A Day's Work

A Day’s Work

I’ve been in a really intimate relationship with my food lately. Between my partner and I participating in Cedilo’s Fresh Produce Community Supported Agriculture program, and the large garden we’ve created in our backyard with a handful of neighbors and friends.  Most of what I eat is from the farm or the garden. When I’m sad or anxious, I go out and pick herbs for tea. When I want to relax in the twilight, I sit by the raspberry bush, and pet the cat while my partner relaxes near the tomatoes while the windchimes kinda plunkle in the quiet buzz of the city.

When The Syndicate opened up the possibility of completing A Day’s Work for them, it made sense to explore this intimacy more, and to encounter the intimacies people I care for have for their foods.  I wanted to maybe learn to cook a recipe or recipes, to practice sharing that kind of creative and storytelling in advance of a creative residency I had planned for the Month of August.  One month in Oaxaca with my creative partner Anna to create, cook, grow, heal, eat, and imagine. My friend Carolina suggested cooking rice; an Italian woman, she has a strong cultural relationship to rice, and offered to share her risotto recipes with me! That was a great idea.  Because I can think of several people I love who grew up eating rice for many meals and occasions, who could cook their rice without thinking, without measuring, just by sight, touch and heart.  What kind of memories do we associate with the rices of our ethnic histories, our childhoods, or cross-cultural encounters? How close are our ingredient lists, how far apart are our flavors? What do we remember of weathered hands in hot kitchens with canciones drifting out of la radio? 

For my Day’s Work, I cooked rice with friends in different places, from different places, and shared memories and musings with them as the sensory experience influenced our creative conversation. I wanted to teach someone the rice I always make, and be taught other methods.  I picked fresh ingredients from my garden, and set out to spend 8 hours on 5 different rices. 

They were, in order, 

Saffron Rissoto, via Carolina’s online cooking course Easy Medeterranean Cooking. 

Fried Rice, via whatsapp video chat with Earl T Kim

Mexican/Tejano Rice, via whatsapp video chat with Earl T Kim

Rice Pilaf, in person, with Sara Dickett

Garlic Fried Rice, in person, with Jonathan Kline

The rices used a lot of the same ingredients, sometimes with just one ingredient different, sometimes with a particular way of browning or heating the rice. Always fragrant as fuck, and delicious. 

True to my typical day’s work, there were meetings, obligations, commutes, and even a day between this rice and that.  So, 8 hours of Rice, but like many folks with careers like mine, there’s often a lot of details in the fabric. 

WED 28 JULY 21

5-7 AM, email admin for a longtime client

7-8 AM, Cermak for Jasmine Rice, a watermelon, veg broth, and some sundries

8-9 AM, I watched Carolina’s (at the time, un-released) EMC episode, learning about risotto, La Mondina, and texting her on Whatsapp (she was by the seaside). 

9-10 AM, cafecito, risotto with eggs, and a bit of rest and prep for the rest of the day

10-11 AM, work in the garden, then a shower. 

11:15-12:30, commute to Rivendell Theatre, where I am the new Associate Artistic Director

12:30-1:45, time with Rivendell’s summer interns, on their last day, to talk about how it went, their future plans, answer questions about my practice, or chicago, etc. 

1:45-3:00pm, commute back to the south side

3:00- 5:00pm, a whatsapp call with Earl, where I first taught him to make my rice, and then he taught me to make his.  An interesting term came up in this conversation, in regards to the experiences I had had thus far in the day, and how much intersection we had in our nostalgia for rice.  MotherRice. 

5:00-6:30pm, a rest

6:00-7:00pm. Rice Pilaf, with my partner, in our kitchen.  Pavy the Cat served as kitchen supervisor and chanteuse. 

Thurs 29 July 21

6:00-8:00pm, garlic Fried Rice with Jonathan, my upstairs neighbor. 

8:00-9:30pm, communal meal in the garden, joining many veg from our garden with tofu, and our garlic fried rice

CCTA International: Hive Workshop

My great friend and collaborator Jack Paterson and I are up to something this summer in London! For the second year in a row, I will join NoPassport Theatre Alliance in a global theatre action. Last year, I participated in After Orlando at Chicago's Pride Arts Center. The theatre action centered around the tragic massacre at Pulse Night Club, and was a powerful coming together of the theatre community in remembrance and activism.  This year, our theatre action will focus our artistic efforts around the subject of Climate Change. 

In the spirit our training, and a further desire to collaborate internationally, we invite you to join us either in person or virtually for our first international laboratory. This laboratory process will begin in London, August 2017.

At the conclusion of the London session, work generated will be utilized to inform a CCTA event in Chicago, Illinois, as well as anywhere in the world our collaborators may choose to participate in the movement. Read on for more information, and if you're interested in joining us please fill out the form at the bottom of this post! 

London: The first phase in an international CCTA collaboration led by Denise Yvette Serna and Jack Paterson.

Artists and Directors will join together in a laboratory setting to

• Workshop scripts from the CCTA Anthology

• Create archival record of entire pieces or elements of pieces

• Create and devise sensory elements that can be utilized by other artists at international CCTA events

• Examine the potential of International Collaborative Creation & Presentation through technology

• Explore the interaction between Technology and the Environment

Thought
If climate change is a global phenomenon affecting all without regard to region, race, or responsibility (though arguably, some regions of the world topographically suffer the effects more immediately than others), how can international collaboration bring relevance and dynamic conversation about the artist’s role in climate justice and civilian responsibility to the entirety of the population?

Action
Through creative use of technology to fuse international practice and aesthetic, our cohort will expand on the mission of No Passport and CCTA, creating a bridge between traditionally scripted and devised work inspired by climate change.

• If you will be in London in August and would like to participate, please let us know and we will keep you up to date as we secure workshop space

• If you will be in a different region, we invite you to do any of the following, and to also consider producing a CCTA in your region anytime between October 1 and November 18, 2017.

1. Choose elements of, or entire pieces from the anthology provided by The Arctic Cycle, and create a digital record of it.  This can be images, sound files, musical composition, video, record of devised movement or choreography, puppet templates, translation - anything that is created in support or inspired by a text. Dream big here - it can be as simple as an audio recording of someone reading the script, to orchestrations of music made with garbage to underscore a text. Truly anything.

2. Upload archival record of these elements in a drive to be shared by laboratory participants.

3. Coordinate a conference call style collaboration between your work and the workshop in London, where international actors can devise alongside one another.

4. Create archival footage of entire pieces that can be showcased at the Chicago production of CCTA, and/or livestreamed on HowlRoundTv.

5. Organize a CCTA event in your region, and utilize the workshop and laboratory archive we create to inform, inspire, bolster your work.

We hope to foster a healthy collaborative spirit with our international colleagues, alumni and current students of E15, and our communities.

Additionally:

We invite you to join the Climate Change Theatre Action, from wherever in the world you are currently based. Please visit their website to learn more, register your participation, and obtain access to the anthology of scripts.