FRIGHT
FRIGHT is an interdisciplinary performance piece that follows the journey of a young woman, the FUGITIVE, as she flees the systems of power in her country of origin. It takes place primarily on the borderlands, where the FUGITIVE encounters the various characters who inhabit that landscape: the SHAPESHIFTER, the BOBCAT, and the DEAD WOMAN.
FRIGHT is a country that capitalizes on the source of our fears. In its borderlands, the FUGITIVE must confront real and imagined threats, without government sanctioned intervention. The symbolic environment she is used to—that previously guided her perspective as a citizen—is turned on its head. Certain symbols, words, and deeds like “alien,” “nightfall,” “lost,” and “crime” become porous, continuously transform, and are un-fixable.
Each borderland dweller is brought to life with song, snatches of dialogue, and a distinct movement vocabulary that delineates their instincts and territories. As a single body playing all four characters, boundaries between identities and species are continuously mapped, lost, remapped, and lost again.
Mary Ruefle wrote: “fear is the poet’s procedure”—and the FUGITIVE, too, is a poet. She’s trained her eyes to focus on that particular point of disorientation, where departure meets arrival at the border of FRIGHT and the uncharted country that lies beyond.
Special thanks to The Anderson Center at Tower View and The Old American Can Facory where I developed and performed this work as an artist in residence
Photos by Effy Grey
Mary Ruefle wrote: “fear is the poet’s procedure”—and the FUGITIVE, too, is a poet. She’s trained her eyes to focus on that particular point of disorientation, where departure meets arrival at the border of FRIGHT and the uncharted country that lies beyond.
Special thanks to The Anderson Center at Tower View and The Old American Can Facory where I developed and performed this work as an artist in residence
Photos by Effy Grey