Muriel Maffre, Ryan Tacata, Derek Phillips and myself performed a site specific theatre piece with the fragments of one of the lost tragedies by Euripides on Slacker Hill in the Marin Headlands. Informally, we called the work Love is The Fullest Education and the fragment relates the myth of Zeus’ seduction of Io in…
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Sophocles Laocöon at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
after the wooden horseis brought into the citythe Trojans celebratedbelieving the war over A sacrifice to Poseidonfor removing the Greekswith Laocoōna priest of Poseidonordered to carry it out Cassandra and Laocoönwarn of the impending dangerwithin the horsewith Laocoön sinning against the godsby attacking the horse with a spear two serpents appearnamed Porces and Chariboea(the Greek poet…
Exploring #25
Sophocles’ Pandora (Hammer-Strikers)
Zeus punished men for Prometheus’ theft of fire by causing the first woman to be created out of clay This woman is Pandora: ‘All-Gifted’, because of the gifts provided her by the gods She is Man’s punishment for the theft of fire Pandora opens the jar in which all kinds of evils are contained they…
Oedipus in Fort Mason Chapel
The staged reading of Oedipus happened last night in Fort Mason Chapel for SF International Arts Festival … I’m biased but i thought it was marvelous and more than anything I’m in awe of the incredible effort intelligence, humor and grace of my collaborators in this all too brief adventure thank you Muriel Maffre, John Warren…
Albrecht Durer: Bacchanal With Silenus
inspiration for Aeschylus‘ Net Haulers…
Exploring #24
Sophocles Nausicaä at Pillar Point
The Production… At 1:08 p.m. on July 10th, 2016 we performed a site responsive theatre production of the remaining fragments of Sophocles Nausicaä at Pillar Point The weather was sunny with a temperature of 72℉ The duration of the performance was 65 minutes for an audience of 37 Aleta Hayes, Jamie Lyons, Judy Syrkin-Nikolau, Benjamin…
Backstage at Pillar Point
Judy Syrkin-Nikolau (Nausicaä) backstage in wildflowers at Pillar Point…
Sopohocles’ Nausicaä Perfromance
The Iota and The Chocolate Heads present Sophocles’ lost drama Nausicaä… Afternoon, July 10th, Half Moon Bay Only a few fragments remain from Sophocles original play which was presumably based upon the fifth and sixth books of the Odyssey. The Fragment… …to weave robes and tunics made of linen… The wave passed me by then…
Rehearsing Nausicaä
Judy Syrkin-Nikolau and Amber Levine rehearsing a moment for Sophocles’ Nausicaä
Rehearsing Nausicaä on site
Nausicaä design meeting
We have the best design meetings….
Nausicaä & Odysseus
Judy Syrkin-Nikolau and Ben Cohn of The Chocolate Heads rehearsing Sophocles Nausicaä with the choreographic expertise of Aleta Hayes
Timothy Lee as Poseidon
Timothy Lee of The Chocolate Heads as Poseidon in Sophocles Nausicaä with Choreographic expertise from Aleta Hayes
rehearsing Sophocles Nausicaä
Poseidon vs. Odysseus “Poseidon god of the earthquake launched a colossal wave, terrible, murderous, arching over him, pounding down on him, hard as a windstorm blasting piles of dry parched chaff, scattering flying husks…” The Odyssey, trans. Robert Fagles Sophocles Nausicaä rehearsal with The Chocolate Heads in Stanford Theater and Performance Studies‘ Prosser Studio
Rehearsing Sophocles’ Nausicaä
Rehearsing Sophocles No. 116
Early morning rehearsal of Sophocles fragment number 116 with barking sea lions pelicans diving for fish fascinated tourists and local runners the amazing soundscape by Derek Phillips and the beautiful movement Of Lauren Dietrich Chavez
Slacker Hill Sunrise (Euripides Fragment #91 preshow)
Last minute notes and warmup with Muriel and Ryan
Sophocles No. 116 rehearsal
Wave Organ Rehearsal
Piero di Cosimo: Perseus Rescuing Andromeda (1510/13)
Update: Euripides #91
Euripides #91 postponed on account of Zeus (i.e. Clouds/Fog) not making his call time. But oh, what a sunrise…
Walk Thru of Site
Exploring #24
Upcoming
Arnold Genthe’s photos of Chinatown
From The Spectator, 25 OCTOBER 1913, Page 25, The Spectator Old Chinatown: a Book of Pictures by Arnold Genthe With Text by Will Irwin. (Sidgwick and Jackson. 7s. 6d. net.)—The Old Chinatown of San Francisco was completely destroyed by the earthquake and fire of 1906; but we can imagine no better memorial to it than…
Argo Rehearsal aboard C.A. Thayer
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Electra Work
James Baldwin: “Take This Hammer” (1963)
“There is no moral distance between the facts of life in San Francisco and the facts of life in Birmingham.” In the summer of 1963, the KQED Film Unit invited author James Baldwin to investigate racism in San Francisco. Baldwin agreed to be filmed while he scrutinized the liberal, cosmopolitan image projected by the city….
