Meghan Strell / Photo by Charlie Levin
"One day the Nine appeared to Hesiod, and they told him, 'We know how to speak false things that seem true, but we know, when we will, to utter true things'."
--Edith Hamilton
Curators Statement
The nine muses of classical mythology were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, Memory, a Titan who witnessed the essential stories of the creation of the earth and sent her daughters to transmit them to mortals in the various forms of song, poetry, and prayer.
This series presents various takes on the topic of muse: what tales do the muses have to share with us today? how have they changed their tune? what does the idea of muse mean to us? how is it that at times we are able to change between the roles of inspirer, inspired, and the object of inspiration? and what happens if we get stuck in one role?
"The Muses . . . are all of one mind, their hearts are set upon song and their spirit is free from care. He is happy whom the Muses love. For though a man has sorrow and grief in his soul, yet when the servant of the Muses sings, at once he forgets his dark thoughts and remembers not his troubles. Such is the holy gift of the Muses to men."
-- Hesiod
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Performance
Links Hall Performance Series / Links Hall, Chicago / 2000
Credits
Curated by Local Infinities
Technical Direction and Lighting Design by Fish
Company: Local Infinities, Amy Ludwig, Chris Seibert & Ivana Bevacqua, Jennifer Onopa & Co., Jacqueline Westhead
Featuring
wax (v.) to come to be by Local Infinities (Meghan Strell & Charlie Levin) with direction from KellyAnn Corcoran. Women encased in wax break free from their elegant shells and struggle to develop a relationship with visibility and vulnerability while learning to craft and shape their own lives. Thus begins a transformation from inanimate object to active subject.
Master Piece by Amy Ludwig anatomizes the violent nature of creativity and the creator's feeling of being driven, rather than nurtured, by the Muse. Through images drawn from Rumi, Emily Dickinson, the Rig Veda, Townes Van Zandt and St. John of the Cross, Master Piece will navigate the tension between inspiration and self-destruction, discovering how joy can emerge from pain.
Split by Chris Seibert & Ivana Bevacqua is a historical and present-day exploration of the muse theme through spatial and audience awareness and original text. Focusing on the experience of contemporary, especially female, artists, Split seeks to name the dilemma and redefine the muse.
Unmade created by Jen Onopa with Maryll Botula, Kari Bromfield, Amy Cranch, Mikalina Majewski. Viewing the complexity of the creative process in terms of a multi-layered bed, the group journeys through sheets, boxsprings, and nightmares in search of an idea. Loosely based on the Princess and the Pea, this work attempts to address the muse as a facet of the self.
......spaces between by Jacqueline Westhead presents a movement-based piece that explores our link to memory and how it is our muse to create, breathe and experience. Through highly expressive gesture and slow unfurling movement she maps the leafy terrain of our mind's eye and the presence we meet there.