Exhibition: Sep 19 – Oct 5, 2019
Performances: Thu - Sat, at 7:30 pm
Performance Reservations and Inquiries: marine@fivemyles.org
The puppeteer/performance artist Hanne Tierney has chosen this Chinese epic poem written by the woman poet Ts’ai Yen in 200 AD, to create a work that validates the early modernist quest “to turn the theater into a seamless fusion of the visual arts and performance”.
Throughout her career Tierney has created work that reveal puppetry to be, in essence, the Art of Gesture, and with this work, both as an installation and as a performance, she has realized her vision as closely as she can.
Chinese and Nomadic robes, burlap tents, aluminum siding, roofing starter shingle rolls and aluminum spears – all installed within a complex network of fine strings – are used to create an installation, intriguing in its own right, that clearly insinuates an underlying narrative. When performed these objects and materials, combined with live music, video projection and lights, are transformed into a work of theater.
Hanne Tierney has developed a counterweight stringing system of 88 strings – the same number as there are keys on a keyboard. The strings are arranged against a wall and are performed very much like a musical instrument and in full view of the audience. Through this web of strings Tierney manipulates the materials and objects, which are her performers, into movement. These movements are then carefully choreographed into gestures of intensely emotional expressions.
Hanne Tierney has shown and performed her work at theater festivals and museums throughout Europe and the U.S. She is the founder/director of FiveMyles, an exhibition and performance space in Brooklyn, and this work is part of FiveMyles 20th anniversary celebration.
Jane Wang has composed the music for this piece and will perform it on a variety of instruments. She received a 2013 Drama Desk Nomination for Outstanding Music in a Play for Hanne Tierney's Strange Tales of Liaozhai.
Hannah Wasileski drew the images for the projection on a Buddha board. She most recently designed the projection for the new Magic Flute at the Staatsoper in Berlin, directed by Yuval Sharon.
Rachel Lu is a Taiwanese-American actress who loves puppets, story-telling, and theatre. She is part of the cast for the upcoming TV series Night Time.
Trevor Brown has been nominated this year for an Emmy award for his lighting designs for Saturday Night Life.
Gallery Hours: Thu – Sun, 1 – 6pm