Do you know there’s a Monster in the Woods? / Savez-vous qu’il y a un Monstre dans les bois ?
Performance, 2012
Le Cyclop, Milly-la-Foret, FRANCE
3 hours
Commissioned to do a solo performance at Le Cyclop de Jean Tinguely in Milly-la-Forêt, France, I worked with the local community in various ways to invite different kinds of participations. Part of my research included giving artist workshops to elementary schools in the area in order to query the imaginations of the children about what happens in their local forest at night, and then inviting them to act out those imaginations.
Another aspect of the project wanted to honor Jean Tinguely’s collaborative project by inviting local workers, merchants, choreographers, and people in the neighborhood to participate in the evening event. It was a rare night that Le Cyclop would be open late, so I focused on mythic and literary concepts of what symbolic transformations happen in the forest at night (power relations reverse, day is night, man is woman, etc). The evening unfolded through sound cues given by the mechanical monster (Le Cyclop) and by physical nature presenting itself on the stage as day changed to night.