The Transformation Project

04/28/2015 MAPstaff

Photo by David Weiland

The Transformation Project will create a series of free site-specific theatrical performances in public spaces that transform each place through artistic imagination and community collaboration. We will work in three distinct places in transition – a community college campus, public parks in an urban environment and a rural community – and will culminate the project with the premiere of a large-scale free outdoor traveling spectacle in the town center of Ashfield, MA. The project will explore myths, literary devices and archetypes of transformation that are both familiar and new to us (e.g., The Odyssey, The Arabian Nights, Cada Luna Azul, a Latin American magic realism parade) and will investigate aspects of this theme in response to particular elements that speak most powerfully to each site’s participants and history. At each of our three sites, we will create/rehearse in public, allowing people to experience the process and transformation of space, and will also collaborate with local artists to identify key trades/crafts, historical elements, musical and dance traditions. We will culminate in work-in-process performances for audience/participant feedback. The culminating premiere of the work—The Transformation Project in Ashfield, MA —will weave together the findings of all the chapters of the project to create a mythology of an American town in the midst of nature, and the great struggle to keep our planet and us healthy.