Thursday, March 31, 2011

IN VISIBLE CATEGORIES: INVISIBLE PEOPLE

Alcatraz Gallery Opening Event #2
IN VISIBLE CATEGORIES: INVISIBLE PEOPLE
Saturday, April 9th, 2011
1pm - 5pm

We Players is proud to announce Monica Lundy and Evan Bissell as participating artists in our second 2011 exhibition on Alcatraz Island, IN VISIBLE CATEGORIES: INVISIBLE PEOPLE.

Join us on April 9th for the gallery unveiling and a panel discussion on the transformation of identity, restorative justice, and the methodology of state produced portraiture.
We Players' gallery curator Patrick Gillespie will moderate the discussion with participating artists, guest speakers, and YOU!

Reservations for April 9th are required. Invited donation is $30.
All donations will support We Players’ performance residency on Alcatraz.
WE thank you for your contribution!



On display in the Alcatraz Cell House Gallery, April 9 - June 4:

- Select portraits by Monica Lundy from her Women of San Quentin series

- Select portraits by Evan Bissell from his collaborative What Cannot be Take Away: Families and Prisons Project

Please join us in continuing this conversation, inspired by the history and present life of Alcatraz.


VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY:
We Players is seeking a couple additional volunteers to help things run smoothly on Saturday, April 9th. If you're available in the morning for final set up, and/or to help as an audience guide in the afternoon, please reply to info@weplayers.org and let us know.


OUR PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:

Monica Lundy’s paintings reveal the evolution of mug shots within the California prison system. She is a frequent visitor to the Sacramento archives and researches how the correctional system files and categorizes a civilian into the prison population. Her displayed artwork, excerpts from her Women of San Quentin series, shows the evolving efficiency of mug shots - a penalty that reduces personal history to a number, date, and a crime. Monica is interested in the immense social history that catalogues those who have passed through institutional systems and out of memory. She presents this interest through a method of painting that is a kind of entropy; she allows the image to build itself through the natural movement of mediums, alluding to decay and the degrading walls of old institutions. She frames a unique moment of transformation through her paintings of fresh prisoners, first introduced into the system, and subsequently passed out of memory.

Evan Bissell engages in collaborative art making, utilizing creativity to access unseen realities and generating creative expressions of personal and community truths. His contributions to this exhibition, a portion of the larger project What Cannot Be Taken Away, were created in partnership with multiple programs of Community Works West. Evan worked collaboratively with a group of prisoners and an unrelated group of youth who have parents in prison, facilitating dialogue between the two groups on the impact of incarceration on families, and developing large-scale self-portraits of each of the eight participants. Over a five month period, through writing, art making, audio conversation and meditation, each participant began to clarify the impact of the prison system on their identity and sketch out ideas for their final portraits, ultimately painted by Evan. The symbols and compositions, designed by the participants and Evan, represent reflections on transformation. The collaborative act of creating these portraits revealed a deep understanding of how prison affected the individual’s concept of self and what it means to change, for each individual involved with the project.

We Players Gallery Curator, Patrick Gillespie, will engage these artists and other special guests in a panel discussion on transformation of identity, restorative justice, and the methodology of state produced inmate portraiture. This gallery opening includes informal conversation and guided walks from the ferry to the cell house gallery with We Players producers Ava Roy and Lauren Dietrich Chavez.


The National Park Service and We Players are in the third year and final phase of their monumental collaboration on Alcatraz Island. This groundbreaking partnership has utilized site-specific performing arts programming to provoke critical thought and stimulate conversation on the themes of incarceration, isolation, justice and redemption. In addition to engaging the visiting public through site-specific rehearsals and performances, We Players and the National Park Service are creating lasting and transferable tools that use performance elements to augment Ranger interpretation.

After presenting a modern adaptation of the Greek Oresteia in 2009 and a traveling performance of Hamlet in 2010, this final year includes several performance events and gallery installations intended to draw connections between the Alcatraz themes and current realities of incarceration, isolation, justice and redemption in the Bay Area and beyond.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Grotowski's Workcenter comes to SF!

Dear Friends,

This is very exciting! The Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards is coming to the Bay! Below is some info about the group and listing of their Bay Area Events.

Hope to see you there! * AVA



The Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards invites you to a series of performances, master classes, work demonstrations and film screenings during its month-long Bay Area residency in April 2011. These events have been organized by the generous and tireless efforts of Michael Hunter, Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Humanities, Stanford University; Frank Smigiel, Associate Curator of Public Programs at SFMOMA; Stephen Tourell, President of the Board of the Performance Art Institute; and Julia Ulehla, Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards.



EVENTS:

Friday April 8th 8pm, Performance Art Institute, 575 Sutter Street, San Francisco

West Coast premiere of I Am America, based on the writings of Allen Ginsberg and songs from the American South. Seating is limited, please contact reservations@theworkcenter.org to reserve. $20 suggested donation.


Sunday April 10th, 1-6pm, Performance Art Institute, 575 Sutter Street, San Francisco

Master Class for Actors and Directors, led by Associate Director of the Workcenter, Mario Biagini. For more information and to apply for the workshop, please write to workshops@theworkcenter.org.


Sunday April 10th, 7-9pm, Performance Art Institute, 575 Sutter Street, San Francisco

Work demonstration by the Workcenter’s Open Program. Work demonstrations may include elements of Workcenter’s current research and practice, or a performance of any one of the Open Program’s four current opuses.


