have been working closely with the Mad Scientist himself, creator and director Zach Morris, to make the Steampunk Haunted House a breathtaking spectacle. Zach has been creating much of the environmental design with Chris and has worked with Kryssy to shape the concept for the lighting. Likewise, the designers’ unique visions have shaped and inspired many of the performative elements of the event. This collaboration has created a truly unified, immersive world.

With talented people like these at the helm, this year’s Steampunk Haunted House will definitely live up to the hype. I can’t wait to see how all these disparate materials and talents combine forces.

Photos by K.O., 2010.

Digital Postcard

2010-10-11T12:56:00.008-04:00

Here is this year's beautiful digital postcard, which includes all the basic information on the haunted house. (Click to enlarge.)

To send to others, use the "share" button below or forward the following link: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cUkwt2LBRY8/TLNB51WXrqI/AAAAAAAABOs/xGS77evCRBg/s1600/SPHH+postcard.jpg.

More on Dreams

2010-10-07T19:58:00.007-04:00

"It has been said that the myth is a public dream, dreams are private myths. Unfortunately we give our mythic side scant attention these days. As a result, a great deal escapes us and we no longer understand our own actions. So it remains important and salutary to speak not only of the rational and the easily understood, but also of enigmatic things: the irrational and the ambiguous." -from Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman

My conversations with Zach Morris have inspired me to think about the relationship between dreams (this year’s theme for the Steampunk Haunted House) and art.

Dreams are immersive. We live them. Just like a haunted house, they require us to step into an entirely different world. Dreams have a seemingly irrational but very real sensory element, and, as a window into the unconscious, their imagery gives us a glimpse of a deeper knowledge that we normally don’t have access to.

In everyday waking life, we place great value and trust in rational thought. We make sense of the world by synthesizing "information"--facts that we believe are reliable and steadfast. What we see is usually what is. Rarely do we think about what lies beneath the surface, or the universal truths that carry a wisdom beyond the here and now.

As Freud and other psychiatrists active in the Victorian Age theorized, much dream symbolism is universal. Take nightmares, for example. Why is it that we are all familiar with frightening dreams of falling, of being chased by a killer, and of drowning? These are very basic fears that exist in the unconscious of us all. Like other deep-rooted themes, they fuel the myths that have emerged time and time again across geography and generations--showing up in legends, songs, paintings, and religious texts.

Jung believed that innate psychological archetypes--death, initiation, heroism--were part of the collective consciousness we all share and therefore surface in mythology and dreams. Significantly, he also noted their expression in the Major Arcana (that is, the first 22 cards) of the Tarot deck.

Art speaks the language of dreams. It illuminates these unconscious images and helps us have a deeper understanding of life. In a sense, the artist’s job is to make dreams public by sharing them with an audience, reminding us of our own private myths.

View this year's Steampunk Haunted House trailer below.

Steampunk Haunted House 2010 from Third Rail Projects on Vimeo.

Blank Slate

2010-10-04T00:01:00.008-04:00

As a Halloween enthusiast, I have attended countless haunted houses. So what makes the Steampunk Haunted House special? It is an art installation as much as it is a haunt, combining the beauty of the Steampunk aesthetic with the horror of Halloween imagery. The Steampunk Haunted House employs the use of incongruity and spectacle rather than shock value, eerie elegance rather than gore, dread and discomfort rather than cheap startles. And though these themes were evident in last year’s production, this year the creators will be taking them to new extremes.

Mastermind Zach Morris has described to me the unique vision for 2010: “The theme this year is “Beautiful Dreamer" (from Stephen Foster's classic 19th century ballad). And, true to the subtitle, the house is indeed, designed like one giant beautiful, disturbing, terrifying nightmare—replete with dream logic, surreal images, and startling, stunning incongruities.”

The experience of the Steampunk Haunted House, even last year, was very much like a dream: You wander through scenes that induce the alarming feeling that the reality enveloping you is askew, impossible, and disturbing. Yet the unusual sights you encounter are so intriguing, you want to linger and stare a bit longer. (Indeed, this was the most common request of many Steampunk Haunted House visitors last year.) Therefore, this October, attendees will have a chance to spend more time looking around. They will be guided into the building (which has about 17 rooms total), given a lantern, and allowed to walk anywhere within the three floors of the haunted house, with no set route—freely exploring this fascinating dream world.

Last week I visited the site for the haunted house, Abrons Arts Center (a.k.a. the Henry Street Settlement). The building is a historic theater built in 1915 (on the latter cusp of the Victorian age in the U.S.). Even without Third Rail Project’s set designs in place, the venue has a haunting, antiquated inherent beauty. The rooms within still display some of the fine architectural details of the early 1900s. The stage area also exhibits the modest-but-grand elegance of its time. The many surrounding staircases, hallways, and closets seemed to be longing for the ghastly embellishments that Third Rail Projects will soon bestow upon them. And the basement level, with its exposed pipes running along the ceiling and flaking paint, was frightening even with all the lights on. It’s easy to see how much of the Steampunk Haunted House’s design and planning takes its inspiration from this amazing establishment.

Photos by K.O., 2010

A Note from the Documentarian

2010-09-30T15:32:00.013-04:00

Photo of Last Year's Production (Darla Winn, 2009)

Last year, on October 28th, I found myself warily entering a dark historic theater downtown. Inside, I navigated narrow hallways with work lanterns hanging crookedly overhead. I entered a hazy theater full of ghosts in Victorian attire. I peered into glass cases that had living mannequins trapped inside. I passed an accordion player who seemed to be utterly lost in time. I encountered a huge half-woman/half-spider with beckoning metal legs. This was the eerily beautiful world of the Steampunk Haunted House, created by the talented artists at Third Rail Projects.

Photos by Darla Winn, 2009

2009 was the first year of the Steampunk Haunted House, a disturbingly immersive experience that combined the terrifying with the sublime, living flesh with machines, Halloween with art. This totally unique experience did not go unnoticed by the press. NBC New York called it "visually stunning," and the Village Voice urged people not to miss it. Bloggers (like Devon Petley and La Carmina) also raved about the house, even months after it closed for the season.

This October, the Steampunk Haunted House returns.

This Year's Promotional Photo (Chad Heird, 2010)

My name is K.O., and I have the privilege of documenting the evolution of 2010’s production. Over the next few weeks leading up to the production’s run, I will be offering exclusive behind-the-scenes peeks at the venue, the artwork and costumes, and the themes that inspire the 2010 version of the Steampunk Haunted House. As I discover the dark mysteries of this beautiful world, I will report my findings here. Stay tuned …

Photo by Darla Winn, 2009

The Drifting Encyclopedia Closes in One Week

2010-08-26T14:17:00.029-04:00

"...if you want to get your weird installation on, time is ticking...
we're calling this one out as can't miss." – New York Press

photo by Ryan Benyi

Third Rail Projects
The Drifting Encyclopedia
Presented by Arts World Financial Center and the River To River Festival
Now through September 3
Monday - Friday, 12:00pm - 4:00pm
World Financial Center Courtyard Gallery
220 Vesey Street, NYC
Click here for directions

The Drifting Encyclopedia is an assemblage of American oddities, scientific and historical ephemera, questionable accounts and implausible representations thereof. Part Victorian cabinet of curiosities, part roadside attraction, this immersive art installation houses exhibits that echo the themes of unlikely connections and contemplates the actual, illusory and anomalous nature of love. Created by Zach Morris in collaboration with Elizabeth Carena, Tom Pearson, and Kryssy Wright.

Public Service Announcement from The Drifting Encyclopedia:

More photos by Ryan Benyi:

Above photo:
Artists Zach Morris & Tom Pearson
inside The Drifting Encyclopedia

The Drifting Encyclopedia is presented by Arts World Financial Center and made possible, in part, by the River To River Festival. The Drifting Encyclopedia is also made possible, in part, by Materials for the Arts/New York City Department of Cultural Affairs/Department of Sanitation, The Lucky Star Foundation, and by Third Rail Projects with support from individual and institutional donors.

