The One Truthiness >
"Provocative and brilliantly performed. The most interesting, thought-provoking, creative performance I have ever experienced."
— audience member, The One Truthiness
A ground-breaking participatory performance sitting at the gap between our best intentions and real experiences of the world through a racial lens. First-person stories, posts, tweets, and sentiments are read aloud by the audience while the artist paints layered images in translucent wax on a six-foot-square panel of acrylic, woven together with live music.
The One Truthiness creates an embodied experience of the gaps in our perspective, inciting humility and awakening empathy while creating an inclusive portrait of a community.
Produced by Dr. Ayodele Nzinga, Poet Laureate of Oakland and Lower Bottom Playaz.
Second Place >
"The world would be a better place if we were all more like Charlie Levin. SecondPlace, conceived by Levin and created and performed by her with Natalie Brewster Nguyen, inquires into the mythic and philosophical roots of contemporary dislocation. A voiceover informs us about the plight of refugees, the etymology of 'hegira,' and revisionist readings of Yahweh’s 'I am that I am.' Meanwhile, Levin and Nguyen, like nymphs out of Kafka, sport festoons of bureaucratic paperwork and interrupt the flow of information with fractured questioning and fragmentary dialogue. The performance’s good intentions are relentless. Even its most striking moments, when the performers invite audience members into their space or confront them with shifting configurations of Levin’s remarkable painted cabinets, never push beyond the limits of polite engagement. I left feeling like I’d visited a more advanced culture, where complex and difficult issues could be meditated upon in an atmosphere of mutual respect, and where intolerance is the only form of sin. Especially on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, few messages could be more timely. So why, when I got home, did I rush for my copy of 'Appetite for Destruction?'"
— John Beer, New City Chicago
Companion ambisonic sound installation by sound artist Monica Ryan presented at:
SightSonic / York, England, UK, / 2005
SoundWalk / Long Beach, CA / 2006
Wax & Wayne >
Created and performed by Local Infinities. 200 lbs. of wax create a surreal world of lunar cycles reflecting the binding relationship between creation and destruction as two characters trade places — one emerging from a wax shell, the other plunging into a vat of molten wax. A live wax painting starts the show, calling the world into being or responding to its existence and events. The audience watches the painting take form and change and change again. At the end, the painting is turned around and is something completely different.
