Alexandra Chasin & Zishan Ugurlu Fragments, Lists & Lacunae JAN 11, 730 PM Lacuna, pl. lacunae An absent part, especially in a book or other piece of writing [Cambridge English Dictionary] A small opening. A small pit or depression. Lapse (of memory). Blank (space). Blank (a space to be filled in). A small blank space. A gap or vacancy. A hiatus (gap in a series). Void. Hollow. Cavity. Cleft. Written by Alexandra Chasin Directed by Zishan Ugurlu Featuring Judith Butler with Hailey Marmolejo, Aigner Mizzelle and Jackie Rivera, Mithul Bajore, Ashton Garcia, Jakob Reed, Rainier Salas, Dakota Silvey Set Design by Maruti Evans Lighting Design by Nic Vincent Costume Design by Oana Botez Video and Projection Design by CultureHub Video Operator: Ivan Cabrera Sound Design by John Gasper Production Stage Manager, Hassan Negahdari Production Crew, Ari Grossman Dedicated to Zoa and Gray Runtime: 2 hours Credits: Grocery list from Grocerylists.org; Ringo, from The Beatles, Yellow Submarine; Billboard, “Hot 100”; Modern Library, “Best 100 Novels”; “Forbes 400,” January 2020; Genesis; The Iliad, Book 2; Words by Rod Argen, performed by Carlos Santana, “She’s Not There” ; If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho, Translated by Anne Carson; Her Absence
Filled the World, William Kentridge; Redaction Painting, Jenny Holzer; “To the Reader,” Jorie Graham; Homecoming, Harold Pinter; Student presentation on Chile, from Once Upon a Time: 571 Days of a Political Prisoner, Translated by Maria Paz Valenzuela Silva; Quotations from Neil DeGrasse Tyson; Temple of the Sun-Eyed Shield; Winter Count, Battiste Good; AID/I/SAPPEARANCE, Joan Retallack; AIDS Quilt; “Reaching Guantanamo,” Solmaz Sharif; “Ħe Sápa,” Layli Long Soldier; “Harper’s Index,” November 2006, January 2020; “Ancient Alphabets,” Zapista OU; Numbers from kids.britanica.com; Habitat fragmentation defined by Lenore Fahrig, 2003; “Starting from Paumanok,” Walt Whitman; “A Footnote to Howl,” Allen Ginsberg; “The Snow Man,” Wallace Stevens; Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, Toni Morrison; Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett; “4’33,” John Cage.
FUNDING The Live Feed creative residency program supports and nurtures the development of new work with residencies and commissions generated over two years. Lead support of Live Feed is generously provided by Partners for New Performance and Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
SPECIAL THANKS To La MaMa Theater, Mia Yoo, and Honey Drops. To Neil Greenberg, the chair of the Arts program. To Nora Wooley. To Diane Lefer, for early feedback. To Maddie Hartz, for her work, adapted as Quin’s monologue. To Maria Paz Valenzuela Silva, for her work, adapted as Noe’s monologue. To Jessica Case, Peter and Lucia Gill Case, Matthew and Suzanne Case and Richard Chasin, for their generous support, moral and otherwise. To every student who took Fragments, Lists, & Lacunae. To Janet Wong for her enthusiasm, determination, flexibility, and vision.
NOTES & READING FRAGMENTS, LISTS, & LACUNAE Syllabus This class looks into the spaces that structure words, thought, narrative, and text by studying genres, forms, and formats that foreground space itself. Fragments, lists and lacunae are some, among many, forms that suggest – visually, graphically, semantically (if implicitly) – loss, repression, taboo, incompleteness, seriality, interruption, dislocation, silence, grief, leveling, absence, desire, and/or more. They work through logics of argument, association, plot, temporality, and/or others. We will study a range of examples of texts that feature fragments, lists, and/or lacunae, in an inquiry into their functions, meanings, and possibilities. We will see how erased, unrepresented, disqualified, concealed, forgotten, unseen, dead, unborn, marginal, and spectral figures speak, and what they say or said – or don’t and didn’t. We will see how transitions can work when they don’t appear to be there. These forms will confront us with the inextricability of reading from writing, requiring acts of interpretation that are indistinguishable from generation. We will read into writing that shows, and/or knows, its own... unwritten. Cares of a Family Man by Franz Kafka, translated by Will and Edwin Muir Some say the word Odradek is of Slavonic origin, and try to account for it on that basis. Others again believe it to be of German origin, only influenced by Slavonic. The uncertainty of both interpretations allows one to assume with justice that neither is accurate, especially as neither of them provides an intelligent meaning of the word. No one, of course, would occupy himself with such studies if there were not a creature called Odradek. At first glance it looks like a flat starshaped spool for thread, and indeed it does seem to have thread wound upon it; to be sure, they are only old, broken-off bits of thread, knotted and tangled together, of the most varied sorts and colors. But it is not only a spool, for a small wooden crossbar sticks out of the middle of the star, and another small rod is joined to that at a right angle. By means of this latter rod on one side and one of the points of the star on the other, the whole thing can stand upright as if on two legs.
