Core Work 11/15/19: You are the expert of a secret of this place

Core Work 11.15.19: You are the expert of a secret of this place

WHO: C. Bain, Emily Hartford, Rachael Hip-Flores, Kitty Lindsay, Corinna Schulenburg, Isaiah Tanenbaum, and Salma Zohdi

WHAT: pages from Pack by Corinna Schulenburg; a story circle for Revolution/Train by Salma Zohdi; a site-specific devising activity from Emily Hartford

HOW: We began by reading WOLF scenes from my play Pack. It’s a role written for C Bain, and he was just as sexy-scary and moving-funny as I’d hoped he would be. 

Then Emily led us through a devising activity based on a site-specific workshop she’d learned from site-specific workshop from Terry O’Donovan of the UK-based Dante or Die, here in NYC for the BAM Next Wave Festival. First, we moved in the space to music, just paying attention to what caught our attention. She then prompted us to become an expert of a single secret we’d discovered about the place. We then became tour guides, sharing the secrets of place we’d discovered.

Finally, Salma led us in a story circle around her Revolution/Train project. She gave us four prompts based on a revolution we’d experienced in our own lives, based on four quadrants of reality/memory/hope:

• How do you remember the beginning? 
• The reality of the beginning? 
• Where you thought you’d be now?
• Where you actually are now?

After each person shared their story, we lifted up phrases, ideas, and words that were significant to us, writing them down on postcards and placing them in the center of our story circle. This is a story fragment process that Flux has used in the past.

We closed with our collective note-taking…

FAVORITE MEMORIES:

ISAIAH: the joy of hearing a part (WOLF) written with someone in mind and then hearing them read it (C)

C: It’s just really moving to be in a space where people are working this way together; I don’t take it for granted.

SALMA: I’m emotionally inspired to be in this room right now. I’m looking forward to more raw, honest, and authentic spaces so we can chip away at things.

EMILY: I’m so happy to see Corinna and Salma making a plan together and then seeing it start to come to life; I hope more projects will also become their full beautiful selves.

EMILY: Thank you Kitty for bringing us under the table; thank you C for the renewal of dust, thank you Isaiah for the non-renewable resource of batteries, and Corinna, for the beauty of light.

KITTY: I feel grateful to have been a part of this evening; it’s refreshing to be in a group of people who are just so open and giving. It’s been in a long time where I was in a room and could just play,and everyone wanted to play, too. 

RACHAEL: I loved the trust and joy that’s involved in sharing vulnerable stuff. I’m also glad to see Salma’s project is moving along!

CORINNA: I’m seconding the joy of C reading Wolf in Pack. Isaiah, I was weirdly moved that your narrative of the three batteries had these layers, that your story was, without knowing, influenced by how C had already impacted it.  I’m very interested in the relationship of revolution on a personal and political level. I was also so appreciative of the spirit of witness in the space.