Breathing in. Breathing out. Making space for all of this. Being present within this daunting and glorious connection with ourselves, with each other, with our world.
HARK! Ensemble
HARK!
HARK! is a devised work that is one part social action, one part interactive installation.
HARK! focuses on the isolation, social and political animosity, outrage, and systemic loneliness which are culturally imprinted, endemic to our current political climate, and substantiated by divisive political rhetoric in both the mainstream and the resistance. It seeks to meet the suffering that we share, to give voice to the conditions, patterned thoughts and social behaviors that give rise to that suffering, and share wisdom, resonance and a vision for social change.
Experiences of shared voice, shared concerns, and shared perspective give rise to feelings of acceptance, which give rise to relationships of mutual trust, which give rise to creativity, confidence, belonging and participation.
HARK! was developed through devising & engagement activities implemented across the unceded lands of the Tohono O’odham and Yoeme (‘city of Tucson’ ). During engagement activities HARK! ensemble members offered themselves as listeners in a variety of speaker/listener dyads. The ensemble hosted immersion listen-ins and convened in public to hold space for pop-up speak-easies and rants. Participants chose a listener and engaged with them through open expression in response to questions or freeflow. Ensemble members recorded participant offerings and shared them back with the project archive.
Ensemble members also noted their reactions to the offerings made, including aversions, parallel processes, and sympathetic responses, and shared those with the project archive. Lead artists reviewed & edited all archived material coordinating a group narrative (language & movement) into a performance.
Tyane and Tony Kuya were participants in a weekend pop-up session.
The husband and wife were on a date night and decided to give it a try after they had dinner.
“It was very fantastic,” Tyane said. “It felt so warm and cozy. It was by candle light and the artist I sat and talked with was very warm and welcoming. And the questions were not just do you believe in social change? It was really deep questions that made me think and made me want to take action afterwards. They were, ‘have you ever experienced oppression’ and ‘have you ever oppressed others.’ That second one gave me pause because everybody wants to say, ‘no I haven’t.’”
Tyane| ThisIsTucson.Com
HARK! Ensemble
Lead Artists
Toni Press-Coffman
Lety Gonzalez
Meagan Jones
t loving
Hal Melfi
Je Moore
Anita Smith
Richard Thompson
Ellie Vought
Direction/ Movement
Eugenia Woods, Director
China Young, Stage Manager
Kimi Eisele, Movement Development
Natalie Brewster-Ngyuen, Movement Development
Production Team
Technical
Alex Greengard, Lighting
Meagan Jones, Production Management
t loving, Video
Glenn Weyant, Sound
Produced By:
Taproot Productions in collaboration with the YWCA’s Stand Together Arizona Training and Advocacy Center.
GALLERY – Photo Credit: Julius Schlosburg
We all share the need for human connection. We all need to be heard. We all want to be understood. – HARK! Ensemble
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