Tag Archives: collaboration

An Exquisite Corpse for Seal

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For a recent Phillips after 5 collaboration with Arena Stage, we wanted to create a game for our guests that would bridge visual arts and dramatic literature. We started with an old parlor game embraced by the surrealists known as the exquisite corpse, in which a group takes turns drawing or writing a passage on a piece of paper, then folding the paper to conceal all but a glimpse of their creation, and passing it on to the next participant. At the end, a monstrous collective work is revealed.

During Phillips after 5, we placed a notebook in the gallery where Morris Louis’s Seal is on view. Simple instructions invited passersby to use the painting as inspiration and add a line or two to an unfolding drama. Today we publish the results–complete with angst, loneliness, water, sky, a ride on the Titanic, and a penguin’s perspective–here and on Arena Stage’s Stage Banter blog.

Midnight. Brisk. Quiet. Something is unknown. Enter CHASE, BELLE, and SHADOW.

BELLE: There’s something behind the curtains. What is it?

SHADOW: It moves like a racehorse. Did you see it?

CHASE: I don’t think we should watch it. It doesn’t belong here.

BELLE: I’m not sure what’s behind there, but someone should look.

SHADOW: Darkness is madness and hides the fear. The pain.

CHASE: I’m not afraid to cry. Or to try. Don’t be afraid. It’s only a dream.

BELLE: If it’s a dream then do not wake me. I’m floating, silently, wearing lace and singing a tune. A sad lament . . .

SHADOW: Wake up! A storm is near. Darkness looms. There’s no light in shadow. Deep sleep and dreaming . . .

CHASE: In my dream, curtains part—and then, a soft, smooth piece of sealskin, covering me, keeping me dry from any storm.

BELLE: You were lying so quietly next to me, and then I heard you shout. You were frightened by something or someone in your dream, it seems.

SHADOW: Death comes in many guises. I will enter softly when the time is right. Meanwhile rise up and face the stormy day ahead. Who knows what you will find. Take the boat around the bay and see me there.

BELLE: I have no interest in visiting your home—I barely can tolerate you here in a neutral setting.

CHASE: Belle! Why so harsh? Shadow’s just being polite. Besides, a boat ride across the bay is quite lovely, though at this time of day not as inviting.

SHADOW: Chase, you needn’t defend me. I’ve done nothing to offend Belle so. A trip to my home could help us all understand what we saw earlier this evening.

BELLE: We saw nothing! That was just the light of the stars playing against the leaves in that stand of trees. Everything is as it should be.

CHASE: I don’t get it. What do you mean?

BELLE: I mean isn’t it romantic the way the colors remind me of nature? They’re wet—dripping with meaning.

SHADOW: And yet it’s as if they are speaking in tongues, a different language to each observer.

CHASE: How is it that you see mere shadows, while I recognize only tangible objects?

BELLE: Ugh, I hate it when you talk in the abstract.

SHADOW: My name is Shadow. I don’t think that’s very abstract.

BELLE: (pause) I hate you two. I’m leaving.

SHADOW: Suits me just fine!

BELLE: Don’t be so glib! Our very future is at stake! You never take anything seriously. It’s like you’re swimming through life.

CHASE: Maybe that’s all he’s capable of. A rootless existence, ebbing and flowing. No substance. (To Shadow) You should be ashamed.

SHADOW: I suppose I should be like you instead? Dull as dirt, happily toiling away at the grindstone, never realizing you’re grinding yourself up in the process. There is so much you don’t know.

CHASE: What could you possibly teach me? You think you’re profound when really, you don’t even know who you are. It must hurt, being cut adrift.

BELLE: Don’t you understand the beauty of the midnight quiet. When what is known becomes unknown.

CHASE: You’re not profound. Finding beauty in the quiet doesn’t make you profound.

SHADOW: Don’t ruin the calm of this night.

CHASE: I’ll do as I please. Move as I please. Slow as I please.

BELLE: You are so selfish. And if you don’t hurry, I will be more than upset.

CHASE: Be quiet. You are getting on my nerves.

SHADOW: That‘s all right Chase. Belle doesn’t know what she is doing.

BELLE: Shut up, you two. You are ruining the moment.

SHADOW: And you are interrupting the darkness I have cast in measures around me.

BELLE: Lighten up Shadow! Why do you have to bring everyone down with all your melodramatic nonsense.

CHASE: But Belle, he is merely expressing himself!

BELLE: Yeah, well the last time he expressed himself, we ended up at the bottom of a lake!

CHASE: Ah yes, that fateful April 15th when the Titanic went down. But Belle, you survived!

BELLE: Yes, well, I should say—he ended up at the bottom of the “lake.” Last time he’ll express himself like that!

CHASE: What was it like after the sinking?

BELLE: The worst part didn’t come until I was near the shore. There were ice and penguins everywhere. Oh, those dreadful penguins!

