The . Hours . Festivals

**Special note: Sarah Foster chose to be both a writer AND a collaborator, so it made sense to layer these collaborations together as follows:

Megan Grumbling, writer + Sarah Foster, collaborator (dancer)
​Sarah Foster, writer + Simon Bjarning, collaborator (musician)

Starlight: A Choreographic Soliloquy


The essence of the dance is mint.

The dancer enters, on finger-points, from above the trailer.

A cool, shivery touch. Optimism and goosebump. Innuendo.

The dancer’s fingers ever so lightly graze the surfaces – trailer, broken chair, rocking horse. A quivering bourée downstage.

Peppermint, wintergreen. Starlight. Stella. Stella! 

The dancer gives a quivering shake.

A beautiful, scintillating shudder. Like jazz hands. Like Pentecostalists seized with God. 
The shuddering is meant to express mint. The flash of her hands, palms open, Starlight. 
The sudden stoic whites of her eyes. Highway and Canyon. Her character lives in the trailer, waters the stones, checks the mail, paints peppermint stripes on the yard’s breakages and ends. Horizon.

Her stoic whites of eyes, of course, are off-stage. The meta-proscenium. But it’s a distinction without a difference. Highway and Canyon.

Off-stage, above the proscenium, the dancer widens her eyes. Horizon. Winks.

That wink is not in the choreography. And yet it is true to the spirit. Mint. Optimism, innuendo, Highway. She is a good dancer. She can improvise.

The dancer delicately spider-crawls up the trailer wall.

And though the dancer has her choreography, the rules are loose. She has choice in her fingers. Even in her eyes. I've written it in, her choice. She can elect to wink. She is not a tiny dancer. She is quite tall, actually. Her hands in the yard. As tall as the trailer. When she reaches down into the yard, it is not like the hand of god; it is better: the hand of a dancer. 

The dancer improvises, with one finger, against the rocking horse.  

She does not ride the horse but rocks it. One finger. It conjures a certain kind of cowboy, a certain kind of yeoman farmer. Bootstraps, Fruited Plain.

This choreographic theme is called Hope:

The dancer stands two fingers on the chair and raises her pinkie and thumb.

The dance is all about conjuring. Discovery. Optimism. See, how she checks the mailbox.

With one finger, the dancer taps the mailbox, three times.

Three times, like a knock.

From her palm, magician-like, appears a small stone. She puts it with several others on the ground.

She is building a wall with the stones. A sort of wall, anyway. Really she just waters them.

But now it is tomorrow, and something changes in the dance: Today, no stone will come in the mail.

The dancer taps the mailbox, reveals an empty flash of palm.

Not a pebble, not even gravel. And the next day.

Taps, flash-of-palm, empty. Beat. Again.

Not even sand. Nothing to put in the wall. Nothing to water. Every day until now there's been a stone come in the mailbox.

And so is it a kind of a political show I have choreographed, a political dance?  How the stones keep arriving until they don't? The wall that is sort of a wall? How only one dancer can ride the rocking horse at a time, and even then, only with one finger?

Both the stones and the dance seem so much smaller onstage. And bigger. The grandeur, the squalor.

I’ve written dances for a lot of shows – music boxes, grange halls, but this one I can't quite get a handle on. Comedy or tragedy? You can't tell from the music; such a pastiche.

Maybe it's not really a political dance at all. Maybe it's all about the body. The body in space.  
 
The dancer traces a finger up the stage-right wall, then leaps her palm to the far wall, clearing the horse.

She dances it well, with abandon, minty ecstasy. Starlight Optimism. It's not easy. The syncopation, the compartmentalization. But it's beautiful, too, and when she hits it just right – the leap, clearing the horse, the gas tank, the grandeur, the squalor – stones or none, well, it just must feel so good in your body to pull off that kind of leap. 
 
And this set she’s leaping over, the setting of the dance.

This trailer, that is. A trailer, wintergreen green.
A symbol? A screen? A scrim?  
Perhaps the dancer herself is uncertain.
Is the trailer a grotesque or an idol? Perhaps it is Schroedinger's trailer: Until you open it up, it is both. 

This choreographic theme is called Cognitive Dissonance.

She moves on a line. On a point. Spins.

Is she an electron? An angel? 

