11.10.2010

Travelling with Leslie Scalapino: Flow--(Winged Crocodile) / The Trains



In Celebration of the late Leslie Scalapino:  Flow--(Winged Crocodile) / The Trains



On November 16, 2010 The Belladonna Collaborative will present for the first time in its entirety Flow--(Winged Crocodile) /The Trains. Scalapino's play travels between the left and right sides of the brain, with appearances by a reincarnated Patty Hearst in the 1974 SLA bank heist and a green-winged creature that is part crocodile, part Michelin man and part charging rhino. Scalapino (1944-2010) was the author of thirty books of poetry, poem-plays, essays, and fiction.





Tuesday, November 16 @ Dixon Place
161A Chrystie St.
New York, NY 10002
7:30 pm $6
Visit Belladonna's web site here to buy tickets in advance.

Scalapino's play is directed by Fiona Templeton, with Katie Brown, Stephanie Silver and Julie Troost. Dance choreographed and performed by Molissa Fenley. Music by Joan Jeanrenaud. Costumes by Jill St Coeur. Projected drawings b Eve Biddle. Video selected by Stephanie Silver and edited by John Jesurun.

About Leslie and her work, Lyn Hejinian recently wrote:

Leslie's work was a manifestation of what she termed "continual conceptual rebellion." "Continual conceptual rebellion" is a means of outrunning the forces that would re-form (conventionalize) one. If you stay in one place too long you'll be taken over—either by your own fixating ideas or by those of others. To survive one must always be outrunning what she called "the destruction of the world." This is a reason that travel is such an important motif in Scalapino's work.



It may also be what drew her so frequently to collaborations, especially with artists working in other media. These included visual artists Kiki Smith, Petah Coyne, and Marina Adams; musicians Larry Ochs and, most recently, cellist Joan Jeanrenaud; dancers Brenda Way, of the San Francisco-based Oberlin Dance Collective, and June Wattanabe; and with other writers, including Norman Fischer and myself.


Read more of what Lyn has to say here.


The Electronic Poetry Center's page on Scalapino is here.
The Scalapino obituary page is here.













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