Friday, September 14, 2012

Post Show, Heading South


Photos by Nikki Jauron
Sunday, August 19th was the first day in over five months that I rested from the creation of this latest performance work. Three performances had already gone by when I took my first few tentative steps back into the rest of the world.


I remember feeling as though I'd wandered into a crowded airport, clad in a drafty hospital gown. This project has consumed me like none other, and I think a new equilibrium is still some ways off.



So much has happened so quickly, and though the dust is still settling,  I'll share some of the highlights from the roller coaster of the past few weeks, and let you know what's next on the horizon for this project. 


The newest show, "1000 Cranes",  opened and ran for two weekends. We had interviews, press articles, sold out houses, standing ovations, and after each performance Tami and I held a talking circle for anyone who wanted to stay. I think Tami would agree that these talking circles felt like the true gift of the work. Strangers from all walks of life opened their hearts to one another night after night, holding profound and sacred space for speaking deep truths, taking turns both witnessing and being witnessed.


The connective effect of this work is hard to ignore, and one of my favorite moments came after closing night, when a small, exhausted group of our production team gathered in Out North's gallery space, and amid peals of unencumbered laughter, we folded cranes, ate spam musubi (thanks Flash!), and shared a champagne toast. Some smiles seem more real than others, and these were some of my favorites of the summer.  


Saturday, August 25th marked the end of the run, and in the shower Sunday morning, I had the following thought: "I think I want to turn this story into a book." An interviewer from First Alaskans Magazine (feature article coming in December) led me to a grant opportunity with the Alaska Humanities Forum, and I immediately began working on the application. Jo-Ann Mapson, prolific novelist and my fiction professor/advisor from my MFA days, has come on board as a mentor/editor for the new project. 

Today, Thursday, September 13, I am aboard a ferry bound for Juneau as part of my long journey "home" to the family farmstead in Oregon. I feel somewhat numb to the experience of leaving Alaska. 


I've re-read the words I wrote on the flight home from St. Michael when it felt as though I was "leaving my heart behind." This thought still rings true, although now I don't believe it is my heart itself that lingers, but rather an impression, a damp cast in warm soft sand, a groove where my heart has nestled and could again, should we ever come back this way. These spots, they're stored in my heart like the sense memories of really good hugs. 


Writing this I realize I've been doing this my whole life, unconsciously wielding my heart like a stamp on a busy tourist's passport. Today marks a true turning point, where I begin to retrace my steps, deepening a second journey with perspective, sweetening it with nostalgia, looking forward to once again pressing my heart into those same spots, wondering what will be unlocked. 

Show coverage: Anchorage Press


Fighting suicide, one fold of paper at a time

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Posted: Thursday, August 23, 2012 1:56 pm | Updated: 2:59 pm, Thu Aug 23, 2012.
Choreographer Leslie Kimiko Ward’s first performance piece may be one of the most intriguing philosophy seminars out there, full of origami lessons, seaweed kelp impersonations, powerful photographs and thought-provoking questions.
The story has resonated around the world: a dance teacher travels to a remote Alaskan village, witnesses a death that shakes the tight-knit community, encourages her class to make 1,000 paper cranes, which ultimately gives her students something peaceful to do and encourages the town to find joy in each other during a hard time.
The full-length script developed from Under 30, a projected hosted by the Out North Contemporary Art House, where artists can dabble in arts outside their genre. Ward is a choreographer, and while dancing plays a role here, most of its power comes from the interplay of a live camera, a large screen projecting her movements, and Ward’s acting.
Ward said she chose this arrangement because it seemed like the best fit for the message she wanted to convey about contemporary communication—namely, that it can be very difficult to feel connected to anything in the incessant and unstable images social media offers.   
“I gave myself great permission to use whatever medium made sense,” Ward said in an interview. “I didn’t want to censor myself. (The choice of medium) didn’t seem like reason to put in an arbitrary barrier to how to address the message.”
It quickly became clear that video blogging was the best way to tell about her stay in Saint Michael. It provided continuity, authenticity, and a surprising amount of humor for a story whose epicenter is death and suicide.    
Ward said she aims to serve the community and individuals rather than adhere to arbitrary standards of “good art.”
Most art nowadays claims some social function. Ward’s is perhaps rare in that the social function came first, then the art.
“Community is what inspired the idea in the first place,” Ward said.
Indeed Ward is a here and now person. She said her biggest inspirations are local artists because she can know them as people first, and then on another level as artists.  This includes Panwar, the band whose music accompanied the pictures and films during the performance.
Throughout the performance Ward encourages questions, like any good teacher, hoping the student (or audience member) can find the solutions to sort out their own life.
The play opens with Ward trying to check up on an anonymous caller. She tries to reach him or her through every technological medium possible—computer, phone, Facebook, texting. The person does not reply at the beginning or the end of the performance.  She eventually texts them “I’m here if you need me.” The performance has a ton of themes, but this—I’m here if you need me—Is Ward’s real message.
Ward has lived in Alaska 10 years, and each year, she said, someone she’s been close to has committed suicide. The project and the performance of 1,000 cranes is her effort to stop that trend from continuing. 

Front Page Coverage in the Anchorage Daily News


St. Michael tragedy fosters a new performance piece

'1,000 Cranes' opens Friday
Leslie Kimiko Ward holding the 1,000 origami cranes she and St. Michael children folded in four days.
Photo courtesy Leslie Kimiko Ward
Leslie Kimiko Ward holding the 1,000 origami cranes she and St. Michael children folded in four days.

