After our first solo performances, I was struck by the incredible talent and diversity in aesthetic and talent in the classroom. I walked away that day knowing that I'd be totally thrilled to create alongside any of my classmates, making our next performance assignment, a collaboratively-produced object theater piece, especially exciting. I was teamed up with Adi and Hayk, which, counting myself, makes us a group of three performers (a dj/producer, a cyber-illusionist, and a performance artist/dancer respectively). Matt noted that he created the groups based on instinct, so he nailed it by putting three stage-happy people together.
My team has just started with the ideation process, gathering this past Sunday to hash out some thoughts about what narrative we should take on. With that in mind I'll keep it short.
The Fool's Journey
I'm the big mythologies nerd in the group, but it so happens that both Adi and Hayk are in Allison Parrish's Electronic Rituals class, which visits numerous narratives within the realm of fortune-telling and oracles. I mentioned that Tarot is part of my meditation toolkit for creative inspiration, and we got psyched about the idea of exploring the narrative of the deck! The full story of the 21 cards of the major arcana is often referred to as "The Fool's Journey," following the "fool" (card 0) through a passage toward enlightenment. It's a story as old as time... it's the Buddha story, it's the Matrix. I delineated it into the following chapters:
Ch.1 Introduce the fool
Ch.2 The fool meets terrestrial teachers (cards 1-6)
Ch.3 The fool begins the solo walkabout/begins to define self-purpose with all they've learned from the teachers (cards 7-11)
Ch.4 The fool & their purpose is challenged (cards 12-16)
Ch.5 The fool emerges victoriously and moves toward enlightment/fulfillment of purpose (cards 17-21)
Maybe a short "tbc" as the journey is cyclical...
One of my favorite depictions of the Fool's Journey is The Incal, a graphic novel by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius that follows a character named John Difool (get it..???) as he is tasked with saving the entire universe from The Darkness. I think it speaks to how deep-seated the fool's journey is in culture and how abstractly it can be translated from the literal Tarot translation of the story:
There's obviously a lot to work with and therefore a lot to figure out structure-wise. We started a collaborative Arena to start putting our thoughts together... I think between the three of us we'll come up with something truly magical. Very much looking forward to the next step!