Photos of U&E Evening Performance

2010-07-29T13:59:00.005-04:00

All images from full-length evening performance of Undercurrents & Exchange by Third Rail Projects at the World Financial Center, presented by Arts World Financial Center and the River To River Festival.

See thirdrailprojects.com for more details.

All photos courtesy of Darial Sneed

What We Do

2010-07-28T19:00:00.010-04:00

posted by Tara O'Con

Photo by Miguel Lopez, courtesy of Arts World Financial Center

After my experience of Undercurrents and Exchange this year, I have deduced the following about we do:

We maintain a steadfast connection to the theatrical conventions we create, while remaining open to the vast possibilities and unknowns that come with site-specific performance

We portray absurd characters that allow us to be most like ourselves.

We can blend into any environment while standing out like a sore thumb.

Brilliant! It is so much fun!

There is an ease with which most of the audience and passers by in the Winter Garden can approach our performances and take us for exactly what we are; performers. I am struck by the huge difference between blending with everyday denizens of the space as we did last year, and this year’s extremely clear boundary of period costumes, antique props, and loud music. It seems that the clarity of said boundaries actually opened up a ton of exciting interaction (note the lovely guerilla ensemble member who quite beautifully and accurately, joined our dance and followed along with almost 10 minutes of choreography) Definitely my new favorite fourth wall demolition to date.

We spend a lot of time as artists questioning boundaries- pushing them, rearranging them, and breaking them altogether. How often in this nebulous hybrid of dance, theater, and performance art do we get to play inside boundaries that already exist? Not much. It is actually quite refreshing.

That’s on the outside.

Inside, there are a whole slew of boundaries that are being blurred, which ideally happen all of the time, but in this case, I feel are heightened by the idiosyncrasies of “characters” we play. Quite simply, those idiosyncrasies are the same. For example, if Tom, Jeninne, Marissa, and myself were to all set out to accomplish the same task, while hurrying to finish it, the carryings on, and joking familial-like interactions would not look dissimilar to our fictional group of traveling vaudevillian performers doing the same thing (see video day # 2 and #6). Just in a more theatrical representation- well, in most cases it is.

-Tara

Read Taraa's previous posts from the last U&E series in 2009:
"On Being Caught in a Daily Routine - A City Within a City"
"Full-Time Artist, Full-Time Job"

Undercurrents & Exchange Day #8 Photos

2010-07-21T15:56:00.006-04:00

All images from Day #8 of Undercurrents & Exchange by Third Rail Projects at the World Financial Center, presented by Arts World Financial Center and the River To River Festival. Continues through July 23rd. See thirdrailprojects.com for more details.

All photos from Day #8 by Miguel Lopez, courtesy of Arts World Financial Center

Week One Videos

2010-07-21T08:42:00.003-04:00

Day #1 Created by Tom Pearson
Music by Kris Bauman

Day #2 Created by Jennine Willett
Music by: Jeff Palmiotti and the Hey Rube

Day #3 Created by Tom Pearson
Music by: Jeff Palmiotti and the Hey Rube

Day #4 Created by Marissa Nielsen-Pincus
Music by: Sharon Van Etten

Day #5 Created by Jennine Willett & Tara O'Con
Music by: Kris Bauman; Mark Denardo

Week One Performers: Marissa Nielsen-Pincus, Tara O'Con, Tom Pearson, Jennine Willett; with Guest Artists: April Biggs, Arianne Gallagher, Taz Loft, Tori Sparks, Carlton C. Ward, Matthew Wagner

"Given the current economy, we imagine that lunchtime down on Wall Street isn’t the entertaining, three martini affair it once was. Enter Zach Morris and Tom Pearson of Third Rail Projects..." – Flavorwire

Undercurrents & Exchange by Third Rail Projects Presented by Arts World Financial Center and the River To River Festival July 12 - 16 & July 19 - 23 12:00-12:10pm & 1:00-1:10pm (repeat) July 23, 7:00-8:00pm Evening-length full performance World Financial Center Winter Garden, NYC

Undercurrents & Exchange: Day #7 Performance Video

2010-07-20T21:07:00.000-04:00

Day #7 Created by Tom Pearson & Tara O'Con with Zach Morris
Music by: Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside
Performed by: Tara O'Con, Tom Pearson

"Given the current economy, we imagine that lunchtime down on Wall Street isn’t the entertaining, three martini affair it once was. Enter Zach Morris and Tom Pearson of Third Rail Projects..." – Flavorwire

Undercurrents & Exchange
by Third Rail Projects
Presented by Arts World Financial Center
and the River To River Festival
July 12 - 16 & July 19 - 23
12:00-12:10pm & 1:00-1:10pm (repeat)

July 23, 7:00-8:00pm Evening-length full performance
World Financial Center Winter Garden, NYC

Undercurrents & Exchange Day #7 Photos

2010-07-20T16:35:00.007-04:00

All images from Day #7 of Undercurrents & Exchange by Third Rail Projects at the World Financial Center, presented by Arts World Financial Center and the River To River Festival. Continues through July 23rd. See thirdrailprojects.com for more details.

All Photos from Day #7 by Miguel Lopez, courtesy of Arts World Financial Center

Undercurrents & Exchange: Day #6 Performance Video

2010-07-19T23:56:00.000-04:00

Day #5 Created by Marissa Nielsen-Pincus

Performed by: Marissa Nielsen-Pincus, Tara O'Con, Tom Pearson, Jennine Willett

Undercurrents & Exchange Day #6 Photos

2010-07-19T23:37:00.000-04:00

All images from Day #6 of Undercurrents & Exchange by Third Rail Projects at the World Financial Center, presented by Arts World Financial Center and the River To River Festival. Continues through July 23rd. See thirdrailprojects.com for more details.

All Photos from Day #6 by Miguel Lopez, courtesy of Arts World Financial Center

Clarifying Our Relationships in the Space and with Audiences

2010-07-19T18:31:00.011-04:00

posted by Marissa Nielsen-Pincus

Photo by Miguel Lopez, courtesy of Arts World Financial Center

Most of the time when creating something, I don’t realize what I’m actually doing until I’m actually doing it. You can do tons of planning, rehearsing, meeting, and talking. All the parts are there, the choreography, the concepts, costumes, and the site . . . but until everything comes together I’m not sure exactly where I am.

So, as usual, I’m surprised with where we’ve ended up. And quite pleased!

When we first began planning for Undercurrents and Exchange this year, I didn’t realize what affect the spectacle we were creating would have. I remember in several early conversations, we worried about needing to fit in more- should some of us wear business attire, should we carry Starbucks cups or come out with shopping bags from the Godiva store or the Banana Republic so that people can relate to us more easily?

Eventually as our world began to more fully form, these ideas were left behind and we opted for simply being conspicuous and otherworldly.

Surprisingly for me, not blending in has made us much more approachable. Not only does our audience feel very comfortable with us coming into their space and doing strange things, but they actually seem to be delighted by it. They talk to us, smile at us and thank us!

The other thing that keeps striking me about this process is how the reality of creating this piece and the fantasy of what it is keep mirroring each other. We are performers performing and the audience is an audience being an audience. Somehow this mirroring is part of what is making us more approachable.

As part of each performance there is a lot of ‘getting ready’. We get dressed, we have to find particular props and costumes, we can’t find things and it’s stressful, we forget what we are doing and direct each other. This is our backstage and rehearsal experience as well. What we do to get ready for the show is the same as what we do in the show. It begins to feel real.