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2012/08/16/2590884/st-michael-tragedy-fosters-a-new.html#storylink=cpy
By MIKE DUNHAM
Anchorage Daily News
In June of 2011, Anchorage dancer and choreographer Leslie Kimiko Ward worried that her two week artist residency at the school in the Western Alaska village of Saint Michael would be cut short. At the end of her first week in the village, a young man drowned in a lake near the school.
Shows set for Friday, Saturday
"1,000 CRANES" will be presented at 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday through Aug. 25 at Out North, 3800 DeBarr Road. Tickets are $25 at the door and atcentertix.net. Patrons can get a discount by folding an origami crane, posting a photo of it to Facebook and tagging it to Out North. 

More information is available online at: 1000 cranes for suicide prevention and facebook.
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Alaska State Troopers reported that 23-year-old Johnny Prince, of nearby Kotlik, tried to "skip" his snowmachine across the pond, but the machine stalled and sank. Prince had several relatives in St. Michael and was visiting family when the incident occurred.
Teachers told Ward that students might not come to school the next week. They shared their fears that the blow could trigger grief and depression that would cause a friend or family member to take his or her own life, possibly leading to a chain reaction of more suicides.
"I didn't know what to do with myself," Ward said in an interview. "But I decided to fold 1,000 origami cranes in the week I had left -- a gesture, I guess."
In Japan, the paper cranes are a symbol of peace and reconciliation -- not to mention a distraction. The crane is not a particularly easy form to make. It requires patience and concentration.
The kids did come back to school and some began making cranes with her.
"It had a good effect on the kids," said Alice Fitka, a behavioral health specialist with Norton Sound Health Corp., whose job duties include substance abuse assessment and counseling. "It really lifted their spirits to have something like that happen in the young man's memory."
Ward posted pictures on the Internet. Friends in Anchorage joined in and sent their own photos to the Saint Michael kids.

Suddenly, Ward said, "The story went viral. We had people sending us pictures of their cranes from Washington, Louisiana, Greece, Sweden, a whole Coast Guard unit in Georgia."
"It made it less painful for everyone," Fitka said. "Especially when they learned it had gone on the Internet, that other people were doing it too."
Ward and the students finished the 1,000 cranes in four days. They presented the finished pieces to the village in a performance.
Fitka remembered the presentation in the school gym with the 1,000 paper birds and a performance with the kids drumming on five gallon buckets.
"That part really amazed me," she said, "how in such a short period of time she had the kids making music with buckets wrapped with clear packing tape. And it sounded so beautiful. I think she really lifted up the community."
For Ward the cranes were a tangible way of overcoming the sense of isolation that can contribute to depression. "Suicide is the ultimate disconnect," she said. The project had the effect of connecting people from around the world with villagers in Saint Michael. Ward said a pivotal moment came when one of the students mused, "How do all these people know who we are? Why do they care about us?"
In January, Ward created a short piece in the "Under 30" show at Out North Contemporary Art House in Anchorage, working with storyteller Jack Dalton to present the crane experience as something like a legend.
The show came and went, but she mentioned it over coffee with Tami Lubitsh. Lubitsh, an Anchorage mental health clinician who has used theater as therapy with prisoners, was intrigued. She had worked as a theater director in Israel before moving to the United States. The two agreed to collaborate in turning the "Under 30" piece into a full-length performance work, which will debut at 8 p.m. Friday. at Out North.
The revised "1,000 Cranes" is about 90 minutes long, Lubitsh said. It includes dance, theater and video to drive home the message of connection.
"We have a lot of ways to connect on a superficial level," Lubitsh said. "But the deeper level is becoming neglected. We've lost something very profound."
Expanding the original performance piece has been "a pretty big process," Ward said, "and one that I stuck around in Alaska just to have."
Ward had planned to move to a farm in Oregon this summer before she joined forces with Lubitsh. "I sold everything I own, turned down all my summer work, got rid of my housing. I've been car camping and couch surfing, working only on this project. Maybe it will make some impact on the hemorrhage of smart, bright people in this state."
Alaska's suicide rate, 23 per 100,000, is double the national average according to the most recent annual report of the Alaska Statewide Suicide Prevention Council. In much of rural Alaska it borders on an epidemic. The suicide rate among Alaska Natives is reported to be 40.4 per 100,000. (The 100,000 basis is applied in the numbers that follow.) For non-Native Alaskans, the number is 17.7. Natives living in large towns or cities have a suicide rate not much different than the general population, 25.8. But in villages it's 60. Among Native males between the ages of 20 and 29, the number is a horrifying 155.3.
Ward said that for the past year, St. Michael has been suicide-free. Whether her cranes had anything to do with that is anyone's guess. But the people in the village still remember the event fondly.
"The kids were really proud of themselves and their contribution," Fitka said. "It taught them to be compassionate when we've had a loss, to be caring and supportive.
"It was a very positive thing for that lady to do that for the community."

Reach Mike Dunham at mdunham@adn.com or 257-4332.

Copy/paste for the original article on the Anchorage Daily News Website:
http://www.adn.com/2012/08/16/2590884/st-michael-tragedy-fosters-a-new.html

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2012/08/16/2590884/st-michael-tragedy-fosters-a-new.html#storylink=cpy