One is tempted to believe that the creature once had some sort of intelligible shape and is now only a broken-down remnant. Yet this does not seem to be the case; at least there is no sign of it; nowhere is there an unfinished or unbroken surface to suggest anything of the kind; the whole thing looks senseless enough, but in its own way perfectly finished. In any case, closer scrutiny is impossible, since Odradek is extraordinarily nimble and can never be laid hold of. He lurks by turns in the garret, the stairway, the lobbies, the entrance hall. Often for months on end he is not to be seen; then he has presumably moved into other houses; but he always comes faithfully back to our house again. Many a time when you go out of the door and he happens just to be leaning directly beneath you against the banisters you feel inclined to speak to him. Of course, you put no difficult questions to him, you treat him--he is so diminutive that you cannot help it--rather like a child. “Well, what’s your name?” you ask him. “Odradek,” he says. “And where do you live?” “No fixed abode,” he says and laughs; but it is only the kind of laughter that has no lungs behind it. It sounds rather like the rustling of fallen leaves. And that is usually the end of the conversation. Even these anwers are not always forthcoming; often he stays mute for a long time, as wooden as his appearance. I ask myself, to no purpose, what is likely to happen to him? Can he possibly die? Anything that dies has had some kind of aim in life, some kind of activity, which has worn out; but that does not apply to Odradek. Am I to suppose, then, that he will always be rolling down the stairs, with ends of thread trailing after him, right before the feet of my children, and my children’s children? He does no harm to anyone that one can see; but the idea that he is likely to survive me I find almost painful».
BIOGRAPHIES Alexandra Chasin (Playwright) Working at a juncture of cultural studies and experimental writing, Alexandra Chasin has written several books, including Selling Out: The Gay and Lesbian Movement Goes to Market, and most recently, Assassin of Youth: A Kaleidoscopic History of Harry J. Anslinger’s War on Drugs. Past recipient of fellowships from the Leon Levy Center for Biography at CUNY, and the New York Foundation for the Arts, Chasin is Associate Professor of Literary Studies at Lang College, The New School. She was Artistic Director of Writing On It All, 2013-17. In 2020, Chasin holds a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Zishan Ugurlu (Director) is a resident actress and director at La MaMa Theater and a member of the Great Jones Repertory Company. Zishan has worked extensively both in NewYork and abroad as a theater artist. Her next project will be Music Room about the prison system in the United States, featuring formerly incarcerated individuals. Her recent directing credits include: The Franca Rame Project by Dario Fo and Franca Rame, Agamemnon (in Greek) by Aeschylus, and She Talks to Beethoven by Adrienne Kennedy. She is the founding artistic director of Actors without Borders-ITONY.
She is an Associate Professor of the Theater Program at Lang College, The New School. Judith Butler (Professor) is the Maxine Elliot Professor of Comparative Literature and Critical Theory at the University of California at Berkeley. She is the author of several books on gender, sexuality, philosophy, literature, and politics. She is also active in social justice organizations and public intellectual debate. Hailey Marmolejo (Noë) is from South Texas. After receiving her BFA from St. Edward’s University in Austin, she moved to NYC to attend The Stella Adler Conservatory. She furthered her training with Paul Calderon (and is a member of his Theatre Co. Primitive Grace), as well as in comedy at The UCB Theatre. Her stage credits include: A City of Refuge, Vinegar Tom, Crimes of the Heart; and film credits include: Ice Breaker, Cat Fight, Vow. Aigner Mizzelle (Quin) is a graduate from NYU Tisch’s Playwrights Horizons Theater school with a BFA in Drama. She is a NJ/NYC based theatre and movement artist, teaching artist, activist, actor, writer, and choreographer. She recently assistant directed nicHi Douglas’
Where Love Lies Fallow in the Under The Radar Festival at The Public. Currently, she is excited to be taking on the role of Quin in Alexandra Chasin’s Fragments, Lists, and Lacunae.
