Performances | Ancillary | Writing | Teaching
Performances
Way Out West, the Sea Whispered Me (2009)
"I do not believe that these men sit by the sea all day and all night so as not to miss the time when the whiting pass." - WG Sebald
An internal adventure of miniscule proportions, Way Out West, the Sea Whispered Me studies the action of the Sea, both as mythology and as presence, and asks: why is it people are drawn to the Sea? Performing the destructive magnetism of The Sea using Cupola Bobber’s home-spun minimal aesthetic and poker-faced absurdist charm, the show builds a remarkably engaging exploration of how the Sea functions as a dwarfing muse of existential contemplation, a place of leisure, and as heartless destroyer. All this explored through the locations of British Edwardian sea-side resorts and surrounding “work towns”, the disappeared sea-side town of Hallsands, the disappearing town of Dunwich, and 1930’s dust bowl Kansas.
The Man Who Pictured Space From His Apartment (2007)
“… this pair of Chicago-based 30-year-olds can lay claim to a special talent for alternative performance-making of disarmingly odd, cosmic charm.”, “Four Stars” – The Times of London
With an eye on vaudeville, the night sky, and this note: "If I die, my knowledge may die with me", Cupola Bobber investigate the stars, the railroad, and their memories in a struggle to pinpoint something infinitely satisfying... a transcontinental railroad, a man on the moon, a Golden Record with all that is good on this earth shot at the stars.
Using an intricate web of lo-fi mechanics, they convert a confined interior into an expansive nightscape, a universe out of cardboard, with two small towers made from cardboard toy bricks. The space changes, tasks flow into each other, the light goes from bright to twilight to night... stars dancing together, dialogue that finds meaning in dozens of connecting threads, and resolution in the kind of beauty that makes you sigh.
Eternity (played by an image of the Utah Salt Flats) performs a little hide and seek and is ultimately quantified in terms of the tasks associated with the rest of a life (I only have to meet 3,156 new people and then I won't have to meet another new person ever again.)
Pascal: "Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapour, a drop of water is enough to kill him. But even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. The universe knows none of this."
Subterfuge was the first show we made together. It had something to do with ethereal concepts of soul and what it means to be alive. We used Frankenstein, James Brown, 36 three-foot wood studs, and a costume stuffed with balloons attached to foot-pump-shoes to make a 1:45 minute tour de force.
Ancillary
The Dictionary of Endurative Actions (2009)
The Dictionary of Endurative Actions (TDOEA) is an ongoing writing and collection project that was started in October 2009. In response to our shared interest in opening up or reinvigorating an investigation of endurance in performance and everyday life, we have given ourselves the task of systematically assigning an endurative action to every word on dictionary.com.
Concept for Wave Machine #2
(not yet realized)
A day at the seaside delivered in your local car park, town square, rural field, apartment building roof, etc. A site specific durational performance installation performed by two performers taking turns.
Morecambe to Blackpool Walk, Pier to Pier (2008)
On August 6 & 7, 2008, we walked from the tip of the pier at Morecambe, Lancashire, to the tip of the pier at Blackpool. We followed the coast as best we could, using the Lancashire Coastal Way for most of the walk and stopping in Fleetwood to sleep.
Solo Gallery Exhibition: CUE Art Foundation, NYC (2007)
Alongside the premiere of the performance, which took place in the gallery, we installed two gallery pieces with the set, which was modified into an interactive installation.
Light Curve (2006)
We cut a railroad track out of paper. It was 115 feet long and in forced perspective: 4 feet wide at one end and one inch wide at the other. We wanted two stars from the sky to roll it out onto a section of Lurie Garden in Millenium park. The track would slowly move from it's widest up an incline to it's smallest, disappearing into the landscape. Having rolled it out, the stars would stand above it, one of them playing "As Time Goes By" on the trumpet.
Presented as part of "Great Performers of Illinois", a City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs event.
Study For A Performance (2003)
We went to the Salt Flats in Utah and shot this 13 minute video
during the developmental stages of our performance Petitmal. Before
we arrived we pictured a simple composition: A lone jogger, on an
empty white plane, jogging towards a distinct horizon line with blue
sky overhead– like the end of a western movie. When we arrived in
Wendover we found the flats were covered with large puddles of water
and the sky was grey. The weather remained this way for two days. It
wasn't what we had imagined, but we couldn't come back.
