Progression of the Exquisite Corpse

Gateway's Heliport Gallery moved their “Le Cadavre Esquis” exhibition along by reassembling the artful body parts and having a second opening July 26. Collaborating poets Karren Alenier, Christopher Conlon, and JoAnne Growney held a poetry reading in the Gallery on July 29. The theme of the reading was corpses, body parts, and surrealism. Neil Joffe finished the evening with a dramatic presentation of a Tom Waits song.







Here are images from the newly remixed show along with the people at the poetry reading.




Artists in the show include:
Karren Alenier . Mark Behme . Bobbi Clay . Christopher Conlon

Warren Craghead III . Patrick Finley . Fred Folsom . Gail Gorlitzz

JoAnne Growney . Stephen Hanks . Elyse Harrison . Neil Joffe
John Landis
Emery Lewis . Donna M. McCullough . Emily Piccirillo
Shelley Sarrin
 . Rima Schulkind . Ed Thomas . Joyce Zipperer
Birdie Zoltan . Student Artists
Voices from Eastern Village
Voices from Silver Spring Drop-In Center and some of their
art is depicted above.

Town Hall Meeting for Dramatists

On July 14, 2008, The Dramatists Guild of America, which is based in New York City, held a town hall meeting in a hidden away rehearsal room in the Kennedy Center. The Guild under the auspices of Gary Garrison, Executive Director of Creative Affairs for the Guild, and the Guild’s DC area representative Callie Kimball organized and presented a panel discussion by area theater artistic directors in an effort to foster relationships between local playwrights and theaters. When this active member (the Guild has three levels of membership: Active—those who “have been produced on a First-Class/Broadway, Off-Broadway, or mainstage of a regional theatre (LORT) contract,” Associate—those yet unproduced authors of theatrical works, and Student) and a half dozen others finally found the location, the panel discussion was well underway and the room was packed with what turned out to be participants of a workshop that Garrison (author of The New, Improved Playwright's Survival Guide) was leading at the Kennedy Center.

The Artistic Directors included: Randy Baker of Rorschach Theatre, Christopher Henley of Washington Shakespeare Company, Jessica Burgess of Inkwell, Keith Bridges of Charter Theatre, and Deborah Randall of Venus Theatre. Also on the panel was dramaturg Richard Washer of Charter Theatre. Most of these theaters have produced work by some local playwrights. Nonetheless, Garrison cautioned audience members that this was not the time to approach these directors with an unproduced play. Adding a bit of levity after the panel had disbanded and the workshoppers had left the room to about 25 Guild members, Garrison said, “you can’t marry a theater, but you can have an affair.”

Garrison went on to say that personal contact is everything in finding a theater for your play. In fact one of the panel members—Keith Bridges of Charter Theatre— said that his theater does a temperature check with potential playwrights by first giving them a reading and then gauging how well this author will support the goals and needs of his theater company. For this theater company, working with locals means a better production because the playwright is able, without financial burden, to be on location when the play goes into development.

Among the people this playwright met or knew at this event included Frankie Little Hardin, Al Lefcowitz, Patricia Montley, Juanita Rockwell, Emily Solomon,
and Paula Stone. Frankie Little Hardin is the artistic director of 4Oth Street Stage of Norfolk, VA, that welcomes new plays. She created a buzz of excitement after the meeting convened. Juanita Rockwell also created a stir when she spoke about The Network of Ensemble Theaters (NET), a national coalition of theater groups driven by artists.

Garrison said that the Guild is working toward a national conference in the next couple of years. Although this playwright is a librettist and part of a minority group within the Guild, the networking opportunities offered by the Dramatist Guild are tremendously important and a big wow to have them extended beyond New York.

Showing the Exquisite Corpse

The peripatetic poet of The Steiny Road to Operadom collaborated recently with poets JoAnne Growney and Christopher Conlon to create an Exquisite Corpse triptych of three stand-alone poems for an art show entitled “Le Cadavre Esquis.” Read the poems at the end of this post.

The exhibit runs from July 12 to August 9. Be sure to check on hours of operation.The organizers of the show John Landis, Mark Behme, Neil Joffe welcomed a large crowd. Mark Behme provided the idea for this show and it is his rope sculpture seen above that announces the show in the front window of Gateway's Heliport Gallery
.

