July 23 and  24 @ 8pm,  July 25 @ 1pm

The Red Balloon just opened at Adventure Theatre this weekend and runs all through May and into June.  It is an exquisite ensemble piece in which I have the honor of performing and have also designed the costumes!  And it’s at Glen Echo Park which is a beautiful spot to visit this time of year anyway.  Directed by Roberta Gasbarre and starring some wonderfully talented young actors with whom I am delighted to be working.  If I can get away with it, I may set up my slack wire outside for between and after the shows…

You can get tickets through Adventure Theatre.  Or read more about it on the Red Balloon facebook page There are shows truly every day but Mondays and I promise you it’s not just for kids (though they are loving it too and being very vocal about it during the shows so far!)

Read the DC Theatre Scene review (which comments precisely on the scene pictured below!) And other raves linked on Adventure Theatre’s website.

…Is the title of my most recent venture- a ritual theater piece told through movement, puppetry and song.  We just performed it’s first incarnation at HERE Arts Center where I have been in residence with my collaborator and puppeteer Lindsay Abromaitis-Smith.  The show was a great success- sold out both nights to audiences excited and intrigued.  But it is truly a work in progress and we are looking forward to seeing where we go with it next!  You can see more of the work in progress on our company’s facebook page- Aeolian Theatre and video clips put together by our fabulous videographer Rebecca Arndt on our vimeo page.  These are especially exciting!

It was really wonderful to be working at the head of a fabulous ensemble of performers including Cory Antiel, Sophie Nimmannit, Matt Pearson, Lindsay and myself along with a dedicated band of musicians Rachel Menyuk, Emmanuelle Lambert-Lemoine, Zach Dunham, Kyle Jaster, and their fearless leader, our composer Akie Bermiss.

(tickets to the Revels can be purchased on the Revels website)

Thank you Bari Biern and Nick Eckert for these photos.

After India I went on to Taiwan where I met up with U-Theatre- the company of traditional drummers I had met last summer in a workshop at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center for international artists. When I first met them I felt right away that they had something I had never seen before and I knew there was much I could learn from them. After taking a workshop with them in New York I was invited to come and visit them in Taiwan. It was an opportunity I could not pass up. I arrived in April unsure of what to expect but knowing already it was to be an experience I would never forget. I joined them half way through their 20th anniversary walking tour of the country traveling on foot anywhere between 15 and 30km a day, and watching their performances each night in the different towns. Ultimately I realized that what set these extraordinary performers apart was not merely the discipline of their bodies but as in India, the discipline of their energy. The connectedness of their whole beings and the ability to put the mind at peace so the heart can fully inhabit the body was central to their work. Aside from lessons in Tai Chi, Zen walking and KungFu, this essential concept of the discipline of energy is what I learned during this incredible adventure. And by some stroke of insight the experiences I had here came to complement and illuminate those I had in India.

For more detailed accounts of my time in Taiwan, please see my Taiwan travel blog

I was also asked to create a piece during my stay in Taipei which I based on the discoveries I made during the first month of Zen walking. I created the piece through a workshop I directed with high schoolers from U-Theater’s Performing Arts School 36. A DVD of the piece, entitled Adrift, is available upon request. Please email me for further information or enquiries.