Collecting Ourselves is a collaborative creative process, a performance, and as of last week, also a traditional, ink-on-paper artists’ book. Alexa J. Rittichier and her ensemble People On a Stage embarked on an eight-month journey through a frontier in thinking and acting, and the fruits of their interdisciplinary explorations and discoveries will have their premiere at the annual InterArts MFA Thesis show, opening April 26.
Rittichier displays a proof copy to the ensemble in the InterArts Raw Space black box theater.
The work is the result of the direction and vision of Rittichier, with the collaboration of a small and tightly-knit team of performers and artists: Lydia Feuerhelm, Jenny Garnett , Emily Rose, Courtney St.Clair, Michael Chad St. John, and Don Widmer. Their emerging and fluid performance work, Collecting Ourselves, addresses the individualism of our culture, and fosters a collective lifestyle that builds community and addresses creativity as a group process.
The newly completed companion artists’ book is a collection of the journals, workshop writings, and images produced by the group in the course of their creative process. Says Rittichier, “The book object is a concrete representation of the ephemeral time and space we spent together during the past year, providing a window into the conversations, complications, and negotiations we traversed during the creative process.” The book opens with a forward by performance artist and critic Nicolas Shawn King Ruley.
The book is available for purchase here. The performance schedule for the upcoming MFA Thesis Exhibition can be found here.