And then we start our ‘performance’, which echoes the fact that in reality we are already performing. ‘Performing’ allows us to acknowledge the audience as an audience, which I think, feels satisfying to them and it enables us to see, interact, and connect to the audience during each show, which is really fun!!

This blurring of reality and fantasy doesn’t feel murky. It actually feels like it clarifies our roles as performers and audience more then ever! It creates a space for us to push the edges that can also feels safe and familiar for the audience.

So as we continue into this second week of spectacle, I feel like we are actually more human, more grounded in our site and more present with the people we are performing for then I expected.

- Marissa

Read Marissa's previous post from the last U&E series in 2009:

First Impressions

Channel 13 Sunday Arts Preview

2010-07-19T14:53:00.032-04:00

Watch the full episode. See more SundayArts.

Check out the last bit of Channel Thirteen's Sunday Arts Preview on the River To River Festival, featuring Undercurrents & Exchange by Third Rail Projects.

Week One, First Impressions

2010-07-18T23:08:00.008-04:00

posted by Jennine Willett

Image courtesy of Arts World Financial Center

Since this is my first time performing in the Winter Garden, I am awed by the majestic atmosphere and vibrancy of the space. At first, it was challenge to adapt to a moving landscape filled with currents of traffic and close, sometimes too close, interaction with the audience. Rehearsing in the space on the weekends, when the space is mostly occupied by tourists and families, offered a chance to gently become comfortable with unexpected exchanges and possible collisions. The energy shifts quite a bit on the weekdays as the element of busy office personnel changes both the vibe and the pace in the garden dramatically.

At times, the audience has been a bit spellbound during the lunch time shows. Overall, I feel pretty welcome in the space. The reactions (or the complete lack thereof) to our performance have been fascinating. We seem to captivate large percentage of the public in the space, yet simultaneously there is a stream of bodies moving past us as if we don’t exist. We have even inspired a few to actually join in- this happened on Friday when 10 dancers performed a locomotive pattern that traversed the aisles between the palms.

I am excited for the second week to start tomorrow and look forward to the full evening show on Friday. It will be a great chance to set up shop, so to speak, in the garden for a full hour.

- Jennine

Undercurrents & Exchange: Day #5 Photos

2010-07-16T22:18:00.000-04:00

All images from Day #5 of Undercurrents & Exchange by Third Rail Projects at the World Financial Center, presented by Arts World Financial Center and the River To River Festival. Continues through July 23rd. See thirdrailprojects.com for more details.

All photos from Day #5 by Miguel Lopez, courtesy of Arts World Financial Center

Undercurrents & Exchange: Day #5 Performance Video

2010-07-16T21:27:00.001-04:00

Day #5 Created by Jennine Willett & Tara O'Con

Music by: Kris Bauman; Mark Denardo

Performed by: Marissa Nielsen-Pincus, Tara O'Con, Tom Pearson, Jennine Willett; with Guest Artists: April Biggs, Arianne Gallagher, Taz Loft, Tori Sparks, Carlton C. Ward, Matthew Wagner

"Given the current economy, we imagine that lunchtime down on Wall Street isn’t the entertaining, three martini affair it once was. Enter Zach Morris and Tom Pearson of Third Rail Projects..." – Flavorwire

Undercurrents & Exchange
by Third Rail Projects
Presented by Arts World Financial Center
and the River To River Festival

July 12 - 16 & July 19 - 23
12:00-12:10pm & 1:00-1:10pm (repeat)

July 23, 7:00-8:00pm Evening-length full performance
World Financial Center Winter Garden, NYC

Undercurrents & Exchange: Day #4 Photos

2010-07-15T22:13:00.001-04:00

All images from Day #4 of Undercurrents & Exchange by Third Rail Projects at the World Financial Center, presented by Arts World Financial Center and the River To River Festival. Continues through July 23rd. See thirdrailprojects.com for more details.

All photos from Day #4 by Miguel Lopez, courtesy of Arts World Financial Center

Undercurrents & Exchange: Day #4 Performance Video

2010-07-15T20:53:00.001-04:00

Day #4 Created by Marissa Nielsen-Pincus
Music by: Sharon Van Etten

Performed by: Marissa Nielsen-Pincus, Tara O'Con, Jennine Willett

"Given the current economy, we imagine that lunchtime down on Wall Street isn’t the entertaining, three martini affair it once was. Enter Zach Morris and Tom Pearson of Third Rail Projects..." – Flavorwire

Undercurrents & Exchange by Third Rail Projects Presented by Arts World Financial Center and the River To River Festival July 12 - 16 & July 19 - 23 12:00-12:10pm & 1:00-1:10pm (repeat) July 23, 7:00-8:00pm Evening-length full performance World Financial Center Winter Garden, NYC

Undercurrents & Exchange: Day #3 Performance Video

2010-07-14T21:36:00.002-04:00

Day #3 Created by Tom Pearson

Music by: Jeff Palmiotti and the Hey Rube

Performed by: Marissa Nielsen-Pincus, Jennine Willett

"Third Rail Projects is at it again, continuing their mission to rescue dance from the twin devils of classical stagnation and academic obscurantism by bringing it to the streets—or in this case, the World Financial Center." - The SoHo Journal

Undercurrents & Exchange
by Third Rail Projects
Presented by Arts World Financial Center
and the River To River Festival

July 12 - 16 & July 19 - 23
12:00-12:10pm & 1:00-1:10pm (repeat)

July 23, 7:00-8:00pm Evening-length full performance
World Financial Center Winter Garden, NYC

Undercurrents & Exchange: Day #3 Photos

2010-07-14T21:00:00.002-04:00

All images from Day #3 of Undercurrents & Exchange by Third Rail Projects at the World Financial Center, presented by Arts World Financial Center and the River To River Festival. Continues through July 23rd. See thirdrailprojects.com for more details.

All photos from Day #3 by Miguel Lopez, courtesy of Arts World Financial Center

We're Open

2010-07-14T09:14:00.010-04:00

posted by Tom Pearson

OK, There's quite a bit of blogging to be done. This project has been a massive undertaking, opening a large-scale gallery exhibition (immersive environment/art installation, a mini-museum in fact) in tandem with daily dance performances, the latter of which runs for two weeks with a new dance each day (performed twice). See show and exhibit info at thirdrailprojects.com. The ephemera from the dances lives within the context of the installation, or better, the installation ephemera finds its way into the dance. It's all very cross-referential, multi-layered, and complex.

The results thus far have been overwhelmingly positive, and I feel like the audiences within the Winter Garden are enchanted. We have their rapt attention in way that feels more focused than last year. Spectacle in public space does that. In fact, with that in mind, and knowing the challenges of the space, we made the costumes this year to also be more overtly site-specific. Early on I had a vision for staircases dresses and palm parasols... basically to wear the winter garden. The brilliant Karen Young and I collaborated to bring these to fruition, locking ourselves in the World Financial Center's Courtyard Gallery of July 4th weekend, and working non-stop since. As you can see from above, they are a bit Bauhaus meets Gone with the Wind, which somehow seems just right! They make their debut in the Winter Garden today at Noon!

And... the videos of the daily dances are coming. Watch out.

Undercurrents & Exchange: Day #2 Performance Video

2010-07-13T22:21:00.004-04:00

Day #2 Created by Jennine Willett

Music by: Jeff Palmiotti and the Hey Rube

Performed by: Marissa Nielsen-Pincus, Tara O'Con, Tom Pearson, Jennine Willett

"Third Rail Projects is at it again, continuing their mission to rescue dance from the twin devils of classical stagnation and academic obscurantism by bringing it to the streets—or in this case, the World Financial Center." - The SoHo Journal

Undercurrents & Exchange
by Third Rail Projects
Presented by Arts World Financial Center
and the River To River Festival

July 12 - 16 & July 19 - 23
12:00-12:10pm & 1:00-1:10pm (repeat)

July 23, 7:00-8:00pm Evening-length full performance
World Financial Center Winter Garden, NYC

Undercurrents & Exchange Day #2 Photos

2010-07-13T22:00:00.001-04:00

All images from Day #2 of Undercurrents & Exchange by Third Rail Projects at the World Financial Center, presented by Arts World Financial Center and the River To River Festival. Continues through July 23rd. See thirdrailprojects.com for more details.