You can see from the candor of her dance that the dancer doesn't want to condescend to the trailer. She doesn't want to be precious. She doesn't want to use fairy dust. Everyone involved in the dance has had to contend with the problem of representation of the trailer.  
 
Is it a symbol? A scrim? A jack-in-the-box?
The secret passage? A pasteboard mask? 


At some point, someone is going to have to knock on its door.

The place I live, it's small too. Doesn't everyone live in a small place? It's called a body. 

A Body, this choreographic theme is called.

The dancer moves at a slow 3. In a wave.

This one, Society.

She moves at a 6. In a writhe.

This one, Grief.  

She moves at a 1. Limp.

Her character has heard that the stones are really pebbles.  
That the stones are only gravel. 
That the stones are sand. 

Will the stones come again?

The dancer holds her fingers poised near the mailbox, waiting for the next bit.


I'm not sure I remember this next bit.

The dancer starts to tap the mailbox, but hovers. Gives a quivering shake. Grazes the surfaces of trailer, broken chair, rocking horse.

I have choreographed her movements. But she must dance them. Her fingers, her hands. Her lips, brows, eyes, high above the proscenium. The moon of the dance, so to speak. The stars. A kind of Starlight. A most beautiful light. Horizon. Even when it is only on a stage, only a dance.

This whole show, truth be told, is more than a little hypothetical. A work in progress. Let's call it an experiment. Horizon. She widens her eyes. Tingling with spin, gravel, and mint. Optimism Like jazz hands seized. An unpredictable experiment.  A knock on the door. But maybe, possibly, a great one. 



by Megan Grumbling

Reader: Douglas Milliken
Dancer: Sarah Foster

Original music, "Ours" by Simon Bjarning
in response to:

Maybe I should just sit here.  Maybe I should just wait for it to happen. I stop jumping. I mutter under my breath words I wouldn’t say in front of my mother. My not-so-carefully chosen clothing barely covers my thighs.  I become acutely aware of a sticky film of sweat underneath my knees.  

Water starts to drizzle through, under the edge of the window grate. The overhead florescent lights flicker and make an intermittent buzzing noise. Like the sound of distant cicadas on a dewy night, somewhere in the South where the trees are bigger than they should be, with low hanging arms covered in lace. My arms feel heavy. I’m too lazy to hold them up.

Maybe if I had done it differently. More determined - or from a different angle.  This would have gone by faster. If wall clocks were still a thing, I’d watch the passing of the seconds. Every new moment eats up the past. Like a sewing needle poking through tough fabric, over and over again. Poke. Poke. Tick. Tock. But I don’t have a clock, just a ventilation pipe. My jaw tenses.

I plunge my weight into the chair and push it to the corner. The back fell off months ago.  That’s one of the reasons why I did what I did and why I’m doing what I’m doing.  Too many broken things here. I tried to repair this sad little chair the way I repair everything - with candy cane striped tape and a good pun. I have many years of experience with inanimate objects - and the one thing that I know for sure is that they appreciate levity.

Then I remember Pone, my beloved rocking horse. He sways reluctantly in the corner. His mechanical black eyes speak of many lives lived and his rusty joints squeal of abuse. I know he wants to know why we’re sinking.  Why I allowed a perfectly fine mint and white motorhome to slide into my neighbor’s lake. Why I avoided Charlie and Yvette’s dinner invitations. Why I stole so many wrenches from the local hardware store. Why despite the tape, and the wrenches, and the jokes, and the fake repairs, we are still sinking.

But it’s too soon to explain anything to anyone, especially a rocking horse. For all I know, we will be floating here forever in an endless circular river. I tell him, in my most caring voice, “don’t spell part backwards, Pone. It's a trap.” That’s one of his favorites.  His laughter echoes against the outer walls, waves striking a tin roof.

I read once, in a very smart-seeming book, that you can control your emotions by controlling your face.  If I hosted a dinner party, that’s what I would talk about to entertain my guests. Then I’d make everyone at the table experiment with it. I’d tell everyone to make angry faces, and Charlie and Yvette’s brother would start screaming at each other.  I’d tell everyone to make frowny sad faces, and Joelle would sink into her chair, watery-eyed. I’d order a chorus of hyena laughs and we’d all be best friends forever.  I smile at the thought. I smile hard. And not just with my lips, but with my chin, and my eyes, and my teeth. Especially my teeth.

