See What You Believe
a Lisa Dershin LinkUP Residency Performance
April 1-3 Fri & Sat 8 / Sun 7
Links Hall 3435 N Sheffield
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SEE WHAT YOU BELIEVE employs dance and theater to explore the collaboration between movement and thought as performers traverse the landscape of their imagination and map connections between physical and conceptual realms. Text and voice are integrated through the moving body to at once expand and complicate the role of language in shaping identity and perspective. The rich, distinctive terrain offered in this piece is built from the idiosyncratic, personal sensation of movement, the voice and ideas of presence brought by each of the 5 ensemble members.

The performing space is your experience, your reference of that experience and the moment you live it.

Seeking Dancers, Performers, Actors

Seeking Dancers, Performers, Actors to participate in an intensive training and ensemble devising process that will culminate in a performance at Links Hall April 1-3, 2011.

To audition come to our open rehearsals November 10-12 Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, 4-6pm at Links Hall (3435 N Sheffield).

The rehearsals will be held as 2 hour free workshops. You may attend any one or all of these days. This is a chance for us to meet in the space and for you to get to know more about the approach. Only serious inquiries please.

*RSVP to attend: info@theperformingspace.org -or- 971.212.2554

REQUIREMENTS: Talented movers and performers who are serious about their craft and interested in exploring new ways to develop work and approach performance making. You must have some improvisational experience, be comfortable with using your voice and have a strong movement background.

DETAILS: You MUST be available for weekday rehearsals (Mon-Fri) between 9-6. Please contact if you have questions concerning scheduling.

There will be a work-in-progress showing January 22 and final performances run Fri-Sun, April 1-3, 2011. There is a small stipend included.

ABOUT THE PROJECT: This project was selected as part of the 2010-2011 Link Up Residency program. The theme is to explore in the body's feedback loop between emotions, thoughts, imagination and movement. We will be looking at this in terms of presence, communication and expression. We'll begin simply, by looking at what it is to improvise in dance and practice acute awareness within the performing space. "Dance" will be approached as one's spontaneous reaction to the moment, rather than a predetermined form or mode of moving.

Training will include physical and vocal practices that awaken a range of dynamics in the body as well as specific techniques for approaching performance and improvisation. We'll be drawing from dance, theater, clown and butoh methods.

For questions please contact: info@theperformingspace.org -or- 971.212.2554

bio

Molly's recent bio: Molly (me) studied theater then trained intensively for 4 years in an improvisational technique developed by the late performance guru, Scott Kelman. Her (my) most recent work, Duets, debuted at High Concept Labs in Chicago. Performance heroes that she (i) looks up to are Deborah Hay, Anna Halprin, Kazuo Ohno & SK.

Coming Up

I'll be at the Op Shop this weekend at 5225 S. Harper Avenue in Hyde Park on Saturday at 6pm to perform after Silvita Diaz Brown. Formulating some ideas for my Link Up residency through performing.

I'm also looking for performers for my Link Up residency. The piece will delve into the stories, cultural & personal that are written in our bodies, the way we move, gesticulate, carry ourselves through time. Anyone? Contact me if you're interested 971-212-2554 / info@theperformingspace.org. Come to an exploratory audition to check out the work & my approach at Links August 28, 3-5pm.

[Disclosure: this is a reflection of my awkward body stumbling forward & back.]

What is art to me now? Why does this question co-exist in me with such doubt? Rather than enthusiasm. Rather than vigor, or desire. Instead fear, anxiety, confusion. Art is art. Art is everywhere. Too much everywhere. I want to distill essence. To be an alchemist instead of an artist. Everywhere life is divine. At the moment I am resolved to not having a plan because I only know that I don’t know enough yet to formulate anything too strict. I’m going on, moving on, outward as much as direction forward. I’m touching the edge of a dream, soft & vague, deep, and all a vision. But why such a sense of isolation, individualism? Everybody can be treated with the same medicine. To different effect, but still treated. Everyone lives in a room of their own, with perforated boundaries.

In the Rocky Mountains this week, I mistook a bird call for a human voice. I tried not to consider it too hard. Did the mountains open their secret to me? I felt there was something there to know, the answer was there, but not to know quite, rather to slowly ingest, over time, seeking & definitively not seeking. I began to understand the idea that trees have wisdom. The wisdom is bound within their structure, maturing with their age. It is in part their role as witness, other formations of life passing round at a greater speed. It is, in part, the solidity of their trunks, its density in combination with the space between their branches & leaves. It is, in part, the equality between their being heavenbound, called up by the sun, & earthbound, drawn down by water. I’m about to cross a boundary with all these words & descriptive phrases. A boundary between opening & closing. Too many definitions can shut a door. The more I try to capture a tree, the further I fall from their wisdom. The more I try to capture wisdom, the sillier I sound with my words.