All photos from Day #2 by Miguel Lopez, courtesy of Arts World Financial Center

Undercurrents & Exchange Day #1 Photos

2010-07-12T21:00:00.007-04:00

All images from Day #1 of Undercurrents & Exchange by Third Rail Projects at the World Financial Center, presented by Arts World Financial Center and the River To River Festival. Continues through July 23rd. See thirdrailprojects.com for more details.

All photos from Day #1 by Miguel Lopez, courtesy of Arts World Financial Center

Undercurrents & Exchange: Day #1 Performance Video

2010-07-12T21:00:00.005-04:00

Day #1 Created by Tom Pearson

Music by Kris Bauman

Performed by: Marissa Nielsen-Pincus, Tara O'Con, Tom Pearson

Undercurrents & Exchange and The Drifting Encyclopedia Now Open

2010-07-12T09:41:00.001-04:00

Click the following for more information:

Third Rail Projects

Arts World Financial Center

As part of the River To River Festival, Third Rail Projects returns this summer to the World Financial Center

2010-07-09T11:45:00.013-04:00

New art installation and free daily performances

"Given the current economy, we imagine that lunchtime down on Wall Street isn't the entertaining, three martini affair it once was. Enter Zach Morris and Tom Pearson of Third Rail Projects..." -Flavorwire

Click here for press release.
Click here for more info on the project webpage.

Undercurrents & Exchange

Presented by Arts World Financial Center
and the River To River Festival
July 12 - 16 & July 19 - 23
Daily at 12:00pm-12:10pm
Repeated at 1:00pm-1:10pm

July 23, 7:00pm - 8:00pm:
Evening-length full performance

World Financial Center Winter Garden
220 Vesey Street, NYC
Click here for directions

Undercurrents & Exchange is a rumination on the conundrum of love, infatuation and connection in modern America, manifested in a series of lunch-hour performances. Each day artists present a new dance grappling with improbable relationships and unearthing the hidden, interpersonal undercurrents of our daily routines. These daily dances are episodic and will culminate on July 23 when they are performed together to reveal an underlying web of meaning. Undercurrents & Exchange is created in correspondence with The Drifting Encyclopedia, an art exhibition in the WFC Courtyard Gallery.Created by Tom Pearson & Zach Morris with additional choreography by Jennine Willett, Marissa Nielsen-Pincus, and Tara O'Con. Performed daily by Pearson, Willett, Nielsen-Pincus, O'Con and guest artists.

photo by Chad Heird

The Drifting Encyclopedia

Presented by Arts World Financial Center and the River To River Festival
July 12 - September 3; Monday - Friday, 12:00pm - 4:00pm
World Financial Center Courtyard Gallery, 220 Vesey Street, NYC
Click here for directions

The Drifting Encyclopedia is an assemblage of American oddities, scientific and historical ephemera, questionable accounts and implausible representations thereof. Part Victorian cabinet of curiosities, part roadside attraction, this immersive art installation houses exhibits that echo the themes of unlikely connections and contemplates the actual, illusory and anomalous nature of love. The Drifting Encyclopedia is created in correspondence to Undercurrents & Exchange, a series of performances in the WFC Winter Garden. Created by Zach Morris in collaboration with Elizabeth Carena, Tom Pearson, and Kryssy Wright.

photo by Will Femia

Undercurrents & Exchange and The Drifting Encyclopedia are presented by Arts World Financial Center and made possible, in part, by the River To River Festival, and made possible, in part, by Materials for the Arts/New York City Department of Cultural Affairs/Department of Sanitation, The Lucky Star Foundation, and by Third Rail Projects with support from individual and institutional donors.

Help support Third Rail Artists:
Visit our Website! • Join our Mailing List! • Donate Now!

We're Back at WFC in July!

2010-05-24T12:13:00.003-04:00

More info on Undercurrents & Exchange.
More info on The Drifting Encyclopedia.

Getting Specific

2010-05-05T16:57:00.015-04:00

Tom in the YAF Studio
Photo by Yuen Kin-leung Maru

I'm in a funk... the kind I only get into when I finish something that feels really important. Something about this last project in Hong Kong has left me in post-mortem meltdown. I can't quite put my finger on it, and Zach has done a really good job articulating much of what I also feel in his previous blog entries, but somehow the lyrics from the song we used in the Chapel sequence that keeps playing over and over again in my head seems to capture it best:

I know I tried,

but it's hard sometimes

the roots don't take,

it takes a while

and you pull at the strings

but they're broken, it seems

the dance isn't over for me

How do I put it to bed? Well, that's the rub. This time I don't want to neatly tie up the experience and catalog it among the works I've done. I want to use it to work my way into a broader engagement and deeper undertanding of what I feel I've only scratched the surface of.

It wasn't so much about the dance or the workshops themselves, but about the people and the site, learning to live again in a different context which somehow brought me back to the freshness I felt when I first fell in love--with dance, with another person, with a place--it's seeing what you already know anew, and then seeing something more that you never noticed. I'll try to be more specific. After all, we are all talking about specificity here.

Sometimes the images come so easily. Like the wall of hands and the sliding on the Chapel pews. I saw those in my head as soon as we walked on site with Maria Wong for our first visit prior to the workshops. I filed them away, determined to let them rest until they welded with an idea or opportunity within the workshops themselves... but I knew them already. The hands became a chorus of longing and need through the explorations and interpretations of the participants. The shuffling on the pews became an opportunity for levity in a heavy space, and a chance for each of the performers' idiosynchrasies to reveal snippits of personality within the group, popping out in sequence. I knew they were right. I knew it about the participants too. Sometimes it feels easier than it should, like decisions are making themselves.

Of course, I want more time with this, the process, the participants, the project, Hong Kong. It was rushed. The very nature of the project demanded it be, and it was also exactly what it needed to be, in terms of committment, body sustainability, time, money. But in terms of the emotional involvement, it felt like a tumultous relationship, burn fast and then burn out. I'll be pining away for years on this one. But what was it that made it so crazy?

I think the site had a lot to do with it. The traces of so much longing and caring, healing and dying color the walls with grief and with love. We don't often talk about that in site work, but everything that has ever happened in a site is accessible to the artist, especially those sensitive to it. Bethanie is a monument to human compassion and confusion, and you can't help but absorb the vibrations of everything that occured within the space. But mostly, I think it's about the connection between such a large group of strangers, who came together, and in the words of one of the participants, Derek, became not an organization but an organism. Kerry furthered the metaphor to the site itself saying that it felt like we entered its body through blood vessels and traveled into its heart. I think that's true. We definitely got at something big, but detailed too.

My regret is that we weren't able to be more comprehensive. We focused mostly on composition, in workshops, and then through the lens of the performance we created together. What we didn't cover was the politics, administrative nightmares, and headaches of securing a site, getting permissions, permits, and support--something that was lovingly done for us by the Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation with the generous support of Aedas, and through the loan of the Bethanie site from the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts. And, really, there is no way to thank all of them enough, for creating and supporting this opportunity to work together and also build bridges between global arts communities, profoundly affecting us as individuals, collaborators, investigators...

We didn't talk about documenting the experience either. Though, I believe through the blog, videography component, photographs, etc, we set an example. Hopefully soon, we'll have a really kickin video and documentary to share.

