THE EXPONENTIAL FESTIVAL

This is a fake scientific experiment about the relationship between hoarders and airplanes. This is the nostalgizing and repurposing of memories to avoid misanthropy. This is immersive fan-fiction about the trips our parents went on. Don’t worry, snacks will be provided. Avanti popolo!

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With Leonie Bell and Andrew Murdock

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We are on a questionable Easyjet trip to Rome: fact skirts around fiction as Leonie hands out snacks, looks for her seat repeatedly, and proclaims stories about her parents that may or may not have been embellished - motorcycles, emotional hoarding, and Italian socialist lullabies included. This is a live-media attempt to locate ourselves through history we weren’t there for. This is a communal pilgrimage to document that we are here  together no matter how far apart we are. This is a trans-atlantic processional-protest advocating memories as lineages. Maybe we’ll call Mama and Papa in Berlin at 1 AM to ask about 1984. Maybe we’ll do a dance together on a Roman bus instead. Man weiß es nicht till it happens. 

 

* This piece was developed with the support of the Founder’s Artist-in-Residency Program at the Jonah Bokaer Arts Foundation

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MORE INFORMATION:

Leonie Bell is a German-American theater-maker based in Brooklyn. She creates bilingual, highly physical performances and rituals including fake family parties, mass lullabies, pseudo-historical excursions, and other theatrical tantrums that endow the audience with more creative powers and foster a momentary feeling of belonging amongst strangers. Leonie’s artistic practice involves an irreverent reverence for the irrational and a relentless desire for community. In NYC, she has performed at BAM, the Met Breuer, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Performance Space NY, Mabou Mines, BAX, Cloud City, Under St. Marks Theater, Dixon Place, The Brick, Center for Performance Research, and other venues. She is a recent participant of the Mabou Mines Resident-Artist-Program 2019, BAX Upstart Program 2018-2019, and The Midwives Term 2018-2019. (BA from Bard College; MFA in Theatre from Sarah Lawrence College.) For more info on upcoming antics, run slow-motion to www.leoniebell.org

 

Andrew Murdock is a designer, director and performer. His works often integrates puppetry, video and physical theatre. He received an MFA in Theatre at Sarah Lawrence College and a BFA from RISD. He has worked with Dan Hurlin, David Neumann, Phantom Limb, Basil Twist and Bread and Puppet Theater. Recent credits include: Scenic Design for Food for the Gods (La MaMa NYC), Puppet Design for In the Woods Where the Men Work (Hudson Guild Theater NYC, Prague Fringe CZ) and Director and Conceiver of Shoot, Don’t Talk (Puppet Lab 2019, St Ann’s Warehouse NYC). www.AndrewMurdock.com