HOLY MOUNTAIN, STARMAN!
immersive theatre w/ Case Sheppard
at Art in Wanderland as Cultural Partner
Curated by Bernard Leibov and Kóan Jeff Baysa MD
UPCOMING: Nov 9
Considering this year’s theme REGENERATION: Desert Futures, we propose creating a 45minute-1hour immersive 2-person performance similar to the shadow puppet performance for Joshua Treenial 2023. This year’s theme will concentrate on slower transitions to encourage transformational suggestions - a spiritual tour using the night sky stars to tour our universe with our desert as homebase.
Case has been studying at Naropa University in Boulder, CO for over the past year with a focus dedicated to eco-spirituality. We plan to use her experiences, specifically a practice created by Naropa founder Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche called Maitri Space Awareness. This is a creative practice of observing the energies of the five buddha families within color, space, and loving kindness.
Additional inspiration, similarly connected, comes from a portion of Alejandro Jadorowsky’s 1973 film The Holy Mountain in which colors and planets are separated into various elemental personifications pushing for control and immortality. Aaron will similarly begin to document his own personal journeys to locations within the Joshua Tree National Park.
Case and Aaron’s pilgrimages are to converge in Joshua Tree for this experience in November as a journey from the future back into the present as a chimerical Sacristy (ritual reconnecting nature, gender and human into one-of-many, many-of-one).
The desert is traditionally seen as brown sand under a bright white sky. As all of us desert dwellers know, a much wider variety of color exists both above and below. Using amplified light projections, video and sound, we will transform space (whether that refers to indoor space or outdoor space overhead) by applying a loose abstract narrative suggesting journeys through life, space and time.
Joshua Tree has a strong history of providing transformation through a connection with the area’s energies. We hope to provide a vision of the desert’s/galaxy’s future when today’s distractions of military action, colonialization, domination over various selves (including nature and humans as separate entities), cars, buildings and bodily shells were simply silly physical realities of a distant mythology.
"Goodbye to the Holy Mountain. Real life awaits us."