For the Fragments evening, professional artists developed
and presented their work on the themes of the project
side-by-side with students. foolsFURY created an interactive
piece exploring the figure of Antigone and drawing parallels to Martha Mullen, the woman who arranged a burial
for Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Under the
direction of Giulio Perrone, Inferno Theater Company also
developed an exploration of the Antigone story, integrating
music, movement and ritual. Professional artist, video and
installation artist Kimberly Koym-Murteira, created a video
piece, projected onto the windows of the Pavilion that
explored the world of fairy-tale and examined how tragedy
may be experienced by children, who see the violence and
losses of the adult world through the lens of child-hood
sensitivity, innocence and fantasy. The Beautiful Roots project was also on display together with drawings and photos
from the many lower school students who had taken part in
that facet of the project.
November 2 “Open Door” event shares
exploration, invites conversation
The “Open Door” event on November 2 was one important example of how the project invited conversation with
the wider community, and made sharing the creative process itself as important at the final product. The event began
with a dynamic, site-specific piece performed in the lobby
of the Dennis Gallagher Arts Pavilion, created by fools-
FURY (professional collaborators on this project). Audience
members were then invited upstairs into the theater, where
they first saw work from the “Chorus” (filmed extracts of
work with choreographer Francis Viet from September, and
exploratory sequences with text and movement related to
the theme of “war”).
The “Ancient Tragedy” group then shared the work they
had undertaken during the previous two weeks with Jessica
Henou. First, Jessica described the process and student-
artists presented sequences related to the characters of
Creon, Antigone, Ajax and Ismène as well as falls, catches
and rituals. The presentation culminated in a ten minute
choreography integrating text and movement.
Finally, the audience split into three groups and moved
into various classroom spaces of the Pavilion to hear about
six different Fragments (short pieces being developed
by students, teachers and professionals in relation to the
themes of the project.) Audience members were invited to
ask questions and give written feedback before joining the
artistic team for a reception.
The March 23 “Live Arts in Education”
Symposium opens up conversation to
the wider community
In conjunction with the project, the French American
International School hosted the Live Arts in Education
Symposium on Sunday, March 23. The symposium, produced in partnership with foolsFURY Theater Company,
Inferno Theater Company, the French-American Cultural
Society and Teen Tech SF, focused on the theme of “Arts and
Education: How to share and transmit in a time of technological transformation.” The goal of our symposium was to
create a space for artists, educators, thinkers and commu-
