Grief Embodied Goes to Fringe

This piece came about as the culmination of a residency at McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville, VA. Grief as something made tangible had been at the back of my mind for some time, and then came Covid and all its attendant horrors. The world caught fire, sometimes quite literally, and with our collective terror and a forcible reckoning with the abrupt nature of mortality, our societal grief grew to an unfathomable degree. But alongside this bottomless despair we all were required to carry, unsolicited, unwanted, the newly-belittled griefs continued, and they colored absolutely everything in spite of it all.

Personal grief, whether we wish it or not, supersedes all of life's considerations, even aforementioned unfathomable ones. Grief Embodied attempts to wrestle with that concept, the exploration of this soft, delicate, sometimes even romanticized state of being that unhesitatingly destroys everything in its path and paints the world perpetually grey. The world might very well be on fire, but when your chest is heavy with heartbreak and you have trouble breathing for the crying, the fire takes a backseat despite its incessant clamoring, and one's missed chances keep you awake in its place.

Grief Embodied is a cathartic reckoning of performance art and abstract puppetry. A continuous non-narrative piece with no beginning or end, it unhesitatingly creates a dialogue for things we hardly know how to say. Five performers, each holding their own unique abstraction. Grief is formless, nothing at all, and something we can't quite qualify. Glimpsed only from behind branches, or through windows, light streaming through. Ricocheting around a sharp and unyielding atmosphere, seething above valleys of broken shards. Wandering unheralded among bottles of slow but incessant water droplets. Suspended on a tiny, inconsequential platform above an unforgiving, yawing crevasse.

Won’t you share your name with us?

Grief of losing someone loved,

grief from losing oneself,

the world's continuing grief,

the material grief of a lost and sentimental token,

grief of a remembered youth,

a grief that's hidden,

a grief long carried.

Scrawl your name.

Spend a moment with us.

Here, you may articulate, even if it’s for just a breath. Here, you may give your anger permission to cloud your thoughts and be your whole voice, if only for this moment. Here, you may lift up your broken bits and understand we see you. We are you. We are wholly, grief embodied.

The funds.

This piece is very close to our hearts. When it debuted, upon the night's conclusion, the five of us who performed realized we very much wished to do so again, and again. It’s difficult to adequately describe the profound vulnerability our participants gift to us in the moment, the mutual baring of souls we often find ourselves abruptly in midst of, the spontaneous granting of intimacy and phenomenally deep connection.

We’re getting that chance now, and while we must necessarily be a bit vague about locations as we obediently await official announcements and big reveals, suffice it to say the opportunities are some distance from us and we’re absolutely thrilled. And we’d love your help. (Apparently, collaborators enjoy eating occasionally? Who knew?) For fuel, for housing, for sustenance, we’ve launched this very page and we’d be incredibly grateful for any amount of support whatsoever.

Reward Tiers!

Because sharing our tangible gratitude is actually a great deal of fun. If you're able to donate, then we would very much like you to have the following:

$35

A postcard of the Grief Embodied station of your choosing.

$50

A postcard set of all five stations of Grief Embodied.

$75

The above, the bonus postcard of our swing!, and surprise mini art.

$100

The above, and a bundle of short poems sent to you for six months.

$250

The above, and a calendar of our myriad photo shoots.

$500

The above, and a piece of installation-inspired art.

$750

The above, and a posted travelogue specifically for you.

$1000

The above, and a staging of Grief Embodied set up at a time & place of your choosing. Or perhaps you’d prefer a different devised performance? All things are possible.