And, we never really got as deep as we would have liked to into movement creation and choreography development through site inspiration. It almost seems as if several sub-workshops would've been necessary. I would certainly have liked to have gone further into exploring fresh vocabualry with the participants and also how developing a vocabulary off-site, can then be attuned and shaped or re-shaped into something that partners with the site. Ah well, next time when we do it for longer... I guess that's it, I felt like we all left wanting more--us, the participants, the audiences, everyone--wanting more from the site, from the time, and from each other. And, I guess that's not a bad thing. It's a powerful place to leave off, and in its not-so-subtle way, implies that there is more to be done. I am looking forward to the continuance of this work with the artists in Hong Kong, and finding ways to bring them to New York--to open a channel between the two cities and the artists who are making this important work, bringing dance and performance interventions into public spaces.

--Tom

Photos by Alz Ng

Parting Thoughts

2010-04-27T13:47:00.021-04:00

Zach looking at a misty, cloudy Hong Kong

I don’t really know what happened to me this week.

I know that I have been intensely affected by a site, a city, and most of all, an extraordinary group of people.

I’m baffled at how—in one short week—I met so many people who will now, unquestionably, be my life-long friends. People whom I didn’t know last Monday morning, but who I’ll now cross the globe again and again in order to spend time with.

Really. I don’t know what happened. I’ve got some guesses, though.

For starters, these people are brilliant. Those who we met through the workshop, as well as other friends who Tom and I met as a result are quite simply extraordinary.

Missing from this photo: Keene, Pat, Rebecca, Gabrielle, Odilia,
and of course, everyone else who made Hong Kong extraordinary for us

I think there was something else at work as well. Through the intensive process of conducting these workshops and building this piece I came to know, understand, and love the people that I met and their city more deeply than I thought possible.

I’ve begun to understand something new about site-work. About the frame of mind that it puts one in. About how, by looking at the world through a different lens, a group of people can understand nuances of our shared environment and each other in a staggeringly fast, utterly profound way.

This visit, I came to understand some aspects of Hong Kong much more clearly. Last time, I barely scratched the surface. Which is no surprise.

Hong Kong reminds me of a beautiful and extraordinarily complicated knot. So many things are entwined and intermingled. The city’s geography is no exception. You can take nine lefts in a row and not go in a circle there.

Seriously.

And the nuances of its social and cultural dynamics are even more complicated. It is a city that is constantly in flux, constantly moving, constantly reinventing itself.

How then did I feel like I began to understand its complexity? How can one begin to comprehend something so vast, mercurial, and ever-shifting?

Perhaps it’s like the difference between standing on the ground trying to see what a cloud is made up of, versus focusing in much, much more closely.

Maybe it was like I was looking at a cloud through a microscope.

Bethanie served as a microcosm for us. Through our explorations and choreography, she became a mirror that reflected back profound insights about each other and ourselves. Our similarities came into sharp focus and our differing individual perceptions became illuminated and explicated.

Slamming against Bethanie’s walls and perching precariously on her balconies, we acknowledged our shared human frailty. Investigating notions of sickness, suffering, and healing we sidestepped cultural, linguistic, and social differences and came face to face with the deepest aspects of the human condition. In discussing the historical and political implications of the site, we gleaned sudden insight into each other’s cultural experience and viewpoints. I felt like we became a team of archeologists, discovering Bethanie’s multiple facets. In doing so, also uncovered our own. We collectively started perceiving the site and each other differently.

I do art because it’s one of the few ways we can address the ineffable. I sometimes like to think of art as some sort of multilayered, multifaceted metaphoric language by which we can attempt to translate and understand the deepest aspects of our experience. What I didn’t realize until this week was how profoundly and quickly that “translation” could occur between collaborators.

So what exactly changed? How did I form such fierce bond to these people and this city?

Was it because I was looking at everything in terms of the cultural/social/physical/cultural topography we talk about? Perhaps. But more likely, it was because this week I’d grown accustomed to really looking at things. Really listening. Something that I certainly neglect to do in the hustle and bustle of my daily life.

Maybe that’s what I’m getting at. Site-work requires you to take down all of your filters. You can’t make assumptions about anything when working on-site. Your preconceived notions about a place, or those that inhabit it will only get in your way. You have to look at everything as if you were seeing for the first time. You have to remove the filter in your head that says “that’s a staircase…you walk up and down it” and instead come to the staircase on its own terms. Utilizing both brain and body to discover what a staircase is, does, feels like, and can be used for.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe this way of working necessitates approaching environments and each other without preconceptions. And we all spent the whole week practicing that.

So, is it possible that making art - making site-work - enabled these understandings, these deep connections to people and place?

What a magnificent thought.

And how staggering are the implications of that thought? For me as an artist? For all of us as global community who clearly, desperately need to forge connections?

My bruises are already starting to fade, but Bethanie has left and indelible mark on me. This experience, and the connection to those who shared it with me will remain with me for the rest of my life.

--Zach

Muriel and the wall of hands
photo by Raven Hanson

Mission Estranges de Paris and McDonald’s- Part II

2010-04-26T13:38:00.004-04:00

Above photo of Maru and Catherine by Alz Ng.

I started off this week wondering about the rituals that brought comfort. I wondered what would make me feel like Hong Kong like “home” again. I also pondered how the missionaries who’d inhabited Bethanie dealt with adapting to a new place.

The answer finally came, not from McDonald’s take out coffee (though I admit it certainly helped), but when I stepped into the studio on the first day of the workshop. I found that, as soon as I started doing what I loved, my feelings of displacement disappeared. For me, perhaps it’s doing what you do that makes a place home.

I was reminded of our last trip here, when I also felt decidedly like a fish out of water the first couple days. Then, once we’d started working I felt more eased into the city’s flow. For me, I think it has to do with the difference between passively relating to a place’s sights and sounds and actively, purposefully throwing yourself into the mix.

This shouldn’t have surprised me. So much of our artistic practice is about creating action-based/task-based structures to create articulate, focused and grounded performance. No surprise then that I feel more at home when I have something that I’m actively invested in doing.

I wonder if Bethanie’s missionaries found themselves in a similar situation, where their practice and their activities helped to ground them in an unfamiliar context.

So now, I’m contemplating the whole idea of "home." Is it where you’re from? Is it where you know people? Is it where you find yourself enmeshed within the fabric of a community?

I’m back in New York now. It’s familiar, but somehow I feel at sea. I’ve been gone for over a month (first in Tucson and then Hong Kong). I’m having to refamiliarize myself with this place. How do Metrocards work? Why is all the money the same color? Which sponge do I use for the dishes, the green one or the blue one?

Then there’s of course the old adage that home is where the heart is. That’s also problematic. Where does my heart live? Certainly here. But also in other places…and I’m feeling like part of it stayed in Hong Kong.

Maru, a new friend and one of the workshop participants told Tom and I about a performance piece he did. It was based on a poem, where the writer gave half of his heart to someone, who consequently threw it away. The writer proceeded to bisect his heart again and again, each time keeping a smaller and smaller part.

I feel like I’ve divided my heart several times in my life. This most recent one still feels a bit raw. But I don’t feel like any of my heart has been thrown away. Nor do I feel like the heart I have remaining is any smaller. If anything, if feels like each of its divided parts have regenerated. Is it possible that I have several hearts? Are they scattered across this country? If so, there’s certainly another one that’s now waiting for me halfway around the world.

--Zach

Process Overview

2010-04-25T12:35:00.009-04:00

Photo by Alz Ng

We have been negligent updating the blog. After morning planning sessions, 8-hour rehearsals, and then evening debriefing/decompressing Tom and I found ourselves with no time to sit down and ruminate on what we were doing. Apologies for that.

Here’s a very abbreviated summary of our activities from this week.

We spent Monday and Tuesday researching and learning about Bethanie’s physical/historical/cultural topography. This included a great visit to the BNP Paribas Museum of Bethanie.

