Dios de Adrenalina – Indie GoGo Fundraiser!

We are planning on returning to Columbia in February to create our next cross-cultural acrobatic stilt collaboration with Nemcatacoa Teatro: “Dios de Adrenalina”, which will be presented at the Iberoamericano Festival in April. For this to happen, we need your help! Please, visit our Indie GoGo page, be one of our generous contributor and get one of our very special rewards!  Anything helps and all donations are tax deductable. Follow this link…  click here to support this project

Our Story

“Dios de Adrenalina” is a cross cultural collaboration street theater project featuring acrobatic stiltwalking and live music from two US American and two Colombian companies. The Carpetbag Brigade Physical Theater Company from San Francisco, CA and Nemcatacoa Teatro from Bogota, Colombia, each specialize in creating live site-flexible street performances featuring the unique art of acrobatic stiltwalking. Verbo Bala is a VJ/DJ/Spoken word collective from Tucson, AZ and Hojarascafrom Carmen de Viboral, Colombia is trio that composes contemporary music with traditional Andean instruments.

In 2010 Carpetbag Brigade Director Jay Ruby and Nemcatacoa Director Nico Cifuentes began to plan a collaboration between their two companies. In 2011 the two companies spent three weeks together exchanging techniques and styles and discussing the issues that connected and divided their cultures. In 2012 the companies are invited to present a collaborative performance at the Iberoamericano Festival in Bogota, Colombia. To assist in creating the musical texture of the live performance the companies have invited Verbo Bala to work as DJ’s and bilingual spoken word artists as well as Hojarasca to compose musical textures for the performance.

“Dios de Adrenalina” – A Poetic Thesis Of Trauma

Adrenaline is the source of the fight or flight response in humans. It is regulated by the adrenal glands and impacts the interpretation of our perceptions and thus influences our relationship to reality.  When the adrenal system creates a sense of trauma, we respond to reality in a traumatic manner.  In this way, the metabolic level of the body influences social relations between individuals and cultures.

Violence and drugs are some of the most common and potent causes of imbalances in the adrenal system, and they exist together in a perpetual shadow economy. The economy of weapons and narco-trafficking is a constant link between the USA and Colombia, and this commerce defines the relationship between the two countries. The adrenaline created by this business continually affects communities in both nations with devastating results.

Who is the god of adrenaline that fuels a path of mutual destruction?
What are the pathways to readjust this systemic overdose of adrenaline?
How do we address the continuing cycles of anger, trauma and ignorance?
These are the questions that underlie the Dios de la Adrenalina project.

The Carpetbag Brigade Physical Theater Company, directed by Jay Ruby (San Francisco, California) and Nemcatacoa Teatro, directed by Nicolas Cifuentes (Bogota, Colombia) are engaged in theatrical research around these themes. Together the companies use acrobatic stilt-walking, butoh dance, contact improvisation, and physical theater as a means of creating aesthetic, thought provoking street theater performances.

Verbo-bala (Tucson, Arizona) and Hojorasca (Carmen de Viborral, Colombia) are conducting the musical research for the project. Verbo-bala is a multi-media collective that will provide live music, video projections and bilingual spoken word narrative. Hojorasca is an experimental acoustic musical group evolving the art of traditional Andean music. The musical groups will each create their own scores and collaborate on mixed tracks for the project, as well as perform live with the performance.

Project Origins & History

The Carpetbag Brigade and Nemcatacoa saw each another’s work at the 2005 Al Aire Puro Festival in Bogota, Colombia.  In 2010, Jay Ruby and Nicolas Cifuentes worked together in The Carpetbag Brigade’s Stiltasana seminar in San Francisco, California.  During this time they recognized the common seeds in each other’s work—influences of David Clarkson’s Stalker Theatre, and the Odin Teatret.  Curiosity about the different aesthetics and trainings of their companies lead to a laboratory project proposal in which the companies would spend three weeks doing research together, sharing techniques of training, and composing creative material.  The companies were able to realize this laboratory in July and August of 2011 through self-raised funds on Kickstarter, the support of the US Embassy, the support of the El Gesto Noble Festival, Teatro Tespys, and La Casa de la Cultura del Carmen de Viboral.

Documentation of this process from Adam Cooper Terán, video specialist, is available at the following links and a DVD can be sent if you wish for hard copy.

