Rapt, 2021-2022, methodology-in-development
During the pandemic I began developing a quasi-therapeutic methodology with an intimate group of collaborators. We attempted to expand our capacity for overwhelming, unknown experiences by exploring collective threshholds, healing routines, and various methods for building intrapsychic and interpersonal safety. Together, we developed a series of secular, group rituals in the form of games that employ chance, dance and trance. We used hypnosis, tantra, dom/sub dynamics, emotional attunement, physical movement, free writing, and theatrical techniques to invent consent and boundary frameworks that engaged the subconscious and mined it as a tool for creation and transformation.
The resulting aesthetic frameworks are shared with audiences in a gesture of humility – one in which we reveal the messy, vulnerable side of our process rather than trying to perform “well”. Instead, we try to embrace our vulnerability while being present in the moment. Our goal is to be unburdened by performance and to recognize the complementary roles of personal autonomy and interpersonal trust, and to emphasize intense embodiment within ourselves while simultaneously being fully connected with others.
With: Emily Mast & Joe Seely
Sound: Lewis Kopenhafer
Video: Raoul Germain
Edit: Noah Shearer