The Mechanics Monument by Douglas Tilden
In April of 1937, in a demonstration that ‘Athletic dance was the future sport of American men”. Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers performed at The Mechanics Monument by Douglas Tilden. The sculpture, located at the intersection of Market, Bush and Battery Streets in San Francisco, was dedicated on May 15, 1901. President Theodore Roosevelt…
Jason deCaires Taylor’s “Rising Tide”
Jason deCaires Taylor’s “Rising Tide”: four life-size horses and their riders on the banks of Thames River, London.
Russian Site Specific Theatre in the 1920s
Photographs by Alexander Grinberg (1885-1979,) one of the most respected Russian photographers of the 20th c. His prestige was on the rise throughout the 1920s until 1929 when, under the storm of the cultural revolution the “old school” of Soviet photography came under fire as “depraved”, and Grinberg fell out of favor. His photography was…
Exploring #23
Site Specific Theatre, San Quentin State Prison
Rehearing Nausicaä
Odysseus drowning… Site Specific rehearsal of Nausicaä
Exploring #22
Site Specific Theatre
Exploring #21
Exploring #20
Exploring a new site specific theatre location.
Working at the Wave Organ
Exploring #19
Exploring a new site specific theatre location, Half Moon Bay.
Exploring #18
Exploring a new site specific theatre location, Hearst Tomb
Exploring #17
Exploring the water temple as a location for a future site specific performance.
Exploring #16
Exploring the Richmond shoreline for a future site specific performance.
Rehearsing Euripides Fragement (Aquatic Park)
Val Sinkler rehearsing a Euripides Fragment in Aquatic Park… In 1902, it became illegal to bury new bodies in the cityBy 1921, the bodies were being moved en masse to ColmaBy 1941 nearly all of San Francisco’s cemeteries were gone Most of the city’s early deadthat filled the early cemeteries were lonersminers and immigrants These…
Rehearsal E.266
Showcase of work so far…
as part of the Collected Works’ Franconia Performance Salon at the Museum of Performance + Design we’ll be showing the documentation of our performances Saturday, June 27th, 6:30pm @ MP+D 893B Folsom St. San Francisco work to be shown will include… Aeschylus’ Daughters of the Sun Sophocles’ Sinon and Aeschylus’ Glaucus of Pontiae A presentation…
Philoctetes
Research for a series of site responsive theatre performances of Philoctetes. The Myth… in return for lighting Heracles funeral pyre Philoctetes is bequeathed his bow and arrows en route to Troy he is incapacitated by a snakebite and left behind by the Greeks on the island of Lemnos after a seer reveals that Troy can…
Exploring #14
Exploring a location for a future site specific theatre performance.
Wave Organ Joe
Joe lives off social security. Has to fish for his dinner.
Exploring #13 (Palace of Fine Arts)
Exploring the Palace of Fine Arts for a future site responsive theatre performance.
Peter Richards & The Wave Organ
Peter Richards (a senior artist at the Exploratorium) shares his inspiration for creating the wave organ and explores its function as a theatre in which many different kinds of human experiences unfold..
Exploring #12
Exploring a future location for a site specific theatre performance.
The Trojan Horse
The Trojan Horse for IOTA’s Site Responsive Theatre production of Sophocles’ Sinon on the Emeryville Mudflats. What a thing was this, too, which that mighty man wrought and endured in the carven horse, wherein all we chiefs of the Argives were sitting, bearing to the Trojans death and fate! But come now, change thy theme, and sing…
Amymone Rehearsal 1
study for the fragment of sophocles’ satyr drama amymone…
Rehearsal
site specific theatre rehearsal
Golden Gate Fields
Location… originally Rancho San Antonio owned by José Domingo Peralta Peralta sold it in July 1852 to John Fleming who used it as a transhipment point for shipping his cattle across the bay for slaughter and processing later in the 19th century it became the site of the Giant Powder Company a manufacturer of black…
Aeschylus’ Ixion
Gods and men alike were horrified by Ixon’s murder of his father-in-law Deïoneus none were willing to purify him Zeus took pity on him not only purified him but took him to heaven Ixion, in turn, committed the ultimate hybris by attempting to seduce Hera (Zeus deceived him into lying instead with a cloud in…