This is my puzzle with performance making. I want to capture & bind something that is all too elusive. I want to package it & hand it over to an audience to open. Or at least, this is what I try too hard for. Because I can’t grasp the wisdom of the unstated. Ever, that is. Not that I will one day, but that I cannot. But I will still try, in my ridiculous way. That is, until I figure out another way. That is, until I’m a chicken, pecking at corn kernels in the dry dirt, unaware of the stalking fox. isclosure: With words I will probably shoot myself in the foot. In the arm, in the other foot. Please, don’t commit my own frustrating mistake & take any of this literally. It’s my vision, a reflection of my awkward body stumbling forward & back.]

What is art to me now? Why does this question co-exist in me with such doubt? Rather than enthusiasm. Rather than vigor, or desire. Instead fear, anxiety, confusion. Art is art. Art is everywhere. Too much everywhere, I want to distill essence. To be an alchemist. instead of an artist. Everywhere life is divine. This world is deeply sick, I am deeply lost in it. I am resolved to not having a plan. Because I only know that I don’t know enough yet to formulate anything too strict. I’m going on, moving on, outward as much as direction forward. I’m touching the edge of a dream, soft & vague, dangerously deep, and all a vision. A vision, as in my own creation. But why such a sense of isolation, individualism? Everybody can be treated with the same medicine. To different effect, but still treated. Yes, a room of one’s own is precisely vital. Everyone lives in a room of their own, with perforated boundaries. I’m always confused, doing qi gong inside on the second floor, palms down, taking in earth energy; the ceiling 10 feet above, palms upward taking in heavenly energy. Does that not confuse you too?

In the Rocky Mountains this week, I mistook a bird call for a human voice. I tried not to consider it too hard. Did the mountains open their secret to me? I felt there was something there to know, the answer was there, but not to know quite, rather to slowly ingest, over time, seeking & definitively not seeking. I began to understand the idea that trees have wisdom. The wisdom is bound within their structure, maturing with their age. It is in part their role as witness, other formations of life passing round at a greater speed. It is, in part, the solidity of their trunks, its density in combination with the space between their branches & leaves. It is, in part, the equalilty between their being heavenbound, called up by the sun, & earthbound, drawn down by water. I’m about to cross a boundary with all these words & descriptive phrases. A boundary between opening & closing. Too many definitions can shut a door. The more I try to capture a tree, the further I fall from their wisdom. The more I try to capture wisdom, the sillier I sound with my words.

This is my puzzle with performance making. I want to capture & bind something that is all too elusive. I want to package it & hand it over to an audience to open. Or at least, this is what I try too hard for. Because I can’t grasp the wisdom of the unstated. Ever, that is. Not that I will one day, but that I cannot. But I will still try, in my ridiculous way. That is, until I figure out another way. That is, until I’m a chicken, pecking at corn kernels in the dry dirt, unaware of the stalking fox.

Nothing like an Angry migraine to bring one back to reality. Plus a little miranda july, arvo perte, cat power & leftover scrambled eggs for protein. My body threw me off the cliff this morning, as it has before. I know this cycle. Today, as last time I applied shiatsu to myself and felt some amazing things deep in the core of my energy. Barnaby helped. I'm weak & angry about it, but not able to express it. indecisive and controlling. an unfriendly combo for one person. give up control & strike a path. toward the heart. First this means experiencing myself newly. Today I felt the impact of holding something, deep penetration came about through a prolonged holding. Shifts moved me. I think I fell asleep while holding my GB/LV in hara and in my sleep a deep filling of energy came to those areas so that it woke me. In this state of fullness I realized they had been empty, charging ahead without substance, without backing & the support of water, wood had been angrily consuming earth, which has also grown weak and allowing a strong fire, which has been causing my Pericardium and Heart to flame upward, making my heart beat heavily and my breathing harried.

Such beautiful visions I have in my head. Miranda July helped me to see weakness easily spoken to, You just open your mouth to speak & it's all there. It doesn't have to be made perfect, it is perfect already. Everything is already realized. Getting it out, verbalizing, creating a piece of art, is another step toward passing through. This step can be flawed, this step will be flawed. Speak what you can't figure out. Speak the questions you can't answer, yet. A performance doesn't have to be an answer, it doesn't have to be a statement of knowledge, it can be just an act of oneself. oneself pursuing. Oneself doing nothing more than one is able. Doing less than what your imagination creates. It can be a game. It doesn't have to be clever.