SHADOW: Oh . . . That’s the dark side of you. I like it. The three shadows in that paintings were bare foot.

CHASE: Cold, cold, cold. I’m so cold. Blue cold. Ice cold. Blue ice. What does a penguin want?

BELLE: Penguins are black. Not blue. They are happy. Joyful. Not blue. Black white is gray.

SHADOW: Veils. Darkness. I am asleep. I awake in a dream of blue. Water, sky. Sky dreams . . .

BELLE: Ocean overwhelming nightmare by the sea. Continues turning, body yearning. Tell me more. (facing Chase, who’s watching Shadow) . . . Why the silence?

CHASE: The joy . . . turns to darkness with the tide, in time . . .

SHADOW: (in the distance, back turned, swaying and singing)” Mei nahar zormim—habeht—eylu hem yámei chayechah . . . ”

BELLE: The song is so lovely even if I don’t understand the words.

SHADOW: The ice is melting. The copper is oxidizing. I cry.

CHASE: Who are you? Why does the oxidizing copper make you so emotional?

SHADOW: Chase, I am in your mind. Look more closely at the copper . . . It holds SECRETS.

CHASE: I’m stretching to the sky like an anorexic ballerina caught on a medieval rack. Why do you torture me?

SHADOW: With a beautiful woman looming overhead. What’s the point of the surreal?

BELLE: I’m fed up with your abstract, arbitrary quandaries.

CHASE and SHADOW: We’re fed up with you.

BELLE: From the right sea and left forest, all I feel is alone.

CHASE: You are solitary, Belle. Lonesome as the darkness. You are alone.

BELLE: I feel a fear and my soul seeping from it. My feelings fall off the page.

CHASE: You are gone.

BELLE: Giant fingers and hooves.

SHADOW: (quiet) Trampling, crushing my soul. I rise above and clap my hands and shout. Things have fallen apart, and the trees harbor the refugees.

CHASE: The refugees . . . they kept quiet by the dark and the night of black velvet.

From Synchronized Swimming to Step Afrika!

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Step Afrika! dancers perform in response to Jacob Lawrence's The Migration Series at Phillips after 5. Photo: Charles Mahorney

Last August Director Dorothy Kosinski agreed to judge the Washington Project for the Arts‘s second synchronized swimming competition at the Capitol Skyline Hotel. Little did she know she was about to meet C. Brian Williams, fellow judge and founder and executive director of Step Afrika! The conversations started poolside on that sunny day came to a culmination last Thursday night during the museum’s Phillips after 5.

As Brian has shared here, Step Afrika! and the Phillips collaborated to create a dazzling marriage of the performing and visual arts. In June, Step Afrika! premiered The Migration: Reflections on Jacob Lawrence inspired by Jacob Lawrence‘s The Migration Series in their Home Performance Series.

Last night, the dance troupe performed excerpts from the show at Phillips after 5. Brian told me it was Step Afrika!’s first presentation in an American art museum, and I’m so pleased it happened at the Phillips. The stage come to life from the percussive energy of the dancers, and they awed the crowd! The audience clapped and sang along with the dancers; they gave the performance a standing ovation–something I’ve never seen happen in our auditorium.

I’m looking forward to seeing our stage come alive again when we collaborate with the Washington Ballet for programs related to our upcoming Degas exhibition!

3 Minute Right-Brain Team-Building Exercise

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Wassily Kandinsky. Sketch I for Painting with White Border (Moscow), 1913. Oil on canvas; 39 3/8 x 30 7/8 in. © 2011 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris

This riff on the exquisite corpse was designed for any skill level. We recently did this exercise at a staff meeting and found it easy and creative.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1. A piece of paper for each participant

2. A reproduction of the same work of art for each participant. I’d recommend selecting an abstract work like this Kandinsky painting. Everyone can draw lines and shapes!

3. Pen or pencil for each participant

Here’s how to do it:

1. Form groups of 4, 5, or 6.

2. Distribute paper, pens, and reproductions to each participant.

3. Ask participants to find a small portion of the reproduction that seems appealing. After they’ve selected, give 30 seconds to draw that portion of the artwork.

4. After the 30 seconds is up, instruct participants to pass their drawing to the person sitting next to them.

5. Once participants have someone else’s work, ask them to draw again for 30 seconds. Tell them that their new drawing must have a line that touches the drawing made by their colleague.

6. Repeat and pass again until participants have been returned their original drawing.  Each person should end up with one piece of paper that is a collage of all of their colleagues’ work.

7. Once complete, talk about the process. What did everyone experience? How did they feel completing it?

Here’s what we learned: the exercise fostered teamwork, encouraged observation, and pushed us to take risks. We also thought this helped us shift from left-brained thinking to right–all in the space of 3 minutes! What do you think of our collective work?

Collaborative artwork by Education Department inspired by Kandinsky