by Kerri MubaarakKerri Mubaarak is artistic director of Scrapmettle. She will be blogging for The Body Project about Scrapmettle's three-month journey to create a new theatre piece responding to the humor blood. Scrapmettle creates new performances and advises writers, directors and performing artists. We honor theater tradition by expanding and contracting its elements to meet performance goals and the demands of the profession. Our approach extends the range of the artist by challenging their perceived limitations and drawing out subtle aspects of their nature that enhance the writing, character, direction or design. In creating new performances, we use theater's visceral effect to reveal what lies beneath the surface of the human experience.
For THE BODY PROJECT, Scrapmettle has jumped on as theatre-makers, and will create a new 15 minute piece inspired by their prompt - blood. Below are blog entries for Scrapmettle's first two meetings. On December 3rd Scrapmettle entered phase 1 of The Body Project | Blood. A few committed theater makers from our camp came to the table to brainstorm the old fashioned way--with pens, pencils and pieces of notebook paper ripped and shared. Out of nowhere, words, songs (from gospel to hip hop) and images landed in front of us making the vision plain and giving us something to work with. The ooo's and a-ha's of shared experiences faded into odd moments of silence from being brain tired on a Sunday afternoon. Just when I thought we were done for the day, Karin Johnson who was already standing with her purse in hand turned and in one breath laid out the structure of the piece we will write next week. Blood, in the context of a birth seen from three angles--medical, literal and symbolic. We love it when a plan comes together! December 9th: Scrapmettle firmly entered the writing phase of The Body Project | Blood. Last week, we decidedly gave this piece structure and direction, but all of that changed. Enter Ingram Bell, one of the newest members of the Scrapmettle Writing Team with a very candid recollection of being shot in the head. She carefully unfolded the events leading up to and including the incident as if to protect the rest of us from the details. We braced ourselves and asked her to keep unfolding while we reluctantly imagined the smell of dried blood and pictured it spattered with bits of brain matter on a car window. From Ingram's memory came images, scenes, set pieces and a clear storyline. Ingram's proximity to the subject and close call with death made us take a second look at Blood, still within the structure we originally defined, but in a way we couldn't have ever imagined just 7 days ago. Pictured above: Ingram Bell recounts the time she survived a gunshot wound to the head. --Kerri Mubaarak (Directing)
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AuthorsThe Greensboro poets, theatre-makers, visual artists, composers, dancers, and filmmakers of The Body Project. Presented by Storyhound Theatre and the UNCG Art Truck. Archives
March 2018
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