When I was just starting out as an Actress in New York I had the opportunity to work in one of the first experimental experiential theaters, a beautiful wooden multilevel labyrinth which had been designed in the 1960's. From that day forward, after having done classical and contemporary plays in that space, everything I've done as an actress and producer has reflected that experience. Over the years I've worked with many wonderful Actors, Directors, Playwrights and Designers, and the most enjoyable theatrical experiences I've had have sometimes taken place in the most unlikely and often non-traditional performance spaces. I've done plays in bars and restaurants and galleries, in stores and storefronts, out-of-doors on riverbanks and in fields, and I've worked with many different types of Artists and have collaborated on projects and multi-media events. The one through line of all of these experiences that makes the difference between whether these moments in time are memorable and inspiring is the willingness of the people working on the project to go to a higher level in their art than they had before. No art form is easy, and when faced with the doubts and challenges that come with the territory, it sometimes feels like it would be easier to just do what you know you can do and do it well given the confines of where you are. But when a group of people are allowed to work in a beautiful space and they decide that they are going to meet the quality of the space and honor it, wonderful things can happen.
In early 2020 the beautiful Artist Alberte Bernier asked me if I was available to meet with her and a long time friend of hers who is a Choreographer to discuss the possibility of my collaborating with them on a project. When they began to describe what it was, I agreed to work with them in some capacity, because though I wasn't sure what way the collaboration would take shape, I knew it was something that echoed all of the things I always love to do. The Choreographer, Kara Jhalak Miller, has a dance company in Hawaii, and she had seen some of Alberte's work in her studio at the ChaShaMa Artist studio space at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, and had wanted to create a collaborative art and dance project with dancers interpreting and being inspired by the paintings. As we talked about it, the one thing that kept coming into the conversation was a need for a space to present. Finding interesting spaces for art shows and events is something that I enjoy, so I began to make suggestions and to try to envision what might be possible.
We planned to begin some kind of presentation later in 2020, and when that became a time of shutdowns and separation, we still continued to speak via email and Zoom and text messages. Alberte would send me information she was receiving from Hawaii, including images and videos that were being created by the dancers and Kara as they worked together via Zoom, separated in their own spaces. The images and videos were extraordinary, and I felt that whatever was created would be worth seeing and sharing and documenting.
Finally, in 2021, we heard from Kara that she'd like to consider the possibility of moving forward with planning something in New York City for 2022. She had a space in Hawaii where they could perform, and as things began to open up and travel became more possible, she wanted to know if we might consider the idea of presenting in public. Alberte suggested that we could apply for space from ChaShaMa, and so we began to write a proposal. Alberte was able to announce in early 2022 that we had been approved for a space in Manhattan, and when we were given the available dates in June and July we decided on two weeks in early June. In the meantime, Alberte took a trip to Hawaii to participate in the performance there, and she shared videos from that trip that showed how much the work of the dancers was growing.
About two weeks before Kara and the dancers were due to arrive, I woke up early one morning with a poem fragment in my mind, "And in that place where the flower and flame meet we grow." I wrote it down, at first thinking that it might be part of a story or that I might use it as a fragment in a collage piece as I sometimes do. Then a few days later when I was on my way home, as I walked and thought about the project we'd been discussing and Alberte's work and the Artist statement she'd written about it, a poem began to come to me in pieces which I wrote down on a scrap of paper, pausing on the street every time another line appeared in my thoughts. When I arrived home and wrote out the poem in my notebook, I realized that it needed an ending and that the ending was the first fragment that had come to me a few days before. I typed it up and sent it to Alberte and Kara in an email, letting them know that I wasn't sure exactly how it could be used but that it had been inspired by our work together and Alberte's art and Artist statement about the series of paintings. They both responded that they loved the poem and wanted to use it in some form in the show.
At first I thought that perhaps it could be projected on the wall as part of the projected images that I knew Kara would be using, or that it could be recorded and used on some kind of audio loop. I also suggested that the dancers could possibly speak it and echo me or each other and play with the words and phrases, or that I could be speaking it at different times and playing with the language of it in some way in the piece. It was only when the dancers arrived in New York and we were all in the space together that the form began to take place. I had already discussed with Kara at a Zoom meeting a few days before she arrived that I had an idea that my character would be someone who just happened to arrive at the gallery, not knowing what was going on there, and would walk in and wander around somewhat lost in thought due to some difficulty and deeply troubling challenges she was dealing with in her life. There is an old raw linen coat that I've owned nearly since I first moved to New York that was from a wonderful place called Chelsea Designers, and I wanted to be wearing this coat covering whatever else I was wearing that would be revealed as I became more comfortable in the space with the dancers and the art. As we worked together with this concept, the idea emerged that Alberte would invite me to share my poem and would bring me center stage from the place where I was trying to hide and lose myself in the art, and then the coat would come off and I would reveal not only myself but the poem that I had been hiding because I was afraid to share it as it was a part of myself that had been wounded and could be hurt again.
At that point even more lovely things began to happen, with Sami L.A. Akuna aka Cocoa Chandelier, who is one of the dancers, beginning to develop a story line with me that Sami would take the coat off of me and keep it as part of the staging, later on dressing me in it again as the performance ended. There were other very tender and deeply moving moments that were developed, including my giving the scroll to Alberte at the end, and there were funny and joyful moments too as Kara directed me and my character began to move throughout some of the already staged sections, exploring what the dancers were doing and interacting with the characters they had created on their journey. A final touch came when Hector Miranda, a friend who designs hand painted couture clothing under the brand name HRM Style, offered to show me some of his dress creations to wear and one of the dresses he sent me images of looked as if it was one of Alberte's paintings. When I saw it in person it was even more beautiful than the image he sent me, and in photographs taken at the show and in the space it looked like I was dressed in one of the paintings or had somehow come out of one of them.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention an extremely important aspect of the performance which is the space that ChaShaMa allowed us to present in. A beautiful building with a wall of windows at street level on 6th Avenue and 44th Street, not only is the space spacious and light filled, but it is so beautiful that along with the beauty of Alberte's paintings and the beautiful work of the dancers it gave me the confidence and encouragement reach another level in my own art.
When we collaborate and share our gifts to create something new, we have the opportunity to make something together that is much bigger than we could have done on our own. As each voice lent itself to the process of discovering who we were together in that space, there was something unique and powerful that happened. By working together and listening and being inspired by one another as well as opening ourselves to the possibilities of what the space was capable of bringing forth in and through us, we grew individually and together into something that was greater than anything we could have individually imagined.
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