The Archeology of Whimsy [working title] is a multidisciplinary storytelling spectacle that explores cultural narratives and identity, ancestry, immigration, urban alienation, interconnectivity and synchronicity, the power of myth and imagination, the whimsicality of the mundane, and the alchemy through which the ordinary becomes extraordinary.
Here's what we know about the show:
❖ This show is highly interdisciplinary and experiments with narrative through the fusion of multiple art forms (film, spoken word, movement, etc.)
❖ Live music is integral to the storytelling. There will be Gypsy jazz, as well as found objects and original sculptures parading as instruments.
❖ The show features a large, diverse cast of characters (a Haitian cartographer, a Senegalese ethnomusicologist, a Moroccan sex therapist, etc.) whose idiosyncrasies border on the surreal and are at the root of their intersecting narratives.
❖ The piece takes place in New Orleans.
❖ A girl, orphaned at birth, yearns to know the truth about her origins. She manufactures elaborate stories about her ancestors, but her wistful indulgence in the possibilities of her past does little to ground her in her present. She seeks to discover the root of what causes people to identify someone as “other” rather than “brother". If everyone she encounters on the street could be related to her, how might she engage differently with the world? Her existential disorientation propels her to conduct a series of imaginative experiments in human connectivity, and the world transforms before her.
❖ This piece might feel like a sequel to Amélie directed by Wes Anderson written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez staged in Borges’ brain scored by Django Reinhardt with spoken word by Anaïs Nin. Or perhaps these are just cultural references to give you an idea of our tastes. (Except that Jamila doesn’t know who Wes Anderson is, so that might not be an accurate reference.)
Here's what we know about the show:
❖ This show is highly interdisciplinary and experiments with narrative through the fusion of multiple art forms (film, spoken word, movement, etc.)
❖ Live music is integral to the storytelling. There will be Gypsy jazz, as well as found objects and original sculptures parading as instruments.
❖ The show features a large, diverse cast of characters (a Haitian cartographer, a Senegalese ethnomusicologist, a Moroccan sex therapist, etc.) whose idiosyncrasies border on the surreal and are at the root of their intersecting narratives.
❖ The piece takes place in New Orleans.
❖ A girl, orphaned at birth, yearns to know the truth about her origins. She manufactures elaborate stories about her ancestors, but her wistful indulgence in the possibilities of her past does little to ground her in her present. She seeks to discover the root of what causes people to identify someone as “other” rather than “brother". If everyone she encounters on the street could be related to her, how might she engage differently with the world? Her existential disorientation propels her to conduct a series of imaginative experiments in human connectivity, and the world transforms before her.
❖ This piece might feel like a sequel to Amélie directed by Wes Anderson written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez staged in Borges’ brain scored by Django Reinhardt with spoken word by Anaïs Nin. Or perhaps these are just cultural references to give you an idea of our tastes. (Except that Jamila doesn’t know who Wes Anderson is, so that might not be an accurate reference.)