Last Friday night, Luminarium presented LEAP: Leading & Engaging Artistic Pursuits. The show went very smoothly and received a warm and enthusiastic review from its audience. For this post, I would like to focus my thoughts on my piece
...for the stars performed by Amyko Ishizaki and accompanied by musician Robert Flax. Beautiful costuming by Meghan Boehmer, and most importantly: colorful, fun and insightful artwork contributed by 6-8 year olds at the Jordan Boys & Girls Club of Chelsea, Mass. The following images were taken by the talented Steph Hodge, found at
www.stephhodge.com.
The piece begins with images of children's future careers, as they speak about their goals.
Children tell us their plans for the future; shown here are the projected drawings on the stage.
Amyko rises as the lights fade, plucks glow-in-the-dark stars from the sky, and proceeds to plant them on the ground as the children interpret the phrase "Reaching for the stars."
Amyko dances, interacting with the stars, while being serenaded from above by musician Rob Flax on violin.
Her skirt, designed in collaboration with Meghan Boehmer (who also did a wonderful job constructing it!), shows yellow taffeta on the outside, hiding 15 feet of white muslin within.
Towards the end of the piece, Amyko unravels herself across the stage, revealing more children's drawings: this time of their future dream houses. She eventually ends the piece in a sophisticated pencil skirt, having shed the layers of childhood behind her.
Creating this piece has been a largely collaborative experience, from interviewing the children for dialogue to incorporating their voices into the beautiful auditory narrative interpreted by Rob Flax, and from working with Amyko to choreograph her movements to collaborating with Meghan on a costume that would not only portray a childish Alice in Wonderland feel, but could integrate Amyko's movements and the children's drawings into it as well. It has been a piece (like most of my work!) that has evolved with each new addition to the team. With the children came context, with the dancer came embodiment, with the musician came emotion, and with the costumer came meaning.
The most heart-wrenching aspect of this piece for me, is that I originally went in to interview these kids with a preset series of questions, the most important one being "You know the phrase, 'Reaching for the stars?' Tell us in your own words what that means." To my shock, of the eight children in the room, only one seemed to recognize the phrase. All the other seven looked painfully confused, even when I prompted them with "You know, like following your dreams. Have you ever heard that?" No. They hadn't! After a series of uncomfortable moments, I worried that my plans for this piece were falling through, but coming home and re-listening to the interviews, I realized that what I had was far better than a simple response to an age-old phrase; instead, it showed children puzzling their way through and interpreting it as best they could. My favorite is the child who says "It means you're reaching for a star and you put it in your hand, and you make a wish on the star in your hand." What a beautiful interpretation! Still, it bothered me to realize just how differently I was encouraged as a child. It made me want to run around the neighborhood shouting "Tell your kids they can grow up to be anything if they just try! Make them realize they don't have to be limited by their means!!"
The Final Piece:
It is not my goal in this post to describe every moment, but rather to give my own interpretations of key moments in the piece... For instance, I begin with Amyko taking stars from the sky and placing them in a line across the ground. She plays with each, examining and interacting, as if trying out different paths and identities. Ultimately, she enters the stage space, coming into herself and acting on her own. When she finally unfurls her skirt, watching her childhood unravel behind her, she is both coming into adulthood and realizing it is time to choose. In one rehearsal I told Amyko and Rob to think of the section in which she walks down the line of stars in her pencil skirt as a moment to ignore the childhood skirt on the ground and to walk straight ahead until acknowledging each star. You might not remember all your experiences as a child, I told them, but you will definitely remember a few important goals, dreams or ambitions that carried through into adulthood. Try to make this section say that!
The piece ends with my favorite quote from our young fashion designer to-be: "I don't want to be a model just to get money. I wanna be a model so I can show who I really am, and how I really am inside, because if I can't show my fashion, then I'm not anyone." There's a lot of wisdom to be gained from these kids, and it was incredible to see a few of them after the show run up onto the stage to examine the skirt and tell me "I made this one! This is my dream house in the future." I think they're on the right track, and I thank the Boys & Girls Club, my amazing co-director Kim Holman, and the 50+ kickstarter contributors to Luminarium for making this experience available to these kids. Thank you.
My favorite part of the exhibit: Ikebana Boat
...
While I didn't care much for the vases with the chunky entwined flowers, I absolutely loved this one! The juxtaposition of fluid, life-like leaves against the surface of a flawless, traditional vase was wonderfully striking. Also, after loading these photos from my camera onto the computer, and complaining to myself that they'd uploaded in a jumble, I was surprised to find a resemblance between the coloring and movement quality of this piece...
- so, too, does this work of art! (And the colors...look how they match!)
