Sunday, September 9, 2012

Lavernes and Shirleys


One, two, three, four individual week-long retreats this summer to create "______."  (Still looking for that title.)  And if I said our week in August made work horses out of us, this past September week doubled that.  Gone were the long lunches and savory naps of yester-week.  The goal: our first sharing with invited guests for a feel of the flow and content of our production.  The spaces were set, the props buffed, the text roughly rehearsed, food prepared, on your mark, get set, and go now.  Makin' our dreams come true.  (We even have a factory worker scene to boot.)  Doin' it our way.

Schlemeel, schlemazel, hasenfeffer incorporated!
-Melanie

Our Night

Some images from last night's sharing...


















Saturday, September 8, 2012

Yarn


This night is founded (partly) on yarn.  Webs of yarn, yarn in many colors, journeys with yarn, remnants of yarn.  We have invited an audience with whom to share our work-in-progress, and tonight will be the first night that outsiders will witness an Ochlos creation in our new home.  Our laboratory took a morsel of an idea this past winter, of a 400-year-old king clinging to his crumbling empire, from Eugene Ionesco's absurdist play, Exit the King.  We talked of life, fear of death, allowing the aging process, loss.  We spoke of tyrants and dictators, repressed peoples and refugees, and of the empowered and daring.  We shared ideas on faith, hope, tarot and ritual.  We arrived this September with a journey to share with an audience, and it takes us through a physical world that a good amount of yarn also inhabits.  Beautiful, colorful yarn, coming out of my ears.  I don't mind; I could spend all day with this yarn.

-Melanie

Friday, September 7, 2012

Blackberries




Blackberries are everywhere now, and on oatmeal with goat milk, brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon it"s an indulgent, indulgent thing.  The abundance of Summer-Autumn. As I set up one of our "stages" in a corner of the property, I saw the blackberries peeking through the wire fence. The beautiful irony of this is that the scene taking place in this spot is like an oasis of hope and creation within a world of depletion and tyranny.