Ashton Garcia (Student C) just graduated from the theater program in Eugene Lang College, The New School. He is currently working on a solo performance, “A Lesson on Transgender Health”.
Jackie Rivera (Wyler) is a nonbinary performer and theater maker based in Brooklyn. They are the Associate Artistic Director of Agile Rascal Bicycle Touring Theatre, and member of The Syndicate, queer and femmeled ensemble theater company based in NYC and Chicago. They are currently pursuing an MFA in Performance and Performance Studies at Pratt Institute. SITI Conservatory trained in Suzuki/ Viewpoints. BFA in Acting from New World School of the Arts/ University of Florida. #vanlife www. jackie-rivera.com
Rainier A. Salas (Student D) is currently at the New School studying theater. With a background in ballet, Rainier has worked on independent films, plays and the new adaptation of the film West Side Story directed by Steven Spielberg along with other projects like The Hunt, and Law and Order.
Jakob Reed (Student A) is a theatre/creative writing major at Lang college in the New School. Recent credits include; Tupolski in Pillowman, Antonio in 12th Night, Austin in True West, and Count Lande in Hoppla, We’re Alive. Dakota Silvey (Student B) is a playwright and stage manager. Credits: Peter and the Starcatcher(S.M.), The Importance of Being Earnest (P.A.), Bubble Boy (P.A.), Thoroughly Modern Millie (S.M), Hello, Dolly! (S.M.)
Mithul Bajore (Student E) was born in India. He then moved to New York City where he is currently at The New School, Eugene Lang College studying in the theater program. Maruti Evans (Set Designer) – Real Enemies (BAM, Epiphany (BAM), Else Where (BAM), Ogresse (Kennedy), Witness Uganda (ART), Alice VS Wonderland (ART), Mouth Wide Open (ART), Master and Margarita (Summer Scape), An Oresteia (Classic Stage Co), Crowns (Goodman Theater). Drama Desk Awards for Tiny Dynamite, and Pilo Family Circus. Drama Desk nominations: Peculiar Patriot, Kill Move Paradise, Deliverance, In the Heat of the Night, Slaughterhouse 5, and Blindness. Maruti is a lecturer in Design at YaleSchool of Drama and Purchase University.
Nic Vincent (Lighting Designer) is a New York based lighting designer from Toronto, Canada. Recent design credits include Hoppla! We’re Alive! (New School / La Mama) DirectorJam (Rattlestick), Cabaret, Big Love (Columbia University), NIGHTGOWNS (Sasha Velour / The Documentary Group), Ni Mi Madre (Rave Festival), El Huracán (Yale Repertory Theatre), NOVIOS: part one, Agreste / Drylands (Yale Cabaret), Black Boys Workshop (Buddies in Bad Times). He holds an M.F.A in Design from the Yale School of Drama. Oana Botez (Costume Design) US: BAM Next Wave, LCT3, Playwrights Horizons, Soho Rep, The Kitchen, PS122, The Joyce Theater, BRIC Arts Media, The Classic Stage Company, The Public Theater, Peak Performances( Montclair), The Wilma Theater (Philadelphia) Internationally: Bucharest National Theater (Romania), Old Vic ( London), Théâtre National de Chaillot (Paris), Les Subsistances (Lyon), Budapest National Theater, \ The International Festival of Contemporary Theater (Adana, Turkey), Le Quartz (Brest, France), La Filature (Mulhousse, France), Exit Festival /Maison des Arts Creteil (Paris, France). Ms. Botez is teaching at Yale School of Drama.
