Installation Concept: 

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Part of the Love and Depositions creative endeavor has been to explore how the set design of the project can interface with sound design to build a visual and sonic art installation experience. How do the questions, content threads, and characters of a performance influence the space when the performers are not present? How are details experienced differently when you can walk around, peek into spaces, sit and listen from different vantage points? How are stories told in the remains, in the artifacts, in the accumulation? An archeology of a human life…. 

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NOTES ON THE PROJECT

"Love and Depositions" began as questions about power, rage and joy, and about ancient stories and the impact s of such stories on our present behavior. We wondered about such themes as sacrifice, children, loss and survival. We wondered about the private and public stories that play out in bathrooms. And we asked: Where might the characters of "Trojan Women" live in our history, in our imaginations and in our world today?

 

In asking these questions, we took a translation of Seneca?s "Trojan Women," mashed it up with bathrooms, raves and the Fibonacci spiral. We looked at portraits and architecture. We investigated ideas of intimacy, disruption, and accumulation. We wondered what might happen if Agamemnon and Helen did a rock concert. We improvised and dialogued and wrote and rewrote. We composed and re-composed (and de-composed!) We designed, redesigned, and redesigned again. We danced, moved tires, raked rocks, and found broken streetlight s deserted in yards.

 

 

Structurally, we discussed breaking some of the norms of Western theater traditions. One member of the ensemble brought in ancient Chinese poetry as another way to consider dramatic structure. This form resonated with what we had already been making for many weeks, and we used it as a guide to continue our considerations of structures. In our making process we questioned the primacy of conflict, rising action, and climax. We found ourselves valuing ancient Chinese poetic concept s of turn and accumulation.

 

"Love and Depositions" is a many-layered experience. Every person who comes to see the work will have a different vantage point, a different window into the world of this piece. If a person sees the piece twice, they will see the world from a different view, capturing a different shard of the poem that is "Love and Depositions." We are still in the creative process: making adjustment s as we learn how this piece works night after night. Your presence helps us continue our research into the ideas and forms that underpin this endeavor. Welcome to our project.

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