Snow

Sunday, November 2
Admission: free, $10 minimum
Showtime: 7pm
reservations are recommended

Written, directed and designed by John Jesurun
with: Valerie Charles. Music by Black Beetle and Rebecca Moore

A toxic American cocktail of death,desire,technology,and television. Jesurun’s four screen mixdown of the original 2000 performance launches four “characters” and twenty-two shifting POVs through the unforgiving eye of one virtual actor.

A presentation of an original four screen live edit of the 2000 piece. That audience experienced this work similarly on four screens. The secluded live performance was transmitted and edited live to four screens in the audience area. There were four live actors and one “virtual actor”- a computerized camera POV with attached character voice.

Snow is a hybrid of live performance and media. This work is a continuation of my exploration into the nature, content and impetus of languages including the spoken, electronic, visual and verbal. Intricate interrelationships seem to continually compound with the daily arrival of new technology. A real struggle between form and content from which emanate elaborate issues such as reproduction, privacy ,transfer,interpretation and ownership of content. It is a rich and confusing world of boundary-less communication brought about by the internet, satellite and microwave communication. Because of the human need for privacy these new ways of sending, receiving and intercepting information have expanded into new forms of encryption that stretch beyond government, laws or logic. These to me have a direct relation to our own internal human ways of interpreting, hiding and revealing layers of meaning.

Parts of my work have explored the idea of "points of view”-physical, verbal, emotional , spatial, intangible—as integral pieces of the perception of a reality. The human struggle to bring the outside to the inside and bring the inside to the outside is an ongoing process of detours, deceptions and discoveries in interpretation.There is a constant search for the relevant point of view. Early on, this interest led me to the use of the camera. For me it became not only an extension of curious eyes but a participant and presence in itself. Organic to a camera’s particular charisma was a dispassionate omnipresence, an ability to see things from any point of view and an apparent inability to lie. Added to this was a reluctance to get emotionally involved or reveal anything about itself while implicating whomever fell under its gaze. All the reverse can also be true depending on the camera’s operator and subject.

John Jesurun is a writer,director,designer living in New York. His presentations integrate elements of language, film,architectural space and media.His exploded narratives cover a wide range of themes and explore the relation of form to content.They challenge the experience of verbal, visual and intangible perceptions. His work is distinguished by his integrated creation of the text,direction,set and media design. 1976-79/Television Content Analyst for CBS.1979-82/Assistant to producer/ Dick Cavett Show producing shows on John and Mackenzie Phillips, John Hammond Sr., Odetta and Tito Puente. He began in 1982 at the Pyramid Club with his groundbreaking serial play CHANG IN A VOID MOON, now in its 60th episode. (Bessie Award). Since 1984 he has written,directed and designed over 30 pieces including: the media trilogy of DEEP SLEEP (1986 Obie), WHITE WATER and BLACK MARIA , NUMBER MINUS ONE, RED HOUSE, SHATTERHAND MASSACREE, EVERYTHING THAT RISES MUST CONVERGE, SLIGHT RETURN,FAUST/HOW I ROSE, SEPTET and SNOW. His company has toured extensively in Europe and the United States. His work has been produced and presented by numerous venues including La Mama, the Kitchen, the Walker Arts Center, On the Boards, Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Wexner Center, Prater Theater,National Theater of Mexico, Berliner Festspielhaus, Mickery Theater, Zagreb,Vienna Festivaland Spoleto USA. His short films have been shown at festivals and alternative spaces in Europe and the US. He is the recipient of numerous grants including the: Rockefeller, Guggenheim, NEA, Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, Asian Cultural Council and MacArthur Fellowships. He has worked with various artists including Molissa Fenley, Steve Buscemi,Christian Marclay, John Kelly, Hideo Kanze, Neil Greenberg, Rebecca Moore,David Cale, René Pollesch, Fiona Templeton, Frank Maya, Martin Acosta, Jeff Buckley, Barbez and Ron Vawter. His work is published by Performing Arts Journal,Theater Communications Group, Sun and Moon Press, Yale Theater Magazine Felix. Recent productions include: PHILOKTETES- Soho Rep.Direction/Design for Harry Partch’s opera DELUSION OF THE FURY,Japan Society, PHILOKTETES at LATC. Future projects include two separate collections of Jesurun’s work published by Performing Arts Journal and NoPassport Press. FIREFALL- DANCE THEATER WORKSHOP- NY Premiere FEB. 2009.