Gateway's Heliport Gallery

8001 Kennett Street 

Silver Spring, Maryland 20910


[DC’s subway Red Line to Silver Spring Station]

For more information: 
call Gateway's Heliport Gallery 

at (301) 562-1400

What is interesting about this show is that the visual artists were asked to create three separate pieces involving head, torso, and legs. The odd thing is that the poets in their planning meeting over the Internet divvied up the assignment in the exact same way, not knowing the instructions to the visual artists. (The other choice was to create a back-and-forth poem in the traditional form of the exquisite corpse and there were some poems done by groups of people for this show in this manner.)

The show opened July 12 with each set of works by a particular artist lined up from head to toes. On July 26, the gallery will have a new opening to show a recombined set of works such that the art and our poems will be mixed with other work not by the same artists.

Here are the names of some of the artists in the show:
Karren Alenier . Mark Behme . Bobbi Clay . Christopher Conlon

Warren Craghead III . Patrick Finley . Fred Folsom . Gail Gorlitzz

JoAnne Growney . Stephen Hanks . Elyse Harrison . Neil Joffe
John Landis
Emery Lewis . Donna M. McCullough . Emily Piccirillo
Shelley Sarrin
 . Rima Schulkind . Ed Thomas . Joyce Zipperer
Birdie Zoltan . Student Artists
Voices from Eastern Village
Voices from Silver Spring Drop-In Center

HEAD

Aloft in space, suspended in someone’s
hands, he hears: Kiss Uncle goodbye, son.
But the old man is different now—his face
hardened, as if brought into focus
for the first time. His skin like plaster.
(They did a wonderful job, someone murmurs.
Just exquisite.) Strange: no odor of whiskey
or cigarettes now, nothing but roses, dust.

Thirty years later he’ll tell them
about Uncle, their private games that were
never fun, the old tongue slimy in his mouth.
I hate you, Uncle. He shuts his eyes,
lips touching the corpse’s cheek. And I love you,
anyway. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.

by Christopher Conlon
Copyright © 2008 by Christopher Conlon




.......................................TORSO

.......................................Held in a padded box—
.......................................never proudly reaching
a muscled right arm up or shaping gestures with with a graceful left arm out—
.......................................and never more a laughingstock.
..............................................○ .....................○
.......................................In spite of coffin confinement,
.......................................rhymes flow from my felt-tip pen;
.......................................words from the other side :
.......................................surds — again and again !

.......................................From lower worlds I testify :
.......................................The memoirist cannot but lie.
.......................................Only the crust can hold the pie.
.......................................With a boring man, a woman’s dry.
.......................................You can’t be a corpse unless you die.
.......................................Then, to be exquisite, there’s a prerequisite:
.......................................never one-sided — you must be divided!
.......................................Hang on! Bye-bye.

by JoAnne Growney
Copyright © 2008 by JoAnne Growney



EXTREMITIES

Exquisite the shoes,
feet, legs of royalty—
Louis Quatorze in heels
versus the unnamed
empress, princess,
concubine with three inch
stumps, many toes missing,
pushed into baby doll
bootees of silk.
.......................At three, four,
five, six, feet broken and bound
to produce tiny hooves,
lotus hooks, later a swaying
gait if the woman could walk
on painful, rotting stubs.
.......................................The
fold between heel and ball
of the altered paw—site
of the husband’s
penetration.
.....................Hello, was the Sun
King hobbled so? Oh, no!
His platforms made him His High-
ness, not a come-fuck-me
piece of infected
property confined
to the master’s
dark house, not
a jaded
corpse
some
how
alive.

by Karren L. Alenier
Copyright © 2008 by Karren L. Alenier

Art in order of its appearance starting at the top and descending:
“Knotty Boy” by Mark Behme Copyright © 2008 by Mark Behme
“Jug Head,” “Pot Belly” and “Clay Feet” by Shelley Sarrin
Copyright © 2008 by Shelley Sarrin
“Standing Woman from La Chaise” by Patrick Finley
Copyright © 2008 by Patrick Finley
“Body, Mind, and Sole” by Bobbi Clay Copyright © 2008 by Bobbi Clay
“Yo-Yo Ma” by Steve Hanks Copyright © 2008 by Steve Hanks

Madam Mayo: VidLit Monday

BOOK TRAILERS. Read what Madam Mayo has to say about: VidLit in her Monday July 7 2008 blog post.