Under the Tree: Christine Dehne & Lauren Jost

Residency and Performance


March 20- April 21, 2013


A Collaborative & Theatrical Workspace Residency


Artists Christine Dehne and Lauren Jost present an immersive video installation and theatrical performance. The collaboration will blend animation, puppetry, and performance in an intimate space created within the gallery. Visitors will touch, smell, and discover the secret world under the tree.


Artists in Residence: March 20- April 21, 2013
The artists will blog throughout the residency, showing the progress and development of the installation and performance. Visit the Residency Blog HERE.


Performance Dates:
Saturday April 13 & 20
, 10am, 11am, 3pm, 4pm
Sunday April 14 & 21
, 3pm, 4pm
Sundays open 1-5pm

See Clips of the first performances HERE.

Reserve your FREE tickets for the performances at
Gallery Talk with the Artists
Saturday, April 20, 5pm
Reception 6pm

Open Workshop Days:
Wed-Saturday, March 27- April 13, 10am-5pm

Hands-on puppetry & theatre workshops for adults, families, schools and community groups.


All events, performances, lectures and workshops are FREE!


Contact us for a visit, workshop or to reserve a seat at a performance.
Reservations required for performance dates. Seating is limited.


We are pleased that this project is also supported by an Arts Alive Project Grant. Arts Alive Project Grants are made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program (DEC), a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the NYS Legislature and administered by ArtsWestchester.


     


The project is also supported by Spellbound Theater, a Theater for the Very Young.



Under the Tree


A child runs away to make a home under the bush in her backyard. She is gone only 10 minutes, but in her mind the journey lasts months and the space she creates is a new land of mystery. We propose to utilize video installation and theatrical performance to transform the Miranda Arts Project Space into a place where time and space shift and the unexpected lies under every leaf. This project, "Under the Tree,” is a performance and video installation collaboration between theatre artist Lauren Jost and media artist Christine Dehne. They propose to create a live performance and gallery installation exploring the themes of home, running away, imaginary friends, and the universal urge to discover something magical in the mundane. 



This work will utilize physical theatre, puppetry, and projections to create a magical and liminal space, where branches become walls, dust specks become creatures, and imaginary friends come to life. Jost will craft the story and staging of this performance, while Dehne will develop the environment through projected media. The performers and projections will create an environment of illusion and impermanence. This performance will rely on visual storytelling, making it accessible for an audience of diverse ages and languages. The space will double as a video installation that the public can enter and interact with outside of performance times. This will incorporate footage of the performance itself, creating a space where time compresses and is continually reinvented.

Lauren Jost is an artist specializing in collaboratively devised theatre that blends abstract imagery with simple storytelling, with a strong visual aesthetic and multi-layered meaning that is appealing to audiences of all ages. 


Creating work that can exist in installation as well as in single channel screenings, Christine Dehne uses processes borrowed from mass media production to create her largely abstract, experimental pieces. Her work remakes a conventional reality into something mesmerizing, puzzled together from the recognizable and mundane.

Jost and Dehne have previously collaborated together on Spellbound Theatre’s “Wink.” The connecting point for these artists is their shared belief in the power of abstract storytelling for audiences of all ages and the desire to create imaginative, playful, and transformative spaces through performance and media.

Audience engagement is a key component of the proposed project. As parents and artists, Dehne and Jost are committed to creating work that is accessible to a wide audience. This project will be largely non-verbal and utilize visual storytelling to create a space that is open to interpretation by very young audiences as well as old, regardless of language and experience. We are thrilled with the opportunity presented by this residency to dream big and envision a collaboration that utilizes space, story, and environment in a facility designed to optimize each of these elements. 


To see more about the artists' work visit 


http://christinedehne.com/


http://laurenjost.com/