ALL TOMORROW'S TOMORROWS
(An invitation to imagine worlds, probe at cataclysms, and rehearse futures.)
[work-in-progress, 31/12/21, midday]
[Playa de San Juan - Alicante, Spain]
[Playa de San Juan - Alicante, Spain]
ALL TOMORROW'S TOMORROWS is a companion piece that follows ALL WITHIN A COLLAPSING BUILDING (a septet for the apocalypse), with both works forming a kind of diptych for the end of times, the whole aspiring to be more than its constituent parts.
Whilst during the previous work the audience remained largely passive, in this second piece they take centre stage. ALL TOMORROW'S TOMORROWS is a highly interactive performance-installation where everything is built, shaped, destroyed, explained, rebuilt and resolved by human hands. The piece gives the audience agency to the point of being truly collaborative, allowing each individual to co-author their own experience and take the reins of their own narrative(s). Whilst it does not make any therapeutic claims, the piece is based on Sandplay Therapy (sometimes called Sandbox or Tray Therapy). This psychotherapeutic technique was developed in the late 1950s by psychologist and Jungian analyst Dora Kalff, who combined several techniques and philosophies (including Dr Margaret Lowenfeld's 'World Technique') with the aim to bring into consciousness subconscious content through non-verbal and symbolic play, with the aim to ultimately resolve emotional issues.
ALL TOMORROW'S TOMORROWS is a companion piece that follows ALL WITHIN A COLLAPSING BUILDING (a septet for the apocalypse), with both works forming a kind of diptych for the end of times, the whole aspiring to be more than its constituent parts.
Whilst during the previous work the audience remained largely passive, in this second piece they take centre stage. ALL TOMORROW'S TOMORROWS is a highly interactive performance-installation where everything is built, shaped, destroyed, explained, rebuilt and resolved by human hands. The piece gives the audience agency to the point of being truly collaborative, allowing each individual to co-author their own experience and take the reins of their own narrative(s). Whilst it does not make any therapeutic claims, the piece is based on Sandplay Therapy (sometimes called Sandbox or Tray Therapy). This psychotherapeutic technique was developed in the late 1950s by psychologist and Jungian analyst Dora Kalff, who combined several techniques and philosophies (including Dr Margaret Lowenfeld's 'World Technique') with the aim to bring into consciousness subconscious content through non-verbal and symbolic play, with the aim to ultimately resolve emotional issues.
Sandplay Therapy is often used with those who have suffered some form of trauma, neglect, intense grief, or abuse. Although it is usually associated with child psychology, it is also suited for working with adults. One of its key features is that it can bypass the verbal/linguistic plane and go beyond words and conventional reasoning patterns. Therefore, it is especially effective when there are difficulties to express certain emotions or inner conflicts, as well as to access subconscious or dissociated material.
In Sandplay Therapy, the client chooses from a collection of toys and builds a small “world” in a sand tray, reflecting what is going on in their lives. The therapist observes the choice and arrangement of toys without interruption, allowing the person to find answers within themselves. After this initial world-building has been completed, patient and therapist analyse and discuss the toy choices, their arrangement patterns in the sand, and their symbolic or metaphoric meanings. Upon discussion, the patient can choose to make changes to the world they have created in he sand. [Read more about Sandplay here.]
In Sandplay Therapy, the client chooses from a collection of toys and builds a small “world” in a sand tray, reflecting what is going on in their lives. The therapist observes the choice and arrangement of toys without interruption, allowing the person to find answers within themselves. After this initial world-building has been completed, patient and therapist analyse and discuss the toy choices, their arrangement patterns in the sand, and their symbolic or metaphoric meanings. Upon discussion, the patient can choose to make changes to the world they have created in he sand. [Read more about Sandplay here.]
ALL TOMORROW'S TOMORROWS is guided by a similar ethos of self-reflection and healing, although instead of being a platform to identify, work-through and process personal issues, is is designed as an experience to address and dwell on the global challenges humanity faces as a collective. Each person, transcending their personal plane, imagines three scenarios at a global scale, and yet does so from their uniquely personal angle and positionality. In their interaction with the work, participants literally bring themselves to and put themselves on the table in order to tackle the big-questions humanity faces; enacting their own specific concerns, priorities, fears, hopes, and fantasies.
Recorded by Guillermo Alcalá-Santaella (Marallavi Films) and edited by Pablo Pakula.
Following a ritual logic, ALL TOMORROW'S TOMORROWS uses a simple three-part structure: 1. Build a world. 2. Cataclysm ensues. 3. Tomorrow's tomorrows. In the first stage, the audience member is given the invitation to build a world. To hand they have a table, sand, and a variety of detritus, discarded objects, scraps and domestic refuse; thus giving these discarded objects an unexpected new lease of life. The piece is shaped by the particular materiality of these items and the specific location of each performance's iteration (since materials are as much as possible, sourced locally).
In the second stage, the audience member imagines and plays out a cataclysm onto that world, a sudden disaster or violent event of socio-political, environmental and/or fantastical nature. It is during this section that participants can let their personal apocalyptic visions run wild, as they enact destructive and fundamentally transformative changes upon the world they have just created.
The third and final stage challenges the audience members to imagine and play out what happens next, after the catastrophe, once the dust has settled; indeed it dates them to imagine and rehearse the new beginnings beyond the end.
Following a ritual logic, ALL TOMORROW'S TOMORROWS uses a simple three-part structure: 1. Build a world. 2. Cataclysm ensues. 3. Tomorrow's tomorrows. In the first stage, the audience member is given the invitation to build a world. To hand they have a table, sand, and a variety of detritus, discarded objects, scraps and domestic refuse; thus giving these discarded objects an unexpected new lease of life. The piece is shaped by the particular materiality of these items and the specific location of each performance's iteration (since materials are as much as possible, sourced locally).
In the second stage, the audience member imagines and plays out a cataclysm onto that world, a sudden disaster or violent event of socio-political, environmental and/or fantastical nature. It is during this section that participants can let their personal apocalyptic visions run wild, as they enact destructive and fundamentally transformative changes upon the world they have just created.
The third and final stage challenges the audience members to imagine and play out what happens next, after the catastrophe, once the dust has settled; indeed it dates them to imagine and rehearse the new beginnings beyond the end.
|
ALL TOMORROW'S TOMORROWS is soundtracked by three loop-tracks, each one with distinct musical and emotional textures which complement and narrativise each of the different parts that make up the experience. These tracks have been edited by Pablo Pakula using, looping, and overlaying fragments of a number of existing compositions: Wagner's prelude to Das Rheingold, Hanan Townshend's 'Opening Credits', 'Believing no.1 and no.2' and 'The Child' for the film The Book of Vision, Ligeti's Requiem and Lux Aeterna, and finally the Velvet Underground and Nico's 'All Tomorrow's Parties' in an instrumental version by the band and another by Vitamin String Quartet. The tracks, with their repetitive and obsessive nature, operate like a sort of mantras, hoping to induce a reflective state in the audience, opening up a meditative space where they can dwell on the big questions raised by the work. These tracks are an outcome of the ongoing Practice Research project 'Radio Loop'.
|
(track drafts)
|
