by Mimi
NW New Works, June 14-16, 2013, Mainstage Showcase
paul budraitis
when the curtains opened
i saw a double image
of a box sitting in water
an illusion
a moment later
& the box wasn't in water
it was just big
twice as high as i thought it was
that gave me a magnitude shift
so he was flying for me
he really was flying
he was a pilot
was it a cargo box?
was he remembering?
the plane is going to crash
i can tell from the recording
from the trees
you never hear cockpit recordings
when the flight is about a beautiful thing
only when it's going down
this is the last flight
then paul dropped into the box
the oversized pressed plywood box
on which he was sitting
from which he had a view
a front row view
of the world a cliff view
after that i got his...
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by Eric P
Second Weekend of the main stage NWNW and it's a full house of gleeful, performance hungry arts enthusiasts. A sardine tin of virtuosity and creative savoir-faire, the show’s already begun with palpable 'kid-in-a-candy-store' vibe bouncing around. Wade and I trade happy face with Dayna and Dave up in the peanut gallery. It's like ping-pong for tequila fueled semi-adults.
From out of the Clear Blue Sky Paul Butraitis delivers a gut punch of harrowing, life altering tale perched atop the mass of a chipboard box. The projection of a sputtering plane ride cut short as he descends…through the trap door up top into the box and down into our minds. His little candle theater now revealed on the outer surface as he paints for us the closed-in desperation and inevitability of death. A horror story rendered hideously intimate with a camp-fire retelling, claustrophobic in the darkened edges of small space...his expressive face coming closer then fading away....
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by Gabrielle
I was a little frazzled immediately after I agreed to blog about last night's performances, as an artist involved in the festival (I directed a piece in the Studio showcase, weekend 1) I thought it would be difficult to respond to the work of so many artists that I know closely and I understand the particular experience of showing your work in this particular context...but as it turns out I really want/need to talk about it.
Paul Budraitis- Clear Blue Sky: Paul, as an individual, has an uncompromising energy and I knew before seeing the show that no matter what story he told he would bring that same fire to the stage. The major design components of this piece (projection the width of the stage and a large, wooden, illuminated cube which appeared transparent via live-feed projection of the action inside the cube on the cube's outer surface) magnified the solo performer's face and gestures, at once isolating and exposing each expression. Paul told a compilation...
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by Nikolai
if u place everything u c outside of yourself (in order to evaluate/normatize it perhaps) there will be nothing left inside to hold you together. senses, means, and ends. something important could happen between us if we can release the binds of convention and allow each other to stand in unabashed truth. a social compact for the arts?
harp song for a radical. an earnest attempt at a call to free thinking runs amok between the lines of engagement. the straw man suffers through every rearrangement of the straw inside. wrangled by the dinosaur of establishment (whose lyrical order cascades in wonder ever-more), a young man wades amidst anger using words as makeshift flotation devices. sometimes, the beast of burden is the most living and loving of creatures. yokes. shackles. wires binding us in freedom of expression. the song was/is real, somehow.
omega is less than one.
to build a bench is a public service.
in a contest between poetry vs. formula,...
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by Amy-Ellen
Amy-Ellen Flatchestedmama Trefsger vlogs about the NW New Works Festival after having slept on it.
Amy-Ellen's vlog about the Mainstage
Amy-Ellen's vlog about the Studio
Be sure to check the description boxes on each video, Amy-Ellen wrote a little about all of the works there.
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by Evan T
People who are not afraid of dirt,
a man and woman, always moving,
come together to explain the universe.
"We all know it is expanding,"
and "we all know it is contracting."
Some say these ideas are singular--cannot combine.
But these ideas, they must combine!
They must roll their sleeves and dig up dirt,
their time has come to plant some seed, contracting
gardner's thumbs, ready to start moving
down the road to start expanding
their theoretic garden grove. She can open his eyes to a green-colored universe.
After contemplation, he tells her that his universe
with hers it can combine.
They till the ground, and now expanding
life springs green up from the dirt!
They watch this little life moving,
grinning toward the sun before the evening goes contracting.
She tends to trust in cycles. What spirals toward contracting,...
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by Jessica
Traffic and parking around OtB and Lower Queen Anne is tricky this weekend with both Mercer Street closures and many graduations at Key Arena. If you are coming to the NW New Works Festival please allow yourself plenty of extra time if driving to the theater or plan for alternative modes of transportation.
Good luck!
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by Amy-Ellen
Amy-Ellen Flatchestedmama Trefsger vlogs about the NWNW Festival Weekend 1 after having slept on it.
This video is about the Studio Showcase, Weekend 1
This video is about the Mainstage Showcase, Weekend 1
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