SPIRITUAL THINGS
Spiritual Things presents guided visualization as performance. Loosely inspired by Shaker religious visualization practices, the show takes the audience through an ornate inner landscape, guided by three witchy speakers and a mysterious presence. These guides enact a kind of initiation ritual that asks the audience to rethink the way they relate to material objects-- especially gloves—in order to access the nonmaterial. The show runs about an hour.
[Or think of it this way: what if the Shakers were a no wave band, and they showed up at your local gallery armed with microphones and ASMR voices and a bunch of gloves and scissors in order to show you how to transcend the material plane.
What's on the marble plinth? Do you know? You must decide.
A performance of interactive listening.]
Developed as a part of the 2014-2015 New Georges JAM. written by Normandy Sherwood, Directed by Lisa Szolovits
MENDING
I know what you're thinking:
Why did I come here -- What is this place --
It's like a self-help seminar -- or a guided meditation.
Or a middle school art class.
But with music.
Why do we need all this stuff?
I’m sorry it’s such a vague question, but, you see, some Satanists confiscated my notebook, the notebook that had all the details in it.
By stuff I mean things: pencils, erasers, phone cords, wall clocks, pinecones, driveway, threshing machine, silo, catfish, telephone pole, sunset…. Pinecones... Catfish... We are enacting a ritual to mend and recover, to heal our bad relationship with things. We’re reconstructing it from memory. We want to learn how to respect a spoon.
MENDING invites you to heal your broken relationship with things. A hybrid of a secret meeting, self help seminar, a swap meet and a craft hour, this performance asks: Why do we need all this stuff? Join us as we attempt to recover our lost knowledge and work out the problem implicit in our relationships with objects.
MENDING (April 2017, Uncanny Valley ) featured performers Ean Sheehy, Lisa Clair and Normandy Sherwood and as musicians Sana Nagano and Craig Flanagin. MENDING written and directed by Normandy Sherwood. Sets and props by Normandy Sherwood and Craig Flanagin
MENDING (November 2017, Rubulad) featured performers Ean Sheehy, Lisa Clair and Normandy Sherwood and as musicians Sana Nagano and Max Maples. MENDING is written by Normandy Sherwood and Directed by Craig Flanagin. Sets and props by Normandy Sherwood and Craig Flanagin
