Download: EPK – Callings
Where do we look when our eyes are closed?
What words do we hear when no one is speaking?
Can we parch out thirst with this salt-coated cocktail of whispers, warnings and invocations conjured by the watery wrists of ceaselessly undulating waves?
If the ocean were ill, how would she weep?
If clouds were cryptographs, could we understand the symptoms?
If a sailor survived a siren’s song, could we catch the words falling from the saline tongue?
“The true magic of this performance was not in the acrobatics or feats of strength and movement. It was in the beautiful building of tension and anticipation that the performers were actively whipping up in their audience. “Mesmerizing” is the word that comes to mind, but that would be a crime of understatement.”
- John Tannous, Flagstaff Live
“Callings” derives its inspiration from these questions and is a poetic homage to the sirens of the sea and the secret intentions of the voices that captivate and haunt us. Created by The Carpetbag Brigade in 2011 and drawing on the The Carpetbag Brigade’s unique physical theater vocabulary of acrobatic stiltwalking, butoh dance and contact improvisation this unique site-flexible performance is equally at home in proscenium theaters, soccer fields, parking lots and black boxes. In the delicate overlap of circus, dance and theater “Callings” weds the grace of modern dance with the raw intensity of physical theater in the spectacle-based format of acrobatic stilts. Images and issues of climate change evoke a shifting undertone of change in a performance that transcends demographic prejudices and remains accessible while maintaining an intimate sense of mystery and tension. “Callings” examines our superstitious nature of creating meaning and asks us to listen to the world we imbue with the supernatural.
View “Callings” full length footage from New Orleans Fringe Festival 2012
“Callings” trailer