To match my body to my face, I take a wrench in one hand and walk around the perimeter of the room, slapping my bare feet on the linoleum and lifting my knees high like a soldier. A joyous dance to match a joyous face. I bang the wrench on the hot water tank and I spin and hop and spin and hop. I shimmy left  - I shimmy right.  Joy boils in my flesh.

Then the floor drops below me. The walls moan around me.

I crouch down and back up against the wall. I drop the wrench. I insert my index fingers into the creases of my knees. I find comfort in the slick proximity of skin on skin. The small window by the ceiling has darkened. Water seeps in along the upper edges. A pool of liquid creeps up from the lowest part of the floor. I hear it coming.

I wait. And smile.


​by Sarah Foster

BONUS! Sarah also brought a version of her writing with a short set of instructions for a willing volunteer to improv a short piece. Rhonda Morton (also a writer) volunteered:

Zoo

I feel so small.  Like a monkey in a cage.  Like some extinct creature in a museum diorama.  A passenger pigeon, a dodo, maybe a little sea mink cowering in a corner next to an extinct fern.  I could make friends with that chubby pupfish over there.  Or eat him.

But I’m not.  I’m human.  At least the last time I looked.  A human woman.

This brief clearing in the woods was a discovery.  A tin shelter.  Whom it belongs to I’ve no idea, there is no lock.  When the bright light comes I quickly evacuate, to hide myself, usually in the river, underwater.  I can swim a long way on one breath.  What I’ll do come winter I have no idea.  I am braiding a rope from found remnants.  When it is long enough, I plan to attach it high in a tree notch so that I might pull myself up in the foliage, hauling my rope up after me.  Yes, in winter a thick conifer.  Perhaps.

When they leave again there is often something edible left behind.  I don’t know if this is their carelessness, or if it is meant for me.  It is difficult to surmise motives.  When, if, I consume this—well, of course I do—I leave any remnant clawed, any bit of tin crushed, as if it was one of my near neighbors who devoured it.  Scattered by wolves, bears, foxes, raccoons; those coyote, my vigilant friends.

As I have no clothing I appreciate the offerings of these familiars.  A scrap of rabbit fur, the discovered remains of a ravaged deer.  If they had meant me no harm, you would think they would not have left me naked.  Soon my hair will grow longer, long enough to afford me warmth, protection.

Often now, I have moved on.  Searching for the way free.  I follow the river, or deer paths that might lead to the edge, but the woodland only thickens.  The bright light comes no matter where, both here and there.  Sometimes I just circle back to the tin house.  Perhaps they are still searching for me.  I vow to not be found.


​by Karen Alpha

painting by Edd Tokarz Harnas

Portrait Thought to be of a Young Man as Hermes, God of Travelers, 21st century, color photo, American, Harnas School of American Photography, 2017.

Soft lighting, enigmatic smile, long flowing hair emulates the contours of the figure; the shallow stage lends immediacy to view the beguiling figure.

Photo of a Scene Thought to be Hermes’ Diary Room, still life diorama, American, Harnas School of American Crafts, 2017.

Obscure lighting falls on a scrim shaped like the side of a camper and plays with the light and shadow over the objects of natural gas tank, oilcan, bench, and recliner. Hermes was known to travel around the globe in a camper, writing notes in a diary of his expeditions. Set in a shallow stage, viewers have immediate access to Hermes’ favorite writing lair.


​by Kathrine Page

Ritual, felted stones, and traveling journal by Shannah Rabado Warwick

Hi, Aaron.

    I’m sitting in our tent right now, camped outside of Devil’s Backbone Brewery in Virginia. They let hikers set up in the woods near their...well, I guess it’s a campus really. They have this huge brewpub and an outdoor stage with outdoor bars, small stone bonfires, and cornhole and horseshoe sets. There’s a “Royal Flush” pinball machine like the one you used to play at Mountain Fire Pizza, before they got rid of it..