Culture Hub (Video and Projection Design) is an art and technology community founded by La MaMa and the Seoul Institute of the Arts to explore how the internet and digital technologies could foster a more sustainable model for international exchange and creativity. Now in its 10th year, CultureHub has grown into a global network with studios in New York, Los Angeles, Korea, Indonesia, and Italy, providing connected environments for artists to critically examine our evolving relationship to technology. John Gasper (Sound Design) is a soundman and theatermaker. He has made sounds and performed with Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble, Advanced Beginner Group, Elevator Repair Service, 7 Daughters of Eve Thtr. and Perf. Co., Saint Fortune, Bailey Williams & Sarah Blush, and many beloved others. His work has been seen and heard at The Bushwick Starr, Abrons Arts Center, La Mama, New York Theater Workshop Next Door, and more. MFA: PIMA @ Brooklyn College. realjohndwayne. bandcamp.com Ivan Cabrera (Live Video Operator) is a Dominican sound and video artist from Yonkers, NY. When he’s not working, he’s probably just crying over the transcendental soulfulness of D’Angelo’s voice.
Hassan Negahdari (Production Stage Manager) is a NY based stage manager who has worked both nationally and internationally. His focus is in new plays, musicals, and theatrical events. Ari Grossmann (Production Crew) is a Stage Manager, Actor and Dancer. She’s worked on several shows with The New School, Liars and Believers, and other NYC based independent artists.
LIVE ARTS CONTRIBUTORS New York Live Arts is deeply grateful to all the individuals listed below for their vital gifts to New York Live Arts over the last year: $500,000 and higher Anonymous Slobodan Randjelović & Jon Stryker
Deborah Ronnen Temple St. Clair & Paul Engler Billie Tsien & Tod Williams
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$1,000 - $4,999 Gerald Appelstein Robby Browne Charlotte & Charles Buchanan Jeannie Colbert Elizabeth Diller Philip Gallo Morton Glickman Michael & Deborah Goldberg Deborah Hellman & Derek Brown Judith and Steven Gluckstern Michael Keegan James Krents Kyung-Lim Lee Turrell & James A. Turrell Glenn Ligon Robert Longo Anna Maltby & Akshay Patil Tommy McCall & Victor Zonana Nancy Meyer & Marc Weiss Susan Micari Helen Mills & Gary Tannenbaum Pat Minard Thomas Nichols & Daniel Chadburn Anonymous Mark O’Donnell PR Consulting Inc. Rita Salzman Amy Schulman Cindy Sherman Catharine R. Stimpson Kristalina & Jack Taylor Kate Whitney & Franklin Thomas Bruce & Megumi Williams Timothy Wu &Eric Murphy
$50,000 - $99,999 Jane Bovingdon Semel & Terry Semel Zoe Eskin Eleanor Friedman Helen & Peter Haje Suzanne Karpas Alex Katz Foundation Barbara & Alan D. Marks Matthew Putman $25,000 - $49,999 Anonymous Patricia Blanchet David Dechman & Michele Mercure Adam Flatto Alexes Hazen James C. Hormel & Michael P. Nguyen In Loving Memory of Linda Grass Shapiro Charla Jones Lorraine Gallard & Richard H. Levy Amy Newman & Bud Shulman Diana Wege $10,000 - $24,999 Bloomberg Philanthropies The Brant Foundation, Inc. Claire Danes & Hugh Dancy Colleen Keegan Jonathan D. Lewis & Mark Zitelli Julie Orlando Pace Prints Phillips Andrea Rosen Alanna Rutherford Ruby Shang Nina & Gabe Stricker Pat Stryker $5,000 - $9,999 Zaire Baptiste & Voodo Fé Agnes Gund Bill T. Jones & Bjorn Amelan Jeffrey B. & Wendy Liszt
$500 - $999 Irene Barth Kathleen Chalfant Sheron Davis & Nat Lipstadt Maribeth Gainard & Hal Goltz Sharon Gerstel Jamie & Jeffrey Harris The Marshall Frankel Foundation Jan Paschal Gifts and commitments between 9/30/2019-9/30/20
Support is provided by the Alice Lawrence Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Arnhold Foundation, Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund, Con Edison, Dance/NYC, The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc., Ford Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, Humanities New York, Hyde & Watson Foundation, Jerome Robbins Foundation, Joseph & Joan Cullman Foundation, MAP Fund, Marta Heflin Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, National Performance Network, New England Foundation for the Arts, New Music USA, O’Donnell Green Music & Dance Foundation, Samuel Levy Foundation, Scherman Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Studio Institute, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, William Penn Foundation. New York Live Arts is supported by public funds from Humanities New York, National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with City Council with special thanks to Council Speaker Corey Johnson, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
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