erased bobrauschenbergamerica
directed by ben gansky
IT HAS BEGUN
We've started workshops for erased bobrauschenbergamerica, and we'll move into rehearsals in January. Along the way, we'll be documenting and sharing some of our process via this webpage, which we'll also use as a forum for collaboration, creating a body of material together. Feel free to join in the process by posting your own thoughts/links/experiences.
We've started workshops for erased bobrauschenbergamerica, and we'll move into rehearsals in January. Along the way, we'll be documenting and sharing some of our process via this webpage, which we'll also use as a forum for collaboration, creating a body of material together. Feel free to join in the process by posting your own thoughts/links/experiences.
i n f o r e : e r a s e d b o b r a u s c h e n b e r g a m e r i c a :
"I work in the gap between art and life."--R.R.
erased bobrauschenbergamerica is: a multidisciplinary team of artists drawing on their own life experiences and their encounters with the art and themes/theories of the artist Robert Rauschenberg to create a performance piece that speaks to their experiences of making art, living life, falling in and out of love, and remembering in America.
We'll ask some big, impossible questions--what is the unique and true character of America? How does art fit into that idea? How do we remember, and by remembering, create ourselves and our world?
The goal isn't to come up with answers to these questions. The goal is to bravely put into the world our attempts to grapple with them, and to share that with an audience.
"My art is about paying attention--about the very dangerous possibility that you might be art." -R.R.
erased bobrauschenbergamerica will be structured on the framework of a text by the playwright Charles Mee, titled bobrauschenbergamerica. Our approach, however, will be to 'erase' that text, in some places replacing it with material from the lives of the e-bra (cute, huh?) artists, in some places seeing what remains after the text has been 'erased' in this way.
The inspiration for the titled of the piece can be seen above left: Rauschenberg's Erased de Kooning Drawing. Information on this piece can be found here and here. In creating a piece that is an erasure, I wish to call into question what constitutes a generative act, and to explore the relationship of emerging artists to their creative forbears.
one of the key parts of the project is that it is interdisciplinary:
actors, dancers, singers, musicians, video/projection artists, sculptors, painters, designers, technology-based artists: this is a collaborative piece.
if you are interested in being part of the erased bobrauschenbergamerica team, contact Ben Gansky at bengansky@gmail.com.
Workshops will begin in late-November/early-December.
Rehearsals will take place beginning January 10th, 2011.
erased bobrauschenbergamerica will perform at 1419 February 11-20, 2011.
ALRIGHT STOP. COLLABORATE AND LISTEN.