After the past few days of hiking it was such a huge relief to hitchhike down here. There’s no shower, but I did give myself a towel bath in one of their outdoor bathrooms. The beer was great and I’ve never eaten fries so fast in my life. Some of my trail friends are camped around me. We wandered back here with our headlamps, fairly drunk (or at least tipsy), and crawled into our tents. One of them, See-More, just sleeps under his rain fly--he doesn’t even use the tent itself. I couldn’t do that. The thought of ants and frogs and stuff crawling on me at night gives me the creeps.
I was long overdue in writing this. To tell you the truth, I have been so busy hiking North that I’ve rarely thought about you. That’s one of two things I hoped might happen with this trip; I would either obsess over you, or I would “forget” you. Of course I can’t forget you. It’s been over a year. There was a long time where I cried myself to sleep every night in our apartment. I don’t really know when that stopped. Months. Judy and Amos finally talked me into seeing a therapist. I know you aren’t haunting me, but I have been haunting myself. I felt like a ghost in our apartment. Around our friends. Around town. I clinged onto every scrap of you that remained. I miss your dark hair and how you would smile more with your eyes than your mouth. I always wanted to know what you were thinking--what was going on behind that hint of a smirk.
    I did leave my customer service job. That’s good, right? You hated how much I hated that job. I’ve been making ends meet by substitute teaching, dog walking/sitting, and a lot of freelance work. None of it pays particularly well by itself, but together it’s not a bad living and I rarely have time to be bored. What am I saying; “have?” Had. I guess I got ahead of myself. I’m on the Appalachian Trail right now! It just felt like the right time to do it, you know? We always wanted to go and I’m not chained down to my work, so. I thanked the landlord and broke the lease. Used our, well, mostly my at this point, savings to buy gear. Did the research. Talked to Cara about it. Your sister has been so supportive in general. She gave me her maps, loaned me her stove, and some other things that didn’t get trashed during her hike. I haven’t really used the maps because everybody out here uses this phone app called Guthook’s, but I still carry them anyway. I like to pretend they’re a protective totem or juju or something.

