The final piece of this collaboration is a more recognizably formal performance within Liz Miller’s installation; with rigorous movement, both improvisational and set; expansive spoken language and singing; and an integral sound score performed live by Brute Heart.
Emerging from a densely layered collaboration between performers, audience, material, and sound, In Which is an expansive rumination on the ways we embody polarity, mystery, mortality, discovery, and change. Eschewing a unifying conceptual framework, it will instead weave layers of narrative, content and form to create poetic frictions and synchronicities. “In Which…” encompasses a range of performance modes-from loose improvisational scores to formal movement sequences and strict melodic songs; from casual audience interaction to direct address.
**Photo documentation by Joe and Jen Photography**
More on the PERFORMANCE THEMES
In Which circles around the possibility that the current generation, as the first to come of age in the era of climate change, has a collective, unconscious anxiety stemming from the immense idea that the world may, in the foreseeable future, be uninhabitable for humans. In Which asks us to acknowledge that we live in a world of uncertainty.
+ The idea that our generation, as the first to come of age in the era of climate change, has a specific, collective, unconscious anxiety associated with the immense idea that the world may, in the foreseeable future, be uninhabitable for humans.
+ The specific and unique–yet, when viewed from afar, utterly mundane–cataclysmic events of our own lives; the deaths and births, moments of prejudice, disintegration of relationships.
+ The wonder of the unknown, especially in the scientific community. We are drawn to scientific discoveries that are continually updating what we know about the natural world, from the recent discovery of a new knee ligament, to a new class of mathematical shape, to the, until very recently, unknown mating spot of the blue whale, the largest mammal on earth. We are curious about how these discoveries not only provide us with new information, but how they continually require us to acknowledge that we live in a world of uncertainty and unknown, and how living within this space can open us up to change.
ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE ARTISTS:
SUPERGROUP (Jeffrey Wells, Sam Johnson, Erin Search-Wells)
Performance collective SuperGroup is the performance ensemble of Sam Johnson, Jeffrey Wells, and Erin Search-Wells along with many guest artists and collaborators. SuperGroup was founded in 2008 and since then has created over thirty original performative experiences in Minnesota and nationally. As a collective SuperGroup is invested in the intersections of multiple modes of performance and strives to create contemporary work within a framework that values transparency, kindness, flexibility, and sustainability. More info at www.supergroupshow.biz
RACHEL JENDRZEJEWSKI
Playwright Rachel Jendrzejewski is a writer and performance maker who moved to Minneapolis in 2011 as a Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellow. She is interested in how expansive approaches to language, in full collaboration with the other elements of performance, can exercise the collective imagination and open up new ways of thinking, experiencing, and being in community. Her work has been produced across the U.S. and internationally, locally including Walker Art Center, American Swedish Institute, In the Heart of the Beast, and Red Eye Theater. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from Brown University. www.rachelka.com
BRUTE HEART (Crystal Brinkman, Jackie Becky, Crystal Myslajek)
Brute Heart is Jackie Beckey (viola, vocals, keyboards), Crystal Brinkman (drums, vocals), and Crystal Myslajek (bass guitar, vocals, keyboards). Since 2007 this group has crafted a signature style of dark, driving, art-rock music employing distortion, echo, and looping. In 2012, Brute Heart was awarded City Pages Best Female Vocalist and commissioned by the Walker Art Center to compose and perform a score for the silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Together, the trio has toured nationally, released recordings on four indie-record labels, and performed and recorded improvisational pieces for The Soap Factory’s 2013 MN Biennial. www.bruteheartband.bandcamp.com
COLLABORATING PERFORMERS: Angharad Davies, Hannah Kramer, Stephanie Stoumbelis.
Hannah Kramer is a dancer, performer, teacher and art-maker. For the past ten years, she has performed locally and toured with numerous Minneapolis-based choreographers, including SuperGroup, Morgan Thorson, Karen Sherman, Chris Schlichting, Justin Jones, and Emily Johnson, among others. She also hits the stage as a benefit auctioneer, compelling audiences in the Twin Cities and beyond to give in support of organizations doing meaningful work in their communities.
Angharad Davies has performed with numerous companies, including Ivy Baldwin Dance (NYC), Gibney Dance (NYC), Hanna Hegenscheidt (Berlin), Mariano Pensotti (Buenos Aires), and here in MPLS with Megan Mayer, SuperGroup, and Chris Yon. Her choreographic work has been presented at Danspace Project (NYC); Radialsystem (Berlin); Red Eye Theater, Mixed Blood & Walker Art Center (MPLS); and ODC (SF), among other venues. Upcoming projects include a new dance piece for Momentum: New Dance Works at the Southern Theater in July 2015. She is a lecturer at the University of Minnesota and on faculty at Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists. For more info: angharaddavies.net.
Stephanie Stoumbelis grew up in Massachusetts. She came to Minnesota in 2006 to attend Macalester College where she began performing in dance. Since graduating, she has had the privilege of working with Mad King Thomas, Megan Mayer, and Angharad Davies. As a drag performer, she incites gender mayhem under the aliases Bruce Sprungsteen and Brattny Spurrs. Stephanie can’t imagine her life without this project and is so thankful for the family she gained. She would like to thank Supergroup for seeing her and seeing her through the last two years with an abundance of grace and love.
ALSO FEATURING:
Lighting Designer Heidi Eckwall frequently collaborates with choreographers Emily Johnson, the BodyCartography Project and Hijack. She has toured nationally and internationally as a lighting supervisor with Urban Bush Women, Compagnie Jant-Bi and Margaret Jenkins. Recent dance credits include SHORE, Niicugni and Thank-You Bar for Emily Johnson, redundant ready reading radish Red Eye for Hijack and Soft Fences for Megan Meyer. Theater credits include Rehearsing Failure for Theatre Novi Most, Ex for Charles Campbell/Skewed Visions and Healing Wars for Liz Lerman. Previous designs for SuperGroup include The Tent Has Been Pulled Down.
Process Correspondent Hannah Geil-Neufeld is an interdisciplinary artist interested in how absurd it is to be a human being in the world. Her art making practice is centered around wandering, noticing small things, and appreciating delays, annoyances, and failures. She has performed at Macalester College, Mixed Blood Theatre, In The Heart of the Beast Theater, The Walker Art Center, Red Eye Theater, and in Chicago at Links Hall and The Chicago Cultural Center with Every House Has a Door.
Sound Engineer Kevin Springer is a theater sound designer and technician born and raised in Litchfield, Minnesota. Now based in Minneapolis, he is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Theater Design and Technology at the University of Minnesota. Upcoming projects include Blue Stockings in the Dowling Studio for the University of Minnesota, shows with PlaceBase Productions in both Bloomington and New London, and an artist residency in Fergus Falls.
Sound and Light Technician Eric Larson is a junior at the University of Minnesota studying theatre and cultural studies. He’s created, written, directed, and designed for original performance works at the U, Patrick’s Cabaret, and elsewhere. Eric organizes Download-Activities for the Chicken Soul, a quarterly series of audio-based, participant-enacted performance featuring work by Twin Cities artists. facebook.com/downloadactivities