The newest performance of "1000 Cranes" opens in two weeks, (ack!) and I wanted to take this time to share some highlights from the creative process as we prepare to bring this work to the stage.*
To lay a foundation for the depth of this work, I should tell you that life in Alaska has been weighing heavily on me in recent years, partially because of the long stretches of cold and darkness, my tendencies towards overwork, and my noticeably thin (and sometimes absent) social support network.
While my experience in St. Michael was amazing, it was also very difficult, and I found it a continual challenge to adapt to my new role as a voice in the conversation about suicide prevention. Much like a dip in the salt-laden waters of the Dead Sea bring painfully to bear even the tiniest of scratches, my own loneliness became virtually impossible to suppress following the "1000 Cranes" event. I came home from St. Michael to a flurry of press interviews, where I tried my best to glow with the hope that the story inspired. Out of the public eye, however, I was extremely depressed, and growing increasingly resentful of the widening disconnect between my public and private personas. At the end of the summer, following another painful personal event, I realized that even if I managed to weather Alaska's physical climate, the emotional landscape was simply too treacherous for me to withstand. It was around this time that I traveled to Oregon to visit family, and check out my dad's new farm.
Forty acres of lush green countryside in the Willamette Valley, close to extended family, and only an hour outside of the eco-chic metropolis of Portland, it looked like a pastoral version of paradise, and I made the decision to spend one final year in Alaska and then head south to help out on the farm. The plan was for me to finish out my year teaching at the university, trade in my health insurance, my retirement benefits, pack up in June and drive down the AlCan, where I would spend the summer mending fences and bucking bales. To that end, I turned down all Alaskan summer employment offers, university or otherwise, confirmed with my landlord that I would be closing out my lease at the start of summer, and arranged to exit stage left and begin my new farming adventure.
Then came an offer to develop the story of "1000 Cranes" into a full length, one-woman show. Out North Contemporary Art Space championed the idea after my initial performance of the story, directed by Native Alaskan storyteller, Jack Dalton, which premiered in January at Out North's Under :30 series. They agreed to put the show on their calendar for mid-August and help find funding to keep me afloat, a gesture of faith that alone, still would not have been enough to delay my farm dreams. Enter Tami Lubitsh, theater director and clinical therapist from Tel Aviv, who met me at a coffee shop one afternoon and said "I want to make a safe space for you to let go. I don't know if anyone has done that for you here."
Sold. The farm would have to wait.
My last university paycheck arrived in May, the end of my lease arrived in June, and I held a garage sale to turn all my worldly possessions into cash for gas and food. I shoved what little was left into a tiny cargo trailer, moved the cat and I into our summer home, aka my jeep, and with Tami's guidance, began to write this show.
Serendipity, the kindness of friends (big thanks Flash, Daniel, Jill, and Anne), a grant from the Alaska State Council on the Arts, and in-kind donation from the YWCA, have all validated my faith in this decision, and Tami and I have been able to spend countless hours creating, editing and rehearsing this new work.
In a recent press release, I likened our creative process to that of climbing and belay, a tandem act of both risk and trust that goes a little something like this: Tami and I meet in the studio to rehearse a new section of the work. We inevitably get to a stuck spot andTami asks "why do you think that is?" then helps facilitate some epiphany about my own hang ups around connection or relationships or my childhood, etc. at which point I drive out into the wilderness, in the jeep, with the cat, for a day or two to process everything more deeply and revise the work, which sends me back to town to meet with Tami and try it all again. It's an incredible process, and one that is stretching me to reach beyond my own ideas of the limits of my creative potential.
To say "I'm proud of" the show we've created would be more than false, it would seem trite. This show is my heart onstage in its purest form, tumbled and polished, poured and distilled. It incorporates theater, movement, recorded and live capture video, real-time social media, and music by Alaskan supergroup Pamyua to harness the essence of what it means to reach out and connect. It's fitting that I couldn't have made a show about connection without experiencing one, and if Tami is to be trusted, (I'd vouch for her), her prediction: "if we can bring just ten percent of this process to the stage, we've made something truly amazing" just might ring true.
Come find out for yourself. "1000 Cranes" runs at Out North Aug. 17-18, 24-25 at 8pm. Tickets $25, available through Centertix. Pay-what-you-can preview will be 8pm Thurs. Aug 16. Sponsored by Out North, the Alaska State Council on the Arts and YWCA. Student discounts are available. Stay tuned to the facebook page "1000 Cranes for Alaska" to find out how you can pay it forward in your community and receive a special reduced rate.
Thank you to everyone who has become a part of this story, and I hope to see you in the audience in a couple of weeks.
*If you aren't already familiar with the story that launched this project, you can look to our first archived entry "Where this story began" and read along as our adventure unfolds, or check with the previous entry "1000 Cranes Recap and Update" to read the latest.
