ATRA
2008
BINDERY | space
Victoria H. Myhren Gallery

Performance Cinema
Running Time 46:00
Sample 2:37

ATRA weaves the spirit of performance art with moving images to present a mythological story. This performance cinema experience takes you on a journey through the creation of a new world. Witness a young girl’s quest to reclaim Water from Mud and the unearthing of the ATRA ritual performance.

ATRA is an expansion and extension of my creative work, which draws upon my own personal experience informed by media and process, mythology and history.

“Performance Cinema” is the term I have chosen for the projects that, like ATRA, incorporate elements of video art, digital performance, multimedia theatre, performance art, video jockey, dance technology, and radio theatre.

This particular piece presents a contemporary and personal mythology rooted in my experience of being raised Catholic. My creative and spiritual process involved a search for the origins of the stories I was told, specifically the creation and flood story.

My journey led me to the ancient Sumerian myth of Atrahasis where the origins of the stories told in Genesis can be found. My story, ATRA, is influenced by this myth on several levels, particularly in the presentation of the clay tablets, the creation and flood story structure, and the repetitive use of language.

The three unbaked clay tablets in the performance tell the story of ATRA. They are blessed before being fragmented in order to be returned to the earth. Their pieces evoke the stories and myths from the past that will continue into a future beyond my lifetime.

In addition, my interest in flood stories also comes from my birth place, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, where on May 31, 1889 a neglected dam and a phenomenal storm led to a catastrophe in which over 2,200 people died. The 1889 Johnstown flood is remembered as the worst disaster by dam failure in American history. It was also the greatest single-day of civilian loss of life in this country before September 11.


PDF Link
Performance Cinema: Merging Forms, Historical Perspective, and ATRA