| VOLUME XXXIV No. 42 | Narrowsburg, NY | October 16 - 22, 2008 |
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Birth, death and milestones in between From ‘hail, Mary’ to a poet hatching on stage, ‘Hatchings’ explores the emergence of life By ANNE WILLARD HIGHLAND LAKE, NY — Tannis Kowalchuk is back. The last time Kowalchuk, co-artistic director and one of the leading lights of the NACL Theatre, appeared on stage, was late February in Colgate, NY, in the company’s production of “The Uncanny Appearance of Sherlock Holmes.” And though she was training, teaching and serving as head chef at the theatre up until July 12, she was nowhere to be seen this past summer at area festivals, where she can usually be spotted cavorting on stilts in the persona of some fabulous beast or engaged in some other quirky busking. Kowalchuk disappeared for a brief hiatus because she has embarked on an adventure as exciting as any essayed by the theatre: motherhood. A mere eight days after suspending her training, teaching and kitchen duties, she bore a child, Simon Jerry Kowalchuk-Swartz. But performance is in Kowalchuk’s blood, and it was not to be expected that she would stay away from the stage for too long. The experience of motherhood inspired her with an idea for her return at the NACL Theatre in Highland Lake this coming Saturday, October 18 at 8:00 p.m.: “Hatchings.” The production is a collection of four separate pieces, each to be both created and performed by a different local performer: Laura E.J. Moran, Kazzrie Jaxen, Laylage Courie and Kowalchuk herself. “I wanted to call the entire performance ‘Hatchings’ to reflect my own interest in birth as a theme for my latest artistic venture, but I also think it is a play on the fact that each performer is hatching a work that is new and vulnerable and delightful,” she said. Each piece will be 10 to 15 minutes along, and themes of conception, birth, motherhood, death and the milestones in between will be explored. The theatre is located at 110 Highland Lake Road. Tickets cost $15. The production is sponsored in part by Sullivan County Arts and Heritage. Tickets cost $15. For more information visit nacl.org or call 845/557-0694.
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| Laura E.J. Moran will build a nest in the theatre and for 36 hours prior to the performance will sequester herself in the nest. At the performance she will hatch from her nest and perform the work she created in her hibernation. “My boundaries continuously shift. I am a Maginot Line of maternity, occupation, desire. I build my own four walls. I make my own rules. I delineate. I cut off. I draw the line. One becomes two. I am a cartographer taming the wild, deciding what to include, what to exclude. None of it tells the whole story. The untold is unknown—a dusty sea under the bed. But if I can draw the line, I can move it too. If it circles up on itself, what then does it contain? What does it omit? Words are maps. I choose and choose, scratch out and reinstate, twist the ink this way, this way, exile meaning in a single stroke, step over the line and create a new world...” (Click for larger version) |
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| Tannis Kowalchuk will perform a personal monologue on the subject of giving birth and new motherhood, seated in a rocking chair, with three props and original songs. “I am working very differently than I normally do with NACL, a theatre company that can be described as physical or experimental. I am writing a monologue on a very personal experience; I am working very un-physically in a small space (the rocking chair in my living room with my son nearby); and this piece is totally based on my reality rather than a fiction. It is very scary—I am out of shape and baring my soul, but it is very necessary for me right now. I think it is the only artistic project that I could possibly be doing with a two-and-a-half-month old.” (Click for larger version) |
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| Laylage Courie will perform a new piece created from vocal, textual and physical exploration of 15th- and 16th- century altar paintings depicting the Annunciation. “The Annunciation is the moment Gabriel comes to the Virgin Mary and announces that she will bear a child. The seed is imparted, not by the male angel, but by the Holy Spirit in guise of a white dove. In old paintings, Mary’s response to the angel’s news is depicted as wonder, alarm or peaceful resignation. This will be a short meditation on Mary at the Annunciation, using some of my words, the Koran and the Biblical Greek.” (Click for larger version) |
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| Kazzrie Jaxen will perform three short original spoken word pieces while doing primordial Qigong forms. “In this performance I am using my body as a musical instrument, expressing ancient Qijong forms in counterpoint to original autobiographical texts. I usually perform with a piano, improvising. This performance is choreographed, so it is a very different process—memorizing the words and combining theme with movements. It is fun to ‘hatch’ a new mode of performance.” (Click for larger version) |
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