Having some background on the site, we started addressing the physical space. First by doing a site observation to identify the site’s overt (or hidden) architectural facets, and then beginning to explore this architecture. These explorations included guided improvisations, and choreographic exercises focused on identifying ways to repurpose space, physically engage with specific architectural elements, and create movement sequences borne from them.

We played with some general choreographic images including a wall of hands (coming out of carved openings in the banister), an endless processional (taking advantage of Bethanie’s striking corridors), and creating a “Kerry conveyance,” by which we had one of the cast members emerge from a tiny, shuttered offering alcove.

We continued these explorations by creating gesture-based phrases borne from our research and explorations.

We then adapted these phrases to the site…having the entire ensemble do their individual choreography on Bethanie’s front façade.

We continued choreographic explorations by creating active verb-based phrases on certain areas of the site. Duets or trios created movement scores based off of actions/tasks related to healing or sickness: i.e. to comfort, to bandage, to salve, etc.

Groups did rigorous exploration in the chapel area, discovering a number of ways to climb up the walls, creep over pews, and fall off of them again.

We spent Wednesday and Thursday focused on compositional concerns.

We discussed “Unities,” a term Tom and I use to talk about the various ways create focus for the audience. We looked at where and how we’d already employed Unities, and other potential applications.

We also spent quite a bit of time focusing on audience vantage points and creating an intuitive audience flow.

We spent a good deal of Thursday and all of Friday refining, editing, and reworking the chorographic passages in preparation for the performance.

I learned so many things during this process, but there were three aspects in particular that stood out for me.

The first was a purely practical consideration: With Bethanie’s narrow corridors and verandas, how would one ensure that an audience of 40+ can see everything.

The short answer is you can’t.

More precisely, with our short creation period, this was the one challenge that we didn’t completely solve. Our biggest problem was that we had too many people who wanted to see the show. A fantastic problem to have! -- a poverty of riches.

We’d initially hoped to limit the audience to around 30 people per show in order to deal with these sightline issues. We’d also toyed with the idea of putting certain sections on a loop and allowing the audience to roam freely around the performance area. This would have alleviated some of the congestion if we’d had time to experiment with making this intuitive for the audience. However, we were again faced the issue of limited time and Bethanie’s narrow corridors, which could easily have become traffic jams in the making. In the end, we opted for a promenade format, where the audience moved as group from outside of Bethanie, through her corridors, to the chapel, and then out again.

The creation/discovery of this pathway was the second big thing that stood out for me. In every site-work, there’s this moment where you’ve got some solid material, you understand much of the site’s topography, and you’re starting to understand what the site is saying to you and how you’re responding—but you don’t yet understand how it all fits together. You’ve yet to unlock the internal logic of the piece and how it will settle onto the site.

Our early explorations and creations were borne from the site’s topography.That was our first point of entry or organizing principle. We started honing this when we refined the organizing principle to relate to our title "The One You Love is Sick”. But it finally gelled late in the week, when something clicked and the logic, through line, and pathway through the site and the piece became clear.

I think this was articulated beautifully in one of our participant’s written responses to the site. Kerry Liu wrote: “…I feel like I’m a tiny cell going through a body, entering from the blood vessel to the lung and finally I come to the heart of this building.”

This idea of Bethanie as a body or vessel that we were progressing through became the final idea around which we structured the piece:

The whole ensemble started outside, struggling in our individual phrases against Bethanie’s hard, rough façade. We came together to watch Kerry toiling to make her way down Bethanie’s front steps, and eventually be lifted and cradled by Lawrence who carried her inside, the front doors swinging open as they approached. We made our way as a procession into the central corridor, each having moments of collapse then being aided back to our feet. The group shattered then, having duets, trios, and solos that progressed through the building, each grappling with ideas of sickness, suffering, giving comfort and healing. We made our way to the chapel – truly the heart of the building – where the group playfully slid and tumbled along the pews. We reconvened to create a gestural choir of sorts. Beside us was a tiny, shuttered window that opened from the semi-circular room behind the chapel. From this window, Kerry emerged, was gently lifted and set on her feet (some saw this as an image of healing and rejuvenation). She led us out to the building’s side facade and the piece’s final image. Outside of Bethanie, Muriel found herself faced with a veritable wall of hands, which she washed and tended to, and who in turn lent her support and comfort.

This idea of passing through Bethanie on a journey from sickness to healing and eventual release had exactly the right feel.

The final thing that stuck out for me was on Thursday night, when Tom and I began to put ourselves in the piece. Up until that point we’d been working in a primarily directorial capacity. We hadn’t developed any choreography to do.

Instead of having us just make something up; our collaborators each gave us a gesture from their own material, from which we created a movement phrase. I loved being "gifted” movement and then having my collaborators make choreographic choices about how to adapt it to the areas where I danced.

Though Tom and I stuck ourselves into the piece at the last minute, we found ourselves organically integrated into the work. This was only possible because the material we were performing had come from our collaborators' own investigations, and the choreography that they set on us had come from their own week’s worth of experience molding movement to Bethanie’s architecture.

--Zach

Participant Responses to the Site

2010-04-23T15:10:00.012-04:00

We asked each participant to write a short paragraph response to the site on Day Two after we had a chance to do a site-work overview as well as observation and exploration. Below are highlights from the collective responses, and below that, the full text from each participant. We have not edited the responses in any way, only typed them out for inclusion on the blog. Enjoy!

--Tom

Excerpts:

"Bethanie, there might be many stories in it" -- Maru

"I feel like I’m in a tiny cell going through a body,entering from the blood vessel to the lung and finally I come to the heart of this building." -- Kerry

"Knowing that it was used as a sanitorium, these characters do feel very much like the atmosphere of a nursing home or hospital. Also, after studying the inhabitants that were once here, I felt so much more in touch with them in their absence – than I did with the present inhabitants in their presence. " -- Derek

"The Bethanie is not soft, nor friendly, but it’s holy and demands respect." -- Lawrence

"Standing outside overlooking the South China Sea, my mind just wonders into the lives of these missionaries and the recovery process, what could have gone through their minds, their longing for home." -- Tommy

"The Bethanie site gives me a strong sense of frustration." -- Kayuen

"It made to think about a human. How to living and how human fight for their life." -- Odilia

"There is this smell when I first entered the main entrance of the building, a smell that many historical spaces own." -- Catherine

"It is the oldest western building I saw in Hong Kong... The pattern on the ground, the glass on the wall, the doors and the stairs… most of the things in Bethanie are symmetrical." -- Alz

"Enveloped in greenery, the sea view and the gentle breeze, I can feel its regenerative power." -- Gabrielle

"I experienced a sense of sinking deeper within myself, and only once I stepped into the chapel did I feel like I ever walked into a settled space and felt like I arrived." -- Muriel

'Her body, the wall of Bethanie, surprised me the most. It is not smooth at all, in fact, it is rough. It seems like she is trying to protect something or against something. The repeating patterns in Bethanie shows her patience or maybe she tries to remind us something." -- Rebecca

"I love the hardness of the site, the way it challenges us physically, emotionally, spiritually… so much inspiration, and that’s just in the density of the rock." -- Patricia

Other Full Responses to Site

Derek: Upon arriving to the Bethanie site – the surrounding nature and uplifted elevation is very warm and refreshing. The architecture and colors are very pretty and soothing to the eye. But, once walking through and around the premises, it has the opposite feeling. One of coldness, hallowness, coarsness, and hard. It’s very picturesque, but once you personally experience (walk, touch, sit, etc.) in the environment it has a very unsoothing vibe. Knowing that it was used as a sanitorium, these characters do feel very much like the atmosphere of a nursing home or hospital. Also, after studying the inhabitants that were once here, I felt so much more in touch with them in their absence – than I did with the present inhabitants in their presence.

