In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, creatures from all walks of spacetime gather at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe every night for a lovely evening’s apocalypse. Projecting into the future via an enormous time bubble, diners arrive from across history at the conclusion of creation to watch it disintegrate, together. Artist, dance choreographer, and FlucT-member Monica Mirabile’s “All things under dog, where two things are always true” ensemble piece approaches the collapse of time in constellations of human, rather than celestial bodies. The half movement, half immersive dance is co-presented by Creamcake and Performance Space New York—as part of 3hd 2022: “Life, the Universe, and Everything”—at HAU Hebbel am Ufer on October 21 and 22. It’s an abstracted response to the festival’s equally speculative theme of the ungraspable notion of “space,” within gravitationally-bound systems of support amongst people, instead of planets.
The nuanced participatory performance applies the somatic technique of “unblocking” to movement artists and collaborators reed rushes, Kate Williams, Joy Norton, Amanda Wallace, Maxi Hawkeye Canion, Bully Fae Collins, Justyna Chaberek, Dan Su, and Sharlan Adams taught by Mirabile to identify and reify memories, as a means to process information physically. While the conscious mind may have moved on from, or at least suppressed a traumatic event, the body and the subconscious remembers. The past and present are experienced at once, affecting our lives in the future. “All things under dog…” is an attempt to unearth and reframe these hidden afflictions, through the marginal organization of the mafia—a secular notion of “family,” emerging from lack and bonded by crime.
Along with a soundtrack by musician Aaron David Ross (ADR), with music by Eartheater, the 45-minute collaborative experiment and “psychological thriller” traverses a universe of socially-coded systems and empathic exchange—from care and collective action, to violence and distortions of power. Engaging with and reframing encounters with addiction, trauma, and death, Mirabile brings what’s been buried back to the surface, confronting those painful feelings forgotten in time.
Credits
Directed and choreographed by Monica Mirabile
In collaboration with and performed by Joy Norton, Maxi Hawkeye Canion, Kate Williams, reed rushes, Amanda Wallace, Bully Fae Collins, Justyna Chaberek, Dan Su, Sharlan Adams
Writing assistance by Moira Spahić
Music and Sound Design by Aaron David Ross
Musical contribution by Eartheater
Lighting design by Sarai Frazier
Technical Rider written by Heidi Lorenz
Technical Production assistance by Andy Sowers
Executive production support for rehearsals by Graeme Flegenheimer
Special thanks to Isa Parkes and Colin Self
Copresented with HAU Hebbel am Ufer & Performance Space New York
Supported by Checkpoint Charlie Foundation