Laboratory Week 1: http://vimeo.com/28726114
Laboratory Week 2: http://vimeo.com/28728181
Laboratory Week 3: http://vimeo.com/28744070

The Impact

We are examining the shadow economies of guns and drugs through the mediums of acrobatic stiltwalking, spoken word and music. We are confronting our selves as points of contact between the borders of different cultures and different histories to create a powerful experience that seeks to unveil the distance and distinctions between our countries and cultures. We want to create a tapestry of action that is a testimony to the impact of gun and drug induced adrenaline on the autonomic nervous system. We want to retrace the echoes of those collective and personal traumas in order to redress the ignorance and fear that exists as a wall between stereotyped images of one another and transform it into an atmosphere of respect and love through the sharing of public performance.

Our immediate goal for the winter of 2012 is to storyboard an early version of the performance so that we can present it at the Iberoamericano Festival in Bogota and use the success of that endeavor to create support and further opportunities for development and presentation.

What We Need & What You Get

Our Indie Go Go goal is $7777 by February 14th….
We will be 18 people working together in a small village in Colombia.
We are planning a cost effective research time from the beginning of February through the middle of March. To work as effectively as possible we need to raise $7777 by February 14th!
This money will go towards assisting in travel costs to get all of us to Carmen de Viborral, to  pay for our shelter while we are there together and to assist in our production costs for costumes and props.

Other Ways You Can Help

Please help let people know about this project by putting it on your facebook wall, but signing up for our mass emails and by checking out our informational videos.

Acrostilt Introductory Classes

DEC 6-7 & 13-14

Cell Space
2050 Bryant Street
San Francisco, California

Tuesdays and Wednesdays the first two weeks of December Jay Ruby from The Carpetbag Brigade will be conducting an introduction to acrostilting workshops.

We will explore floor work, partner work, descents and ascents as well as find time for improvisational play and dance. This workshop is designed as a way for people to become familiar with the introductory acrostilt vocabulary. It is geared towards expanding the circle of performers familiar with Carpetbag Brigade’s vocabulary for upcoming projects in the Bay Area and beyond.

You are welcome to come to any number of classes.

$22/class
$75/series
Stilt rental $13/class or $25/series

We will have stilts to rent if you do not have your own pair….if you do need to rent stilts please bring a pair of tennis shoes that we can drill through the bottom of to affix to the stilts.

To reserve please email info@carpetbagbrigade.com

Sleepless Night Festival

”Callings” presentation in Berkeley – FRI OCT 7

OPEN AIR PUBLIC PRESENTATION (suggested donations)
in San Pablo Park, Berkeley,
Fri Oct 7th, 4h30pm

Back from a 2 month tour in Colombia, The Carpetbag Brigade is getting ready to present its new performance “Calling” at the Sleepless Night Festival in Miami. Before we hit the road, we will be presenting our work to the Bay Area public and friends in San Pablo Park, in Berkeley.

 

“CALLINGS”

If the ocean was ill, what would she say and how would she say it? If a sailor survived a sirens song what would he say and how would he say it? What prompts us to believe in signs, omens, and signals? Are the patterns we perceive simply rhythm, form, and color or is the natural world revealing a higher order of existence, articulating an intelligence that calls out to us from within?

These are the questions that live inside “Callings”.

The Carpetbag Brigade in Colombia

From July 19-September 12, The Carpetbag Brigade will be touring a new performance work “Callings” in 6 different festivals all over Colombia as well as collaborating locally with Nemcatacoa teatro, a cutting-edge acrobatic stilts company, as the first step in a long journey of creating a cross-cultural performance collaboration. Thank you to the US Embassy and all our generous friends and supporters for helping us to realize an important cross cultural project in Colombia. We were able to raise $1830 with the help of 52 backers exceeding both our goals for backer numbers and amount raised.

A warm and very special thank you to : John Ruby, Aaron Moore, Susan Tiss, Duncan Godfrey, Michael Glavin, Melissa Calmes, Mark Greenfield, Molly Niffen, Phyllis Rodd, Elsie Ruby, Cathy Collins, Andy Lundberg, Eman Haram, John Ruiz, Laura Soemarko, Mark Valdez, Arizona Between Nosotros, Mizu Desierto, Anson Smith, John Good, Pamela Millar. Brihannala Morgan, Gaia Gray, J.C., Delisa Myles, Jason Gullo, Holly Bright, Brett Keyser, Moti Mark Zemelman, Michael Theodore, Paul Weir, Erin Leddy, Helen Flack, Shannon Vest, David Jacob, Faith Helma, Deni Kornbluh, Ashley Newton, Laura Astwood, Robynn Patrick, Ashley Foster, Sharada Filkow, Greg Glover, Andrew Potts. Rosie Morrison, Megan Buchanan Cherry, Wayne Sorlie, Jackie Goodrum, Kristen Greco, Liz Hayden, John Tannous, Paula Biasi. As well, a special thanks to Kathrine & Margaret Huskinf!