Charles:

Peace.

in a great one piece

Where illness are healed, and where the sicks believe.
Tranquility.

from which comes creativity.

When my senses make, and where my body shakes.

Kerry:
Clean but bloody.I feel like I’m in a tiny cell going through a body,entering from the blood vessel to the lung and finally I come to the heart of this building.

Tommy: Bethanie to me is a very peaceful place, and where my friend got married. I didn’t know that it had such a great history of pain. The history of this sanitorium reflected to me on how determine people can be, the hard work they put in to help others. Standing outside overlooking the South China Sea, my mind just wonders into the lives of these missionaries and the recovery process, what could have gone through their minds, their longing for home.

Kayuen: The Bethanie site gives me a strong sense of frustration. One hundred years ago, the site was a spiritual place for religious purpose. But now, it is preserved as a Heritage something which can be accessed by tourists; and it is rent for the Academy of Performing Arts of Hong Kong for educational use. It seems spirituality is no longer there.

Gabrielle: I had never visited Bethanie before joining this workshop. The first impression that Bethanie gave me was that it is gorgeous and the neo-Gothic style building looks like it doesn’t belong on Hong Kong Island. Reviewing its history, it is easy to understand the geographical choice for this sanitorium. Enveloped in greenery, the sea view and the gentle breeze, I can feel its regenerative power. It’s so peaceful esp in the Chapel. But I can still feel a bit of tension from the rough walls. And there are so many symmetrical structures along with multiple frames. Everything is in order. With its history and architecture, I think it’s really a nice place for a site-specific performance.

Maru: Bethanie, there might be many stories in it. The white colour makes me feel peaceful. It’s like a hospital. But the most interesting is the mixed new and old things. I can dream that I am traveling in a time tunnel. I can go to the past. I can go to the future. And I most like the “box” before entering the Chapel. There, one two ground lights from the floor in front of the sides of the inner doors. If doors closed and just these two lights on, it can be a magic room that people inside can think about their life. The past and the future.

Lawrence: Strong – balanced, dominating. The space has power beyond its esthetic . The hallways are vessels of containment, you can feel surrounded and enclosed, watched by both the modern cameras and visitors that reside through resonating spirit. The depth is shallow, with a commitment to its shape. The Bethanie is not soft, nor friendly, but it’s holy and demands respect.

Alz: I know Bethanie because there is a model in HKAPA. The first time I saw it, I feel disconsolate. It look like a castle. It is the oldest western building I saw in Hong Kong. It is old but you can also say it is modern. HKAPA restored in 2003.
When I be there in Pokfulam, I really enjoy the natural light from its high, colorful glass and the view towards the Peak and outly islands. It’s very peaceful.
The pattern on the ground, the glass on the wall, the doors and the stairs… most of the things in Bethanie are symmetrical.
I enjoy to be dancing there. It is very artistic.

Muriel: A pitched roof, Flying buttresses and pointed arches proudly defend Bethanie on the outside. While on the inside: corridors lined with small rooms focus and lead to the chapel: the space with the tallest ceiling, high ribbed vaults, stained glass tableaux and the most light. The repetition of arches lining the verandah aid in creating a sense of balance, strength, security and safety. I loved noticing that the strong lines and security of the architecture is represented by stone or marble and the doors are of flexible, softer material: wood and light. Passing the arches, the beams of light and going through doors over and over again placed my mind in an active meditative space, I experienced a sense of sinking deeper within myself, and only once I stepped into the chapel did I feel like I ever walked into a settled space and felt like I arrived.

Keene: Bethanie have a over 100 years history. It experiences that the World War. The world financial problem. SAR, etc. It still here and also witness of Hong Kong everything. Bethanie grow up with Hong Kong and who love in there (HK). The building are full of Culture and Art feature. There architecture are full of it’s build feature. When I stay in the chapel I feel so sanctity and peaceful. And also means “Dead” and “Alive.”

Odilia: Is there have any ghost story? Full of secret here? Many people die in Bethanie?All these questions are around of human dying! First, I came there for my audition. I came to the theater room which are on the 2/F. It had a beautiful view to the harbor, and the glass housetop, a lovely sky view! And this is my second time to visit Bethanie, to know about the history there. It made to think about a human. How to living and how human fight for their life. The sunshine come into the Chapel, made me feel peaceful, all the love and sad here.

Rebecca: The first day I visited Bethanie, she was so calm. So peaceful and graceful. Bethanie was so silence, esp inside the chapel. I can hear the sound we made bouncing back from the wall. Her body, the wall of Bethanie, surprised me the most. It is not smooth at all, in fact, it is rough. It seems like she is trying to protect something or against something. The repeating patterns in Bethanie shows her patience or maybe she tries to remind us something.

Patricia: Bethanie is a hard site.

If you’d asked me yesterday I would have expanded on the rich history of the site – a kaleidoscopic layering of faith with healing, sanctuary with hospice, passion with restraint – and the haunting juxtaposition of its role today as a school of film & television – a surreal medium that allows for reality to be mirrored, captured, imposed, superimposed, created, edited, cropped, rewound, sped up.

I would have mentioned the symmetrical architecture with interesting potential for framing; the high ceilings that seem to highlight that separation of Earth and heaven, challenging me as a performer to try and cross that boundary, fill that space. The daily transformation the site goes under as the lighting changes with the journey of the sun and then the change into evening. And for me, I always find some of the most motivating aspects of a site are the different textures of the structures and how they look, feel and emote.

But after the fun exploration and developments yesterday, the only thing that strikes me about the site is that it is literally hard. An inventory of the bruises that colour my body, the marks they leave are inspiration in upon themselves. I love the hardness of the site, the way it challenges us physically, emotionally, spiritually… so much inspiration, and that’s just in the density of the rock.

Catherine: I’ve never been to Bethanie before until this Monday. I’ve always thought, from the pictures of the church, that it is a grandeur church situated in a piece of large greenery. It turned out to be a cozy, warm and welcoming little church housed in an elevated land, yet kept its privacy created by the plants surrounding it; a perfect space for a sanatorium in the past, and an educational space at present. It¡¦s like going to a resort every day, out from the city’s hustle life and dancing in such lovely space. There is this smell when I first entered the main entrance of the building, a smell that many historical spaces own. And the wall, the doors at the side, the patterns of tiles and the high ceiling all reminded me of my high school, which made the experience even more welcoming.

Evelyn:

welcome, says bethanie,
who sent forth its aura to embrace the lone visitor,
treading on its grounds for the first time,
ushering her way
through hollow hallways, hallowed halls.
nolstagia is written
in the air
she stood,
entranced, enthralled, captivated, spellbound,
held—
beyond words, beyond sounds, beyond thoughts way beyond bounds,
as if time has shifted through the embodied space,
life has inscribed itself through the walls that echo
their stories, untold stories.
but yet she is wary…
of the ghosts in the hallways
who peek at her, an intruder
into this sacred, holy place.
101 years, 101 deaths,
101 souls and ghouls, with long white beards,
creases in their foreheads, wrinkled eyelids that hid their glassy blue eyes,
in robes wrapped around their ailing bodies,
crucifixes around their necks.
101 years, 101 deaths,
101 souls who guarded this stone mansion
till their day of rest.
they stare,
down,
God-like,
shaking their baldy heads,
at the intruder, the traitor,
the blasphemer,
who has forgotten,
God’s face and His caring hand.

Photos from Day Three

2010-04-21T23:29:00.015-04:00

Below are some visuals from our experimentations and rehearsal on site at Bethanie yesterday (Wednesday). We continued to talk about methods for composing site-specific work, with a focus on unities.

As of today, we are nearly finished with the material and composition of the piece, and our task now is to link those all together, figure out audience flow, costume design, lights and other technical components.

