Presented as part of “Brooke O’Harra: I am Bleeding All Over the Place: Studies in directing or nine encounters between me and you” (May 16–24) and the spring R&D Season: VOICE.
O’Harra’s “I am Bleeding All Over the Place…” is a protracted performance in the form of a series of studies on directing. The New Museum presents the first three of nine studies that comprise this two-year project. Each iteration takes a variety of forms: Some will be clearly scripted, scored, and rehearsed to perfection, while others will be developed or literally “written” in front of an audience. This examination of the director’s role through different encounters argues that bodies are never neutral. “I am Bleeding All Over the Place” proposes a kind of theater where each person operates as both reader and maker, and where the potency of a performance happens in the experiential, emotional, and phenomenological gaps produced by the encounter of bodies. Each study assumes the form of a public encounter.
“It’s personal.” is the third study in O’Harra’s ongoing project “I am Bleeding All Over the Place.” For this study, O’Harra invites John Jesurun to join her in directing and presenting the project texts (written by O’Harra, Kosmas, Courtney, and Schreck). Both directors will present rehearsed scenes using the same performers (who includeBlackwell, Davis, Husiak, Kohler, and Caitlin McDonough-Thayer) and texts (from the earlier encounters). The event will be framed by a filmed conversation with legendary downtown writer and director Jeff Weiss.