    Every single day out here is beautiful. Hard, but beautiful. Each step feels like a small triumph, in a way, and it seems like the most successful hikers (or, at least, the ones most likely to complete the trail) have the mantra that; “There’s one way out of this, and that’s to finish. One foot in front of the other, keep walking north.” I’ve relied on that, and them, a lot. We all have trail names at this point, if we’re going to. There’s See-More, of course, which is a play on his name (Seymore) and the fact that he frequently struts through camp in his underwear. I have become pretty close friends with Way. She carries a copy of the Tao Te Ching and talks about this trail being her Way, and “infinite mysteries this” and “unknowing that.” You would have gotten a kick out of her, if her woo-woo talk didn’t annoy you too much. Camped across from me are Ted and Young Ted. They’re brothers. The older one’s name is Ted, and I don’t actually know Young Ted’s name but somebody called him that and it stuck. I cheated and gave myself a trail name. It’s not really a big deal if you give yourself one, but I didn’t like a lot of the names people were suggesting for me. I thought a lot about it through the Smoky Mountains and decided it should be Hummingbird. I hum, you liked when they’d migrate through our backyard, I don’t know. It works. And there hasn’t been another Hummingbird this year yet, so people know it’s me (if they know me). My gear is too drab to really stand out. You know at least half the guys hiking out here wear girl’s shorts in the most ridiculous colors? I’m talking hot pink booty shorts. Nobody really cares. It’s obvious who the hikers are, and when I go into town it’s impossible to blend in even after a shower and stowing my pack somewhere.
I had been so focused on my own physical pain and struggle as I hiked through the cold southern states that I didn’t think about much. I either tried to push the thoughts out, or think about my next week of hiking and plan it out in my head. I’ve been snowed on three times, thought for certain I would freeze to death one night, and though I haven’t had any bear encounters yet, I have nearly stepped on two huge rattlesnakes since entering Virginia. The weather is hot now, and the trail is full of flowers and shady green leaves. The past couple days were really intense though. I came down off a mountain into a two-story shelter next to a waterfall. Spent the night there with Way and a few other fast hikers we had caught up with. Then, I had the long trek up The Priest, a mountain I’d been hearing about for weeks. The first 4k footer for a long time! When I got near the summit there was a shelter (also called The Priest shelter) where hikers confessed their “sins” to the mountain in the trail log. Some were funny, some were sarcastic, some were heartfelt and sad. A lot of confessions were about not burying poop properly or hanging bear bags right.
I picked up the pen to write something funny, but I just...started writing. I wrote an entire page of all my regrets, all my anger that you left me alone. My frustration of being unable to move on, and my disinterest in seeing other people while our friends would hint at; “how long it’s been,” in their loving but tone-deaf way. I wrote about how I just want you, and our future, back; and how I don’t want a new future without you. It came out very real, and very sudden. I lost myself in my writing.
    Way hiked into the site and set her backpack down next to me on the picnic table. I realized I was crying and I tried to hide my face so she wouldn’t see; regardless, she could definitely see that my hand was trembling over the page. When I had finished writing, I moved to rip the page out. She placed her hand down on the log so I couldn’t lift it. “I had no idea,” she said. She had been reading over my shoulder. I hadn’t told anybody on the trail about you. I’d avoided talking too much about myself anyway, but I didn’t want to invite your ghost to follow me. You left for work one morning and there was a snowstorm and you never made it home. I was alone.
    “It’s nothing,” I told Way. She nodded.
    “Everything is Nothing,” she replied. Her matter-of-fact nature combined with the absurdity of everything she says is probably my favorite thing about her. She gently took the shelter log and pen from me to write her own confession. I sat there and ate a flavorless granola bar. The oats rolled around on my tongue and felt like lumps going down my throat. The more I thought about Nothing, the more hollow I felt inside. I wanted to shred that page up; not to prevent others from reading it, but to somehow get rid of all of those feelings that were tormenting me. Way’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Would you hike to Devil’s Backbone Brewery with me?”
“You know I hike slower than you.”
“That’s fine. The beer will wait for us and I’d like the company.”
So here we are. The hike down here was silent until we got to the road and hitched in with a friendly, local trail maintainer. We met up with the Teds and a few other members of our extended trail families, drank our beer, and ate fried foods and fresh salads. Everybody acted the same toward me because, of course, only Way knew now--but I felt different. That entry in the hiker log had been the first time I had opened up about my feelings. I hadn’t even done that with my therapist, really. I felt quiet and exhausted. Laying down in this tent--our tent--and writing this by headlamp has been the catharsis I’ve needed since you died. I’ve thought a lot about you, and why I’m hiking this trail, and what will come next for me.  I think a part of you is all over this trail, but in that, “we are all made of starstuff,” way. I don’t think there’s life after death. Your brain stopped working, and “you” are gone, and you couldn’t possibly care about me or if I date again or move across the country or anything like that. If I go back to Gorham, I’ll just be haunting it as a surrogate for you. Maybe I can crash with my cousin out in Oregon for a while. I need a new start, something to let me get over this monumental sadness that I carry everywhere. I know, intellectually, it’s not what you would want for me. We had a great life together but it’s gone. Now, I hike every day, sometimes in excess of twenty miles, and eat noodles mixed with instant potatoes, and dig holes to poop in the woods. I hike like it’s my job, but I hike because it’s my life, and that’s enough for now. I think the only way forward, for me, is one footstep at a time. Ever northward. Katahdin awaits! After that, I’ll see what comes.

It felt good to get this all out. Maybe it’s the exhaustion or the booze or something else. Maybe I’m just ready to finally start talking about this. I feel like I should burn this letter, somehow, in some special place. Maybe when I hike through NH. I’ll stop by our old apartment, swing by the fire pit in the backyard, and light this on fire to send it to you. Everything is Nothing. I’ll say one last goodbye to our apartment, our town, and our life. Then, I’ll keep hiking.

I loved you, I still love you, and I will always love you. But you knew that.  

                                                    Happy trails,
                                Chris (“Hummingbird”)

by Joe Noel

installation, trail journal, and trail snacks at the event by Jenny Wittmaack

EXT.  SMALL RURAL TOWN - STREET - DAY

A God-forsaken dot on the map as you drive the two-lane.

A tired, dusty CAR pulls up at a neglected CAFE with a faded name.  Wisps of steam escape from under the car's hood.

A WOMAN, 29, hesitantly emerges from the car to survey her situation.  
She is full-faced with make-up tips she inherited from her mother.  She dresses to play up what she considers assets.

The WOMAN cautiously approaches the cafe.

INT. CAFE - DAY

The PROPRIETOR, elderly, stands behind the counter and stops wiping it when the door opens.