Thursday April 14th, 7pm, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third Street

Screenings of Jerzy Grotowski’s The Constant Prince and Workcenter’s Action in Aya Irini, Q &

A with Frank Smigiel, Associate Curator of Public Programs at SF MoMA, Mario Biagini, Associate Director of the Workcenter, and Actors of the Open Program.


Thursday April 14th, 10pm, Viracocha, 998 Valencia @21st Street, San Francisco

A chamber performance of Electric Party Songs based on the poetry of Allen Ginsberg and songs from the American South. Seating is extremely limited. Tickets are $15 at the door.


Friday April 15th, 1pm-4pm, Piggott Theatre, Memorial Auditorium, Stanford University, Palo Alto

Symposium/Panel Discussion on the Workcenter’s Open Program and Allen Ginsberg. At 3pm, symposium participants may move to Special Collections in Green Library, where Annette Keogh, curator of British and American literature, will give a guided tour of selected materials form the Allen Ginsberg archive.


Sunday April 17th, 1-6pm, Performance Art Institute, 575 Sutter Street, San Francisco

Master Class for Actors and Directors, led by Associate Director of the Workcenter, Mario Biagini. For more information and to apply for the workshop, please write to workshops@theworkcenter.org.


Monday April 18th, 7-9pm, Performance Art Institute, 575 Sutter Street, San Francisco

Work demonstration by the Workcenter’s Open Program. Work demonstrations may include elements of Workcenter’s current research and practice, or a performance of any one of the Open Program’s four current opuses.


Tuesday April 19th, 7-9pm, Performance Art Institute, 575 Sutter Street, San Francisco

Work demonstration by members of the Workcenter’s Open Program. Work demonstrations may include elements of the Workcenter’s current research and practice, or a performance of any one

of the Open Program’s four current opuses.


Thursday April 21st 6-10pm: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third Street

Performance of Electric Party Songs. Drawing from their investigation of Allen Ginsberg's poetry, 11 actors animate SFMOMA with a cycle of song, action and movement that challenges the conventions of theater-based performance. Ginsberg's words flow through blues, rock, pop, opera, and even punk idioms as the performers themselves flow through the audience. Electric Party Songs creates a social space for new encounters with Ginsberg, American music, and the space of the museum. The program also includes a screening of films by and about Ginsberg, and Meatpaper magazine welcomes spring with an edible flowers-themed "Food & Thought" event in the Rooftop Garden. The event is free with museum admission.


Saturday April 23rd 7pm: Henry Miller Memorial Library, Highway 1, Big Sur:

Performance of I Am America followed by a Q & A with Director Mario Biagini and the Actors of the Open Program, screening of Action in Aya Irini. Tickets are $15 presale/$20 at the door.


Please visit www.theworkcenter.org for more information about the upcoming

events or to be added to the Workcenter’s mailing list.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Thursday, March 10, 2011

scouting for heroes

Some of the early responses to our question about Heroes.
Thank you March Forth dinner guests for helping us begin to gather...

* "heroes: Mothers"

* "first thoughts: although it’s inspiring to look up to heroes, I think we focus too much on putting a few people up above the rest of us as almost “superhuman”, which actually may keep the majority of us not acting, because we separate ourselves from them. They (the heroes) are great and able to make change, to lead, but we’re just everyday people without such power/ability/courage. I like looking at communities who worked together for positive change, to stand up against injustice and think creatively, act collectively, to accomplish heroic tasks. Ex: Bolivians fighting against the privatization of water. I love “heroes” who lead from behind too. It’s important to recognize the ones in the shadows, but making sure everything is organized and the movement goes on."

* "A hero follows the Manifesto of DONE"

* "A hero overcomes: fear, uncertainty, doubt, obstacles, tradition"


* "A hero - in literature is: perfect. unrealistic.

in real life is: a good example. real people with flaws."


* "Greg Mortenson, building schools in Afganistan and Pakistan"

* "My hero is my 21 month old son. He arrived here a 6lb 8oz baby, vulnerable and not knowing the world. he has blossomed into a beautiful, proud, loving, person, He lives fearlessly, purely and in the moment. he is an inspiration every day. He makes me love more and more, I see more love in the world because of him."

* "The hero endures, so in this regard the title refers equally to those who compose our social fabric (I think of immigrants, mothers, the working class) as much as those we elevate or recognize as leaders. Vision of the inspired or higher kind is another aspect - this is the fuel for heroic effort. Finally, the hero serves, reaches others, expresses our common, if latent desires, dreams."


And at least one of you posed more questions! (we like your style :)

- What does he do after? post hero!

- Where does the hero come from?

- What culture, people, environment, produces the hero?

- Why is he a hero? Glory of self? Betterment of world?

- Do base motivations deny him of his status?


Sunday, March 6, 2011

a feast to remember...

thank you all who attended our March 4th dinner theater fundraiser!

what a great gathering of old friends and new...  It's always a joy for WE to host our supporters, share performance sequences, offer appreciation for our collaborators, and share our excitement for projects on the horizon.  This year was extra special for us; thank you for sharing the evening as We Players marches forth into our second decade.

tremendous gratitude for the skill and generosity of our head chef, Paul Plotkin (Herb'n Palate).
I don't know how you do it, Pauly, but your food is spectacular.  Thank you for donating your time for the second year in a row.

thanks to Jane Hammond Events for allowing us to borrow all those place settings, vases, bread baskets... the scene was elegant.

and thanks to Small Potatoes Catering & Events for letting us use their kitchen and borrow all sorts of kitchen essentials for the evening.

Ava and I are going to take a couple days rest, and we'll send an update to our mailing list soon, to share the performance planning details we revealed on Friday with our larger community.