AOA Season 5 Ep 10
Molly: Hello and welcome to a podcast about creating experimental art in trauma-informed and sustainable ways that support artists, our communities and the organization as a whole. I'm your host, Molly, and you're listening to Any Other Anythings.
Molly: In this season, we are focused on the latest project being produced by Grey Box Collective. It is titled Positive Ruminations. So this is an event that will feature four new works and each episode of this season of Any Other Anythings will feature conversations from the creative teams developing the new work, and we are really focusing on capturing the process and sharing out the things we find interesting along the way. Hope that you enjoy the season of Any Other Anythings.
Molly: All right. Hey all, welcome back to another episode of Any Other Anythings. I'm your host Molly. In this episode, we are hearing from the Solastalgia team of Delia, john, and Eli as they're talking about what took place in rehearsal this last time. And so once again, it was a very like prop heavy piece and prop heavy rehearsal or maybe prop heavy slash production elements is another way perhaps to say that and also some conversations around the transitions happening in the piece.
All right, so enjoy what they all have to share about the, the shaping of Solastalgia.
So we are back with the Solastalgia crowd for technically our second recording and we just finished going through our rough draft of the score. So would y'all like to take a moment to kind of recap what we've done today, what we've discovered, what we've explored and go from there.
john: So we have some new props. We have a cup with water. We got markers. We got like translucent writing paper for the projector. We got paper. Oh, the color gels. So yeah, we're just playing around exploring all the different things we could do. And also new things we discovered with the props we already have.
Eli: Yeah, it did I feel like, I feel like we have a good extension with the props now. Especially with, like, the colors and stuff, I think that opens, like, another world of what we can do other than just shadows. And yeah, we also have stuff that people can read, and I think what we're doing now has really, like, evolved.
Like, some things, when I look at them now, now that we have colors and stuff, it's, it makes the show, pop out a little more?
Delia: Yeah, so, with all of those props, also means there's a lot of like, things in the space to maneuver around. And, okay, we need to, how do we set things, or how do we support each other in making sure all of these items are where they need to be. It is aimed. I was going to say to create smooth transitions, but maybe to create whatever feeling of transition we need.
And in this last run, there's a lot of, at the end, we were all trying to fit some larger movement into the box of the light. And that felt really interesting. Like in last week when we received feedback about the work. They were talking about how the projector creates a very clear frame, and so this moving in and out of the frame feels meaningful in a way that I don't know what it is yet.
Molly: And I forgot to say that we have john, Delia, and Eli here for Solastalgia once again. And that since our last recording in this group, we've had a work in progress showing. So this was our first time kind of back in the space of process. And so, could y'all talk about, like, what have you been kind of carrying with you and some thoughts?
From the work in progress showing, whether it's like specifics or just like a general sense of like, Oh, this is actually that sparked some other idea in me.
Eli: An example of it can be when we are, we have a part in our show where we have the shadows that are coming in and yeah suffocating a person and now what I got from last time is that the people gave me the idea that or our team the idea that We can have our shadows even interacting with I think it was like out of the box ideas like that from last time that really helped us develop.
john: Yeah, it's just great to hear like a perspective of someone because you know, we're in the piece so to hear from someone who's not in the piece - what stood out to them, what they wanted more of. And yeah, now we're getting into like how can all three of us get into the light. And also manipulate the light. Yeah.
Delia: The inclusion of water is new and wasn't really brought up in in the work in progress showing. But it felt incredibly satisfying to take that sip of water after, like, what I'm doing beforehand. So, that's something that, like, is, I guess, interesting. I guess not related to the question you asked.
Molly: So, one of the things I'm also thinking about is, like, where do we go from here? So, what are you thinking about with we're at like the two thirds ish mark where we have one more work in progress showing, one more rehearsal, and then the show. So what are you thinking about bringing forward? What are you thinking about in terms of like, for your future selves with this piece?
john: Yeah, I think now we have like a rough kind of score that like I'm just going to try to drill or at least like review it until the work in progress showing and yeah just kind of like smoothing out those transitions between certain like parts of the show and it's nice now that we have like a skeleton I feel.
I feel like once you get the skeleton, you have like the foundation. So that's a good feeling to, to like have like that skeleton.
Eli: . Like, we're all gonna have one day and now we get to visualize the space and it's a little more exciting 'cause then yeah, I do get to more like accept the fact that it's, we're all gonna be there soon. And yeah, just I'm really glad that we do have like our basic foundation on. And it's cool that we're building upon what, like, exercises that we've done.
So it's all like, natural stuff that's all coming from inside of us. So, I think that's a cool thing, but yeah, definitely a way to keep going.
Delia: A prop that we started playing with today, but didn't show up in the score was the Makey Makey. And so I'm excited to see how that turns out. I don't know if that shows up next time, or if we can get it to work the way that we need it to to create sound. I also, like, now I'm remembering some, some parts of our Sticky Notes score that kind of got lost.
Like, the saying the names of the heat waves, for example. And and it's always interesting to be like, oh, well, what's next? Is it forgotten because it's just not necessary right now, or is it something that we want to intentionally put back next time?
Molly: So is there anything else that you want to capture in this moment name in this moment or like share out to others as you're thinking about this piece moving forward?
Eli: See, though, there's like, if you're in the middle of doing something, just keep it going. Like, the further and further you get into developing something, like, it's a, it's cool that you get to it, but you're also finishing something yourself, and it's also a product, you know, that, you know, hopefully will impact other people, and not just, you know, give them a surprise, but inspire them, and, you know, make them feel, like, more accepted, and You know, free and cool that, you know, you can do what you're doing and what you want, so they can do it too.
john: Yeah, something we talked about just talking in the beginning about what we heard from the work in progress, like the responses from people, was, you know, seeing more of all three of us in the piece, and that kind of just reminds me of with climate crisis, you know, we're all affected by it, and we're all also contributing it to it, even in minuscule ways. So that's just something I'm thinking about. And I hope that theme kind of comes across through the piece.
Molly: I am thinking about our conversation to start. We were going over some like values and wants and needs that we mapped out. And one of the, one of the things we talked about was simplicity. And I mentioned that it feels like a challenge for me to leave things simple. And then another challenge, or another thing that showed up today was that I love to lead with content.
And we were being challenged to lead with form. And then the content just like, it was already there once we put everything in order. So that was it was exciting to just like witness that unfold. And like an hour and a half
Yeah. I think one thing that's interesting about this piece, especially thinking of like what this past week has been in the news and just the hurricanes that have come through, the fires that are raging I think. This is the piece that feels like it's in the news the most. And so I'm wondering, like, how that might, on some level, be impacting the development of this consciously or otherwise.
And yes, the, the sticking to in the trauma-informed creative practice model, focusing on form before content. Which is intentional so that we can see the form for what it really is. And I think we can get very married to the content because that's the stuff that pulls at our heart. And that's probably the reason that we show up to these spaces.
And then it can also kind of like blur our vision with like what we're really trying to express and unpack and explore. So, cool. Thank you for diving into that challenge. And we're also in the part of the trauma informed creative community. practices, process where it is about like abundance and maximizing all the ideas next time we get to edit.
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