January performance incoming!

Thoughts on the nature of performance + an urgent wish for you to join us

Photo by Chimera Singer

The Gregorian calendar was only adopted in 1582 by Catholic Europe, and it is from this calendar that we get our idea of the turn of the year coming along on January 1st. There are much older calendars that state the New Year begins at other times of the year: around Spring Equinox, when the Earth begins to bloom once more, or around October 31st, when the Earth and all of her inhabitants begin their descent into darkness. It is no wonder, then, that many may not feel ready to set resolutions, to embark on a new journey, or to make promises that feel impossible to keep. 

What I love about working with different adaptations of the calendar year is that we are reminded that, in each day, there is always a time to begin again. A new moon cycle, a new season, a new dawn, a new turn of the clock hands to mark the next hour, minute, second… 

At the same time, I have a real love for marking time and creating rituals that help to frame the moment. But I always love to find my own way around traditions - so, instead of making too many resolutions, I have been spending a lot of time naming the things that will stay the same: 

I will still make coffee in the morning 

Drink my two glasses of water while blinking my eyes open 

Make my bed while humming the second movement of Mahler’s Second Symphony 

Write my way backwards into my dreams, remembering all of the places I traveled while I was sleeping

I will keep feeling deeply 

I will continue to make space in my body for contradiction and play

Finding new avenues of prayer 

Talking to the trees on my walk to the subway 

Trying to till the center of stillness in my body while all around moves so fast

I will continue my hearty fight against my semi-addiction to comparing myself to others

I will keep sharing, keep making, keep considering, keep wondering, keep connecting

keep being tender

The list continues, and I won’t bore you with a longer one. I will, though, share that making these running lists has brought me back into a dance with my love of memory: how it works, how the body archives it, how what and who we remember fondly are our best teachers for laying our path forward and describing the life that we must work to build. How fallible memory is, something that slips away in the same moment that you remember it. Did you know that, each time we remember something, new details are  cataloged in the neuron circuits that are triggered each time we remember them? So, at some point in time, each memory becomes a neurochemical story – and little more than that. 

It is this story and its contradiction in the material reality of the body that I am most interested in, and that is also what I am most excited about exploring through the medium of dance. Place one body next to another, and there it is: all the falling away of realities from one movement to the next. The ephemera of performance is your own memory of it: those who witness, watch, and feel along with the performers.

I am writing to share the exciting news that I will be sharing a new evening of interdisciplinary performance on January 27, 2024 at 7pm at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater.

You can check out the performance description (which is as vague as it needed to be to allow the piece to be made organically) and reserve your tickets here: 

https://publictheater.org/productions/joes-pub/2024/a/amanda-krische/

I’d like to take a moment to frame my thoughts on performance, as this year will mark many new offerings via the performance landscape, and I’m interested to engage a larger conversation about how performance can be used as a vital tool in our search for building community, creating connection, and establishing health at the individual and group levels. 

To me, performance is a place to rigorously practice and imagine new worlds into being. What might our world look like if every person had access to space where they could dream, imagine, share their thoughts without judgment, let their feelings move through them, join in the practice of taking care of someone beside them that they may or may not know? How might the ways that we silo ourselves into our own daily habits and patterns expand, collapse, and bleed into each other if we had a space to practice embodying new orientations of belonging? I have been working for many years to identify what contributions I might have to make to the landscape of audience/performer relationship, and how the rich lineage of theater might be fertilized by contemporary concepts of ritual practice, medicine ways, and healing practices. I am happy to share that I have some preliminary hypotheses to the questions and considerations above, and I am absolutely thrilled to share these experiments with you at the end of this month. It is my aim that every performance gathering will be a medicine piece, an offering that will begin a process of internal reorganization, of deep feeling, of reflection and, dare I say it – possible transformation! We are aiming big here, but I suppose that is the one resolution I am committing to this year. 

I will be moving, singing, and speaking with a cast of extraordinary interdisciplinary movers and shakers: Rachel Gill, Jehbreal Jackson, Dominica Greene, Nia Drummond, Samora Pinderhughes, Jasai Chase Owens, and Claude Johnson. It will be an evening of duets, dancing, speaking, singing, writing, reflecting, practicing stillness, silence, and raucous laughter. I am so excited to bring this evening to you. I am always excited to bring together casts of extraordinary people, all with different skill sets, interests, and experiences, and see what stories we might summon in the space between us. Did I mention that I was excited? I just had to repeat it one more time…

It would mean the world to have as many of you be there as possible. There are still many tickets up for grabs, and it will be beautiful to be able to share this work that has been in progress for so many years. It really takes an audience to engage with to complete some of the work that we are doing, and so as many of you as can be in the seats the better! 

The path of the artist is not an easy one, and yet not a day goes by that I don’t exhale and howl my yelp of gratitude for the privilege of considering, dancing, creating, and imagining that this life affords. The traveling through time, memory, and experiences of care. The tapping into new ecosystems, blurring boundaries and to help us keep having faith that a world in which we are all taken care of is right in the center of our bodies.

And for those of you who have been asking, there will also be herbal medicines available for purchase at the event! A big extravaganza it will be…

I can’t wait to see you there. Please send a note back if you have any questions. 

Xx

With care + gratitude,

Amanda