Writing
Way Out West, the Sea Whispered Me: A Reading Companion (2009)
Published in April 2009, Way Out West The Sea Whispered Me: A Reading Companion is a collection of writing that continues the performance’s ruminative exploration of The Sea’s place in our collective psyche. Utilizing the imagined spaces and ample research gathered throughout the two year process of making the performance, the reading companion elaborates and re-imagines many of the ideas presented in the performance as a unique and interactive literary experience. Importantly, this gave us an excuse to work with and include the voices of some brilliant people that we have met over the years.
Internal Monologue For One Performer Taking One Step Slowly (2007)
This text was written for SLOW, an anthology of writings edited and published by Ian Abbott in 2007.
Directions for reading: Please stand and take one step while reading this monologue. You should not have finished taking the step until you have finished reading the text.
Note: you will need to move slowly to make the duration of the movement match the duration of the text.
I happened to be passing by your home last night I noticed that your bedroom window was open. I was wondering if it gets cold in that room when you are asleep, if it does I was wondering if in the middle of the night when you wake up you put on your slippers and walk across the floor to turn of the blue humming television, if you do I was wondering if you go straight back to bed. If you do... go back can you feel the indenture in the sheets, the place where your body made its mark while sleeping, is the bed still warm? If it is, do you find it hard to fall back to sleep? If you do (continued...)
J'Aime Response (2005)
We were asked to make a response to J'aime, a dance by Alice Chauchat and Anne Juren presented at Links Hall in March 2005. This is what we made.
Having been asked to make a response to J'aime, we first asked ourselves what it meant. We thought maybe it would help us if we knew what it meant, but rather than looking it up we decided to imagine everything it could possibly mean. So what will follow is an absolutely comprehensive list of everything it could mean, we have left nothing out. This unabridged list contains every potential meaning, and leaves none out.
Thank you for this opportunity.
1. Dancing
2. Dancing with happiness
3. Dancing with joy
4. Dancing to dance
5. Dancing for fun
6. Dancing to be fun
7. Dancing for you
8. Dancing with me
9. Dancing for or against it
10. Dancing with a sincere amount of embarrassment (continued...)
Conversation in 50 Jumps Using A Trampoline and a Cliff (2003)
This text was written for JUMP, an anthology of writings about jumping published in 2005. JUMP was edited and published by Ian Abbott.
Goat Island Summer School, Visiting Artist Performance Response (2003)
The following are two letters. Stephen wrote the first one after he visited the 2003 Goat Island Summer School. Tyler wrote the second in response to Stephen's letter, which he had received in Geneva. The letters were written for and presented too the participants of the summer school.
Tyler,
You asked me what happened, and to tell you the truth I've been wandering again, I can't quite remember where I've been, or the events the day in question. Please forgive my inadequate accounts, but this is what remains in the frame of my memory, and unfortunately it is the closest you and I will ever get to the actual events.
1. Found thoughts of a birdwatcher.
I remember standing in a group of four students, each of us dressed in an arrangement of large feathers made out of construction paper. Down the hall the school band was rehearsing the sound of the ocean.
We were told by our teacher that we were a subspecies of the bird known as "Birdis Humanis" and that each subspecies had a particular courtship ritual. What's courtship? Someone asked, the teacher then looked at his notes and said that in this case it (continued...)
Teaching
Teaching (ongoing)
We have presented workshops in a variety of formats, from 3 hour intensive master classes to week-long residential summer schools. Given this flexibility, the aims of any particular workshop are dictated by the duration.
Generally, our workshops aim to assist participants in answering the question; how can we pull apart and re-contextualize the tiny ways we make and unmake meaning while going about our daily lives? With an emphasis on non-linear collaborative performance, Cupola Bobber workshops explore various collaborative performance devising strategies focused on generating dynamic intersections of meaning in abstracted text and image presented Live. Workshop activities will guide participants through ways to discover inspiration, and how to use that inspiration to define a co-equal performance with varied collaborators.
Cupola Bobber will instigate the participant's generation of material through short devising exercises, group activities, research, and performative assignments. Workshops culminate with participants making, showing, and discussing their collaborative performances.