RUBIN MUSEUM OF ART presents

BRAINWAVE it could change your mind

The Buddhist Dreamer

Sharon Salzberg + Lawrence Barsalou

Wednesday, April 13
7:00 PM   $20*
*includes admission to all museum exhibitions before the program.

Meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg explores mindfulness, meditation and the awake state with cognitive scientist Lawrence Barsalou.

Tickets
www.rmanyc.org/brainwave
212.620.5000 x344
RUBIN MUSEUM OF ART
150 WEST 17 STREET, NEW YORK CITY
The museum’s fourth annual exploration of the human mind investigates the relationship between dreams and prophecy.  Why do we dream?  What function does this ancillary brain activity serve?  Do dreams anticipate the future?  Brainwave will endeavor to answer these questions in a series of on-stage conversations between neuroscientists and people from many walks of life.  This series will be augmented by workshops, films, and performance pieces.  Participating this year are actor Debra Winger, standup Henry Rollins, musician Meredith Monk, painter David Salle, playwrights Frank McGuinness and John Patrick Shanley, puppeteer Roman Paska, British speculative fiction writer Graham Joyce, Tibetan teacher Lama Lhanag, meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg, and writers Siri Hustvedt, Scott Turow, Amy Tan and Nathan Englander.

YOUR TICKET INCLUDES ADMISSION TO THE MUSEUM GALLERIES

Brainwave 2011 is made possible by generous support from MetLife Foundation.

The media sponsor of Brainwave is The New York Times Community Affairs.

TREe now has a Twitter account. When discussing social networking with a group of artists there are polarized reactions to the TWITTER, micro-blogging phenomena. The question always arises “Are people truly connecting thru social media networking?”  As a 30 year old woman who made it through college WITHOUT a computer or cell phone, I am here to say…. YES. I have truly connected to other artists, friends, and organizations through social media…especially since moving to NYC 8 yrs ago.  I came from a small town where everyone knows everyone’s business. When your a teenager you don’t want anyone to know your “business”, but before you know it your 30, a struggling NY actress, desperate for other artists to connect/collaberate with, and hungry to build an audience that knows all about your “BUSINESS”.  That is why I love and value social media networks like TWITTER, YOUTUBE, & FACEBOOK. I have made my own small town through the internet- built my own little city stock full of personalities: the perverted old man on the corner, the girl I always wanted to be like next door, and the kids who want to be like me at the middle school down the street.  NYC can be a looming, intimidating city for a 120lb gal when you don’t know anyone. Social Media helped me build a creative community. It’s a place where I have broken news, triggered support, cultivated artistic relationships, made money, and laughed my ass off at Charlie Sheen.  I agree that we all need more face time, not facebook. But I also believe social media HAS enriched my life and made me a more open/honest artist. The internet can make our world seem like a smaller town. I am grateful that you opened your laptop and clicked the link that brought you to this page right now. If you aren’t a social media networking guru- so what? Its not a “thing” to master. Its a tool that when used with positive action creates more positive action. So maybe we shouldn’t laugh our asses off at Charlie, but rather, follow theatre groups like @TREePlays and tap into the creative energy we are putting out.  We are going somewhere wonderful and would love for you to come with us. Follow us on Twitter.

http://www.twitter.com/treeplays

The Anthropologists invite you to attend our jam sessions, a space and time for artists to work on their craft, build skills, experiment with new techniques, and recharge artistic batteries.
No rehearsing, just doing.
No auditioning, just acting.
No mistakes, just opportunities.

NEXT SESSION: Tuesday, 3/8, 8-10PM
Space On White (81 White Street, btwn Broadway & Lafayette)

The Anthropologists are casting three non-equity actors (2 male, 1 female) for their upcoming workshop production of ANOTHER PLACE, at HERE Arts Center, April 25-May 1.  Rehearsals will commence April 1, weekday evenings and weekend days, along with a script workshop March 24-26.   There is a small performance stipend offered.  A group audition will be held on Saturday, March 5, from 3:30-5:30PM.   If you would like to be considered, please send a headshot, resume & a brief statement of interest to casting@theanthropologists.org.

http://theater.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/theater/reviews/23invasion.html

http://www.howlround.com/2011/02/09/the-theater-of-the-future-meiyin-wang/

Making dreams our work is a practice which requires grounding in the deepest of sensations.  Jean-Claude has dedicated great efforts to introduce us to Emily Conrad’s technique for inviting spontaneous movement called Continuum.  He likens it to a free-form yoga that cultivates creativity through spiral-based movement of the limbs and spine, rather than the habitual planes of a person’s daily postures.  Continuum is said to harmonize the water in a body by relaxing tissue structures enough to allow a practitioner to follow inter-aquatic impulses within themselves and effectively open pathways that have been obstructed from stress-related stimuli.

In The Mother’s Return we have made this the basis for entering an altered state for performing dreams and other stories, such as memories from childhood.  The sensation is comforting, like floating in the womb.  As the ensemble has become accustomed to maintaining extended periods of suspended intention, their ability to “quantum leap” between different perspectives within a story (i.e., the dreamer, narrator, or supporting characters) has lead to surprising interpretations.  We are currently working on a scene that intercuts simultaneously between three dreams, and when the rhythm takes the implications of comingling dream worlds are mind-blowing as anyone might inceive.

I’m so energized working with Theater Research Ensemble (TReE) and its director, Josh Adler — on revisiting my play from the sixties, America Hurrah, and staging my new play, The Mother’s Return, bringing America Hurrah up to date.

In Mother’s Return, seven New Yorkers, ranging in age from from twenty-five to ninety, volunteer at a soup kitchen just south of Washington Square.  They tell each other their dreams, political and personal.  Their dreams reflect the tragic realities of today but also subtly foretell the dawning of the age of the Divine Feminine — when basic human values will be reinstated.

In Interview, the first part of America Hurrah, applicants and interviewers in an employment agency are dehumanized. One, the Girl at the Party, isn’t sure if she’s alive or dead.  In Motel the Interview applicants and interviewers watch helplessly as huge puppets (or tiny puppets projected on huge screens), like Big Corporations, trash and destroy a motel room (i.e. our world).

In 2009, though forced to live in the ruins of this constantly trashed world, the soup kitchen volunteers have a more hopeful outlook.    People in the employment agency were forced to be there.  The soup kitchen volunteers courageously acknowledge and explore their own dreams, their unconscious, however frightening.

When we acknowledge our own violent hidden feelings, those feelings can no longer operate as monsters in the world, cut off from us. In exploring our unconscious through our dreams, there is the hopeful possibility of The Mother’s Return.

Yours, Jean-Claude van Itallie