Like the cafe, he has let his health and appearance run down and he doesn't have the energy to care anymore.

He looks suspiciously at the WOMAN.

The WOMAN closes the door and guardedly advances to look around.

A mismatched collection of tables and chairs, a lunch counter, no customers. A couple of old discolored illustrations on the wall.

Faded red gingham table clothes.  An unattended laptop open to an uncompleted solitaire game on one table.  A biker's leather jacket draped over a chair at another table.

Then, the WOMAN's gaze fixes on one spot.

Multi-color stripes on the floor lead to a small stage at the back.  An arcade game and unused chairs clutter the stage.  A black door is open, but it is too dark to see beyond.

The PROPRIETOR apprehensively eyes the WOMAN.

She turns toward him.  A smile slowly appears on her face.

The PROPRIETOR looks gravely concerned and firmly leans on the counter.

                        PROPRIETOR:
                        NO!
###

​by Edd Harnas

film by Pressly Dowler

She didn't know what she would find when she opened the box. Her memories of him, the old sage who passed along all of his knowledge, never seemed to own anything that would be this grand, this heavy, this full of potential and yet rife with memories of the overwhelming nature of his passing. He was not young, but also was not ready to leave this world; so many missed opportunities, stories, lessons on love and memories of her ancestors long gone. Her grandfather left her one simple thing in his will: “the contents of storage unit 55 at Al’s Cheap-Ass Storage,  1422 Rt 66, Chicago Illinois.” There she was, standing in front of the unit, which appeared to her a bit smaller than she imagined, opened to the setting sun with dust sparkling in the early spring light, and full of junk. Boxes of newspapers from 1950, Coke Cans held onto in the hope that one day they would be “antiques,” broken clocks that didn't appear to have any working components, even a few busted laptops. Then she noticed it. Sitting in the back corner, covered with a tattered sheet and fastened with the most glamorous bronze-plated locks that she had ever seen. It was huge, almost up to her chin, and appeared to have been cared for meticulously throughout his whole life. Next to it laid a note with her name written in calligraphed script. The note described his life as a travelling artist. He had a knack for voices and an incredible stage presence that once made Judy Garland spit her martini across the table. He explained his deep love for theatre and his desire to create sets out of his favorite family scenes, how he would mold the marionettes after the people he held most dear. As she opened the oversized box, she saw something magnificent. Inside was an exact replica of her favorite place on earth. His bar, where she had gone after school each day to wait for her dad to pick her up; where she had learned to love listening to his stories and those of his customers; where one time she had way too many Shirley Temples and threw up next to the regulars smoking cigarettes outside. The recreation was perfect, down to the exact detail. He had restored the drapes, a disgusting red and black that looked like they belonged as a coat on the little labridoodles from Mrs. Jensen next door. He had even perfected the first pinball game in the corner that she adored. It was spectacular. As she opened the box further, out fell two marionettes: one of an old man with grey hair and knowing eyes holding a cocktail shaker, and one of an wide-eyed young girl with blond hair and full smile. She was not sure what she would do with this miniature world full of memories and laughs, a place that was both the place where she both grew into womanhood and had her first beer and the place where she realized the true love a grandfather has for his granddaughter. She began to smile her dry smile, full of melancholy nostalgia.

​by Henry Powell

Then, at that moment, the “Book of Dreams”, a book she found solace and comfort in, gently slipped from her lap to the floor.
    She spent much of her time reading that book, since recognizing, in her teens, she had 'the gift', the gift of prescience. Before that revelation, she was regarded as a 'troubled child', who 'knew too much'. Hearing adults whispering about her caused her to retreat, to isolate herself from social contact.
    Some years went by. Her grandmother, who also had the 'gift', died. It was a natural course of events that she had subsequently come to live with her grandfather.
    'Big Al', as he was known, quietly came into the shaded parlor. Picking up the book, he placed it on the stand next to her, along with a manila envelope-the number '55' scrawled on the front.


locks & epilogue by Noel Sylvester

At Beulahland, on Thursday, June 22nd, Amelia & Noel explained the secret core basis of the collaborative writing project and the entire theme of 66 OURS.

Another view of Suppertime assembled in the upper studio inside the main house at Beulahland.

The vignettes are assembled on the sides of the shadow box, given the piece its depth. Unfortunately, from this angle, you can't see them...