[ ] is a corporeal and sonic exploration into histories of femme ancestors created in collaboration with composer Angélica Negrón and an ensemble of creatives and performers. Together, we create an embodied exploration of untold and imagined histories. Weaving throughout a suspended sonic sculpture, the group uses performance’s hyper-attentive care to call in and hold experiences of private and personal memories of family lore, real/imagined histories, and femme ancestor's visible/invisible labor, ultimately asking “what is long ago but still right now?"
Begun through BRIClab 2021 [ ] will be presented by ODC Theater in 2024.
We are currently seeking additional partners.
The development and sharing of [ ] has been made possible by:
A Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant;
The MOtiVE Brooklyn For the Artsts! Residency program;
BRIClab 2021 at BRIC Brookly;
and a Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts Space Grant in the David Rubenstein Atrium.
“s o u n d i n g line” asks what it means to belong as a woman to a family line: what is the interplay between caregiving and loneliness; does inter-generational experience persist into present embodiment? Created within Snug Harbor’s historic cottage, the performers create, inhabit and transform a recalling of individual and collective pasts through movement, shadow play, and manipulation of simple elements — cloth, rope, paper, and light.
Created for One Arm Red's unique space in DUMBO, Brooklyn, Record was my first in a series of hybrid works exploring history and memory through embodiment, object and site.
Initiated during the pandemic as a way to connect with others across distance, I began calling : a series of micro works for voicemail in which participants call in to hear an evolving text and sound work. Each outgoing voicemail’s first-person narration addresses the listener directly; coupled with sound samples from Angélica Negrón and editing by Kathryn Logan, the resulting micro works investigate themes of ancestral memory and embodiment. Each ends with the invitation for the listener to leave a message in response, which could potentially be folded into future iterations of the project. When a participant calls the number and hears the outgoing message in calling, each listener is quite literally “called in” to the potential of a new awareness of ancestral memory.
Photos by Maria Baranova, Rachael Shane, Ian Douglas, Toby Tanenbaum and Whitney Browne.
Copyright © 2023 Adrienne Westwood - All Rights Reserved.
Adrienne Westwood Projects is a project of VIA Collaborative Arts Corporation, a 501(c)(3) public charity recognized by the IRS as VIA Collaborative Arts Corporation. We are also registered with the New York State Charities Registration Bureau. Our Federal EIN is 20-2838552 and our NYS Charities Registration Number is 21-21-53.