InMigration - Our current work in progress
Premier Date: May 2013
InMigration will be a 25-minute outdoor theater spectacle set in a landscape of interactive sculptures. A collaboration between WFNM’s daring physical performers and pioneer kinetic sculpture artists Christina Sporrong and Christian Ristow, InMigration will explore the human dimensions of migration, immigration and our innate search for “home”. Acrobatic theater artists in the air and on stilts will inhabit an ever-changing environment, drawing in, disarming and instilling audiences with wonder and compassion, ultimately opening the door for new ideas and dialogues.
WFNM’s inspiration to create InMigration comes out of our commitment to making theater that offers new insights on the human condition within our evolving society. WFNM’s strength and history lies in our ability to combine physical dexterity and daring with visual splendor in a way that draws in, disarms, and imbues audiences with a sense that anything is possible, thereby opening the door for new ideas while releasing preconceptions. Personally and socially, the current hot-button issue of immigration is pervasive and immediate. WFNM strives to create a performance that will act as a luscious and enticing entryway to exploration and expansive thought on the myriad perspectives and experiences of this socially charged subject.
CASTING CALL
- Wise Fool is looking for aerialists, stilt acrobats, dancers and physical theatre performers for InMigration!
Auditions to be held in Santa Fe, NM: May 17 thru 27th, 2012.
Full Cast Rehearsals to be held in Santa Fe, NM: Aug 20 thru Oct 5th and April 15th thru May 17th 2013.
Opening May 17th 2013.
Summer tour June thru September 2013.
We will be scheduling people for a three day audition between May 17-27th. Auditions will take place on original aerial apparatus in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
TO APPLY: Please send a letter of interest; include availability during above dates, current C.V., and a video sample of your work. ( DVD or link to video) send by mail to: Wise Fool New Mexico 2778 Agua Fria Unit D, Santa Fe NM, 87505 or send by email to: alessandrajo@yahoo.com - For more information about this show please visit our website: www.wisefoolnewmexico.org/inmigration.html
- For questions and more info. Please contact: Alessandra Ogren 575-770-7597 alessandrajo@yahoo.com, or Deirdre Morris 505-670-2659 deter1234@yahoo.com.
BE PART OF IT!
- Become a Business or Individual Sponsor. Wise Fool is seeking supporters to help bring this production to life. We will need financial donations, donated or reduced-rate rehearsal space, and other in-kind contributions as the creative process unfolds! To become an individual or business sponsor of this incredible show, please contact Katy at (505) 992-2588 or mail@wisefoolnm.org.
The Audience Experience
Imagine yourself walking through a common public space as you would any day. In the distance you see three enormous steel tripods rising out of the landscape. One tripod is dressed in flowing fabrics giving the illusion of a gigantic body extending from the person perched atop, 24 feet in the air. Another is nomadic – peddled from within a nest-like suspension of gears. The third has mobile arms that are rotating and tilting in response to the acrobatic contortions of a performer whose every move risks the fall of the other precariously dangling actors. You are being drawn closer, when the brush of a winged stiltwalker gliding past makes you realize you are not outside of, but part of this captivating world. The mesmerizing movements of the performers viscerally highlight a fragile and transformative cause and effect relationship between groups, individuals, and the constructs of a rich and provocative world. All the while you are enveloped by an original soundscape and surrounded by would-be strangers sharing in these moments of loyalty, tenderness, humor, and grace.
The Creative Process
The creative process of InMigration will take place over 15 months in Santa Fe, NM, and will begin with the drawing of input from our wider community’s personal experiences of immigration, diaspora, displacement, colonization, and social stigmas of "the other". The creative team (WFNM artists, and appartaus designers Christina Sporrong and Christian Ristow) will come together in intensive sessions to combine their areas of expertise, with the script, apparatuses, and choreographic discoveries informing each other. In the second phase of development the Artistic Director will take a clear lead role, further integrating the composer and technical director to actualize and guide the piece to fruition.
Why Outdoors?
As a production designed specifically for touring to outdoor events, InMigration will directly reflect the artistic vision and activist roots of WFNM. We believe that in order for art to widely affect our society, it must move beyond theater walls and traditional arts audiences into public spaces, engaging entire communities. The power of unique spectacles like InMigration is their ability to beguile audiences and attract even the most resistant from their daily pathways into what is often an “accidental” experience of theater arts. The NEA’s recent publication, Live from Your Neighborhood: A National Study of Outdoor Festivals, unequivocally states that outdoor arts performances speak to diverse, new, and young audiences who value interactivity, and informal settings which reinforce choice, experimentation, and free movement. In short, outdoor arts performances are able to reach audiences that no traditional theatre can lure into its seats. WFNM intends to deliver to these audiences, truly reflective of our society, not just a captivating arts experience, but a catalyst for understanding and societal change.
About the photos on this page
Top to bottom: InMigration Postcard design by Colleen McKeown; WFNM Artist Deirdre Morris in Circus Luminous 2005, photo by Kate Russell Photography. WFNM Artists in Circus Luminous 2010, photo by Gabriella Marks. Fledgling, interactive sculpture by Christian Ristow. Heron Crane by Christina Sporrong, photo by Kate Russell Photography.