More to come, but in the meantime, we'd als

o like to share a link to another blog series by one of the project participants, Evelyn Wan:

http://lublub.xanga.com

Warm-up

Discussion

Experimenting On Site & in the Studio

2010-04-20T22:31:00.011-04:00

Participants working in the YAF Studio

Over the past two days, we have been on site and in the studio with the Aedas My Footsteps participants. It's been fast and furious. We are already about halfway done with the work we are creating together. For the first part of day one, we had several discussions about the nature of site work and the particular site for this project. We gave a short overview of our research into the history and features of the space, and together, all took a tour of the BNP Paribas museum of Bethanie at the location in Pok Fu Lam.

Then, we began our site observation and initial site explorations. Afterwards, we returned to the studio to further explore movement motifs and gestures that were informed by the site, and worked through methods of translating those ideas into short, repeatable movement sequences which we also tweaked compositionally to discover various ways of putting them together.

Yesterday was day two of the process, and we started as a group in the front of Bethanie, working our individual phrases into a group sequence and fitting that to the front veranda and facade. You can see our early experiments in the video below.

Afterwards, we split up into groups on site in order to maximize our time, experimenting with the various architectural and compositional possibilities throughout the verandas, hallways and in the chapel. We finished the day again back at the YAF studio where we worked with several groups of participants to deepen the movement we'd created on site earlier in the day. Whew!

-Tom

Floral Arrangements

2010-04-18T11:32:00.018-04:00

Bauhinia 'Blakeana' at Aberdeen

I've been thinking about flowers...

Maria Wong, (Performing Arts Manager for the Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation) had sent a series of photographs of the site while we were still back in New York City. The very first one had a series of red bougainvillea flowers, strewn across a bricked path by a stone wall. The contrast was striking, and it also jogged sensory memories from our previous visit to Hong Kong in 2007. I remember being amazed at how much of the vegetation was similar to my hometown in Florida: bougainvillea, sansevieria, caladiums, and other tropical and semi-tropicals. When I was here last it helped me connect to a city that seemed so different at first. This time around, I felt that I wanted to include this in some way.

I arrived before Zach last week, and upon my first full day in Hong Kong, I wandered through Hong Kong Park, botanizing as I do. I saw plants I knew, but I also started to see beyond the similarities into the differences, and the plant life that was unfamiliar to me.

I happened upon the Bauhinia blakeana or Hong Kong Orchid Tree, the floral emblem of Hong Kong, and I found myself looking at a flower both familiar and completely alien. Only upon revisiting my research later that night, did I make the connection. This plant, whose image appears on Hong Kong's coat of arms, flag and coins, was discovered near Pok Fu Lam around 1880… by the botanizing French Missionaries of Bethanie!

Only one tree was ever discovered, above the shore line in Western Hong Kong near Pok Fu Lam. The tree itself is sterile and can only be propagated by asexual methods, and the thousands that now populate the island were made mostly through air-layering from this original specimen. Its Chinese name 洋紫荊 is frequently shortened to 紫荊 , dropping the first character 洋 which means “foreign” and is often construed as a negative. Ahem! So much to work with here!

So, naturally when I told Zach about this, he also became excited about the symbolic possibilities in using a flower who’s genesis and identity is so entwined with the French fathers and with Hong Kong itself, not to mention what it speaks to in terms of indigenous, foreign, and hybridity issues.

How will we use it? Well, that requires a bit more research, but we have a few thoughts. Certainly with reverence. Stay tuned…

- Tom

Further Botanical Information:

Bauhinia × blakeana (Chinese: 洋紫荊) is an evergreen tree, in the genus Bauhinia, with large thick leaves and striking purplish red flowers. The fragrant, orchid-like flowers are usually 10-15 cm across, and bloom from early November to the end of March. It is referred to as bauhinia in non-scientific literature though this is the name of the genus. It is sometimes called Hong Kong orchid tree (香港蘭).

The Bauhinia double-lobed leaf is similar in shape to a heart, or a butterfly. A typical leaf is 7-10 cm long and 10-13 cm broad, with a deep cleft dividing the apex. Local people call the leaf "clever leaf" (聰明葉), and regard it as a symbol of cleverness. Some people use the leaves to make bookmarks in the hope that the bookmarks will bring them good luck in their studies.

It is sterile (does not produce seed), and is a hybrid between Bauhinia variegata and Bauhinia purpurea.^[1]^[2] Propagation is by cuttings and air-layering, and the tree prefers a sheltered sunny position with good soil. As it is only known in cultivation, it can also be named as a cultivar: Bauhinia 'Blakeana'.^[1]

Balancing Acts

2010-04-18T10:33:00.011-04:00

Zach Walking the Dragon's Back

My main thought for the past 24 hours has been how glad I am that we decided to come to Hong Kong a week ahead of starting the Aedas My Footsteps project here. Of course, we’ve already been working, thinking, and planning, but it’s nice to have time to slowly acclimate and find the ways in which to immerse ourselves and also gain respite from that immersion. Balance. Good to know where you are before you start throwing yourself off walls and dancing through corridors and catacombs somewhere up a mountain in Pok Fu Lam!

Today was a bit about that. Zach and I took a hike on the Dragon’s Back along the South China Sea (on the east side of the island) and down into the village of Shek-O. It was a trip I’d made last time we were in Hong Kong, and there was the comfort of the familiar in it, the excitement of sharing it with Zach, and the relief of getting away from the bustle up in the North. Hong Kong is magical to me in that way, that you can be in one of the most relentlessly vertical and densely populated places on Earth one minute, and several minutes later, alone in the jungle. Zach is surprised that I don’t feel claustrophobic here. I do in New York sometimes, but Hong Kong is 40% green space. I think knowing how easily you can escape is the reason I find it livable.

Sand Sculpture on Shek-O Beach

After arriving in Shek-O, and touring the tiny beach, we settled into a village restaurant we’d discovered in 2007 and shifted back into business mode. Tomorrow, the workshops begin.

We are balancing two agendas for this project: an educational series designed to share our methods for creating site-specific performance with a group of professional participants, and the creation of a new work for the Bethanie in Pok Fu Lam which will feature all of us.

Zach and I have been tossing around ideas and impressions for the last several days. A usual, our separate perspectives and interests cover a pretty wide range, so our agenda thus far has been to hone in on those that overlap or meet in informative ways. Zach is churning away on the historical links with the French missionaries, the Jesus/Lazarus connection, and the sanatorium while I’ve been turning over movement motifs that pull from impressions I got on our site visit this past week [See Zach's previous entry, "McDonald’s and the Missions Etrangeres de Paris PART 1"].

When we toured the Bethanie site on Thursday, I let myself free-flow with image and movement fantasies while walking through. Having developed a site-specific checklist with Zach over the years, I am quick to cycle through all of my assessment items. What can go there? How can that support weight? What is the purpose of this? And, how can it be re-purposed? What is hidden? How do I expose it? What will unify this vast space? And, how can I force a different perspective for my audience here? All of my historical, social, and contextual research steps aside as I let my eyes, ears, nose, and fingers take over.

The Chapel at Bethanie

I imagined a group sequence within the chapel, shuffling in and out of the aisles and gliding inverted among the pews, forcing audience perspectives from the doorway to the altar. Along the verandas and down the steps, I see opportunities for intimate, almost “overheard” moments: a solo on the front steps, multiple reveals around the corners and through the long hallways, turns in and out of small frames within the architecture (almost like portholes) and images of suspension in the “cathedral” spaces between features. I hear echoes. I smell rain. Most things feel cold. The pews are remarkably warm in contrast to the stone. There is a little something sweet in the air that you can almost taste. So, we weigh it all together and strike a balance, between images and senses, history and architecture, our imagination and the site’s reality, our assumptions and those of the participants, who we meet tomorrow.

- Tom