March 17th, 2023. New mission yoga. San Francisco. Pet the Tiger featuring music by David Samas, Dan Gottwald, and Kevin Corcoran. Movement by Andrew Rose, Dominique Nigro, and Annika Peabody. Live overhead projection lighting by Katarina Countiss.
The return to this show after a long pandemic time was very meaningful for me and other members on the team. It was also very interesting having some former collaborators drop away and new collaborators take to the stage. For me there’s something reassuring about the idea that it is unpredictable, changing, mutable. I think it’s accessible to new people to enjoy because of the huge element of improvisation, it feels like everything relates to the moment and to the feeling of taking a leap and flying. This iteration was interesting because it was in a yoga studio. The flooring was a bright blue soft mat and I think that might have encouraged different styles of movement. A different relationship to the floor.
For this, I have a lot of beautiful things that worked. On an administrative note it felt really nice to get paid in cash by the producer of the event And then be able to ask for change from the venue and immediately pay people the stipend that we had agreed to. I am usually one to do Venmo payments. Being contracted versus self-producing an event is a little different. There was some back and forth with logistics and working out some details about where the green room is, but I think all in all it was a successful event. And especially in the way that I define success in that the people working with me felt like they had what they needed to create their art. I wasn’t planning on doing a show like this so soon in the year and it felt really good to have a different timeline where I think we all pulled it off in terms of getting costumes and props and having a couple of rehearsals in our schedules.
I really do appreciate the invented instruments, the improvised music and movement and lighting all coming together. It always feels like a wholesome ritual. Someone said it felt like artistic prayer. I’m looking forward to finding another opportunity to do it again. It is a curiosity of how many times a year should this kind of show be produced? Would we do a variation?
I really appreciated the way that David communicated to the audience that we were starting at 9pm and ending at 9:45 no matter if the audience was seated. I really like determined time tables like this and I would like to make this my mode of operations. I love the feeling of being predictable and especially for a piece like this where if you miss the beginning, there’s no consequence to understanding the story. I like theatre that has no opening (or closing) statements actually. This is pretty rare. David thought there might be a curtain call or even a mention of the performers names, but the performers were in a different way.
I do think there’s a way to communicate that style of event production so we are all on the same page ahead of time and there were a couple of things like that that I overlooked. I was really proud of myself for anticipating covering the window with a scrim I sewed myself. It really helped feeling the coziness when a studio becomes a theatre.
Kismet Arts Tangent 