Artistic Director Scott Turner Schofield

"He has comic timing tattooed on his genes" - Scott Schofield Performs at Out North

Scott in January

I first saw Scott Schofield last January when he introduced the Under 30 performances.  At the time I was surprised by his easy presence in front of the audience.  There was something special about him, though I didn't quite catch what he was doing here, something about being a visiting performer.  We missed his performance of Debutant Balls because we went to Juneau.

Scott after Wu Man

In July he introduced Wu Man and friends.  This time Scott was introduced as Out North's new artistic director.  Again, I was impressed.   Enough to write this as a side note to a long discussion of Wu Man and the evening's music:

His introduction Wednesday was a pleasure to listen to.  His words were good, his delivery fluent, and he effortlessly rotated to acknowledge the audience members sitting behind him on the stage. 

I'm giving all this background to just say, there was something special about this guy which I picked up from the time I first saw him.  Friday night I learned that he is an established performer who has performed all over which was brought home when in one of his pieces he mentioned that he'd 'just played to a packed house in Brussels."

So, my gut was right.  Out North has pulled a minor coup by snagging Scott as the artistic director.  He's closing in on his 30th birthday (this also came out - I think in the Q&A after the performance) and looks like he's approaching 20.  But he's been performing a long time and knows lots of people beyond Anchorage, a number of whom he's going to entice up here and introduce us to.

Friday night (and he does this again Saturday - tonight) he was on stage at Out North as a performer, though he confessed afterward that he couldn't completely get his administrator role out of his head  asking himself, as a performer and an administrator, "Is this show going to go well?  Is this going to help or hurt our future box offices?"

He didn't have to worry.  This guy is a natural story teller. He says raconteur, which I can't write unless the spell checker has it. (Phew! It did.) And his material is compelling.  The program says,

Two Truths and a Lie. . . is a collection of three autobiographical solo performances which have toured nationally to critical acclaim:  Underground Transit (2001), "Debutante Balls" (2004) and "Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps (2007).  

After Show Q&A

He gave the briefest of introductions - I'm not even sure what he told us.  Enough for us to know that he was born and raised as a girl and the title "Becoming a Man" meant just that, literally.  So, he had 127 steps.  Our job as the audience was to give him numbers and he'd find that particular step and perform it.  Or, as it turned out once or twice, show us the video.

I don't know a lot of people who have changed genders and the couple I can think of switched from male to female.  And it wasn't something we talked about.  I listened to Tafi's presentation focused on male Samoan children who are early identified as Fa 'afafine at UAA's Diverse Voices presentation.  I've read Middlesex.  My favorite documentary at the Anchorage International Film Festival last year wasProdigal Sons told by a woman returning to her rural home town for her 10th high school reunion who left for college after being the quarterback of his HS football team.  I'm sympathetic to the idea, but the male-female dichotomy is still one of the most rigid we have.  Homosexuality still causes many people grave distress.  The idea of being a woman and then a man or vice versa challenges our brains' flexibility.  We think it has to be either/or.

In the book - Two Truths and a Lie - Scott writes about coming up with this performance.

"Okay," my partner-in-crime S. Bear Bergman sighed as ze [sic] always does when calming me down on a late night, long distance phone call.  "So you have about 127 stories to tell and an hour in which to make sex change EASY, step-by-step."  I made notecards from memories, ruminated, and typed.  Then I found one of my old Choose Your Own Adventure books from elementary school.  Later, on tour in New York, T Cooper and Felicia Luna Lemus left Joe Meno's book The Boy Detective Fails by the couch they made up as a bed for me.  There I found the decoder ring.  With such random origins, how could I write any linear play?  The elements of chance that structured my process had to be reflected in the product.

Scott performs Two Truths and a Lie again tonight (Saturday) at 8pm at Out North.  Tickets at the door.  It will be a different performance from the one we saw because the audience isn't likely to choose the same numbers.

Now, as much as liked this, I think it could have been even better.  The lottery aspect of the audience choosing which scene he's going to play means there are a lot of missing parts and the actor doesn't know which scene is up next. 

Even with that caveat, Anchorage folks, what I'm saying here is WE'VE GOT THIS WORLD CLASS PERFORMER TELLING THIS MESMERIZING STORY AND NO ONE KNOWS IT.  So go now and see Scott.  In ten years when he's moved on and he's famous, don't kick yourself because you didn't see him 'way back when' in an intimate little theater in Anchorage before the world discovered him.

As Judith Jack Halberstam, Professor of English and Gender Studies at USC, wrote in the front of Scott's book,

Scott, it should be said up front and often, is simply a mesmerizing performer.  You could listen to his voice all night.  He has comic timing tattooed on his genes, and he can make the trip from irony to sincerity in 3 seconds flat. 

Visual Art: Dia de los Muertos

Dia de Muertos
Exhibit of Contemporary Altars

The Day of the Dead is still an active tradition in Mexico celebrated in the pre-hispanic tradition linked to the agricultural harvest. During this celebration, millions of Mexican people go to the cementaries to pay a visit to their loved ones in the midst of offerings, tears, music and food. For the pre-hispanic people, "death is not the end our our existence, it is only the path of transition to something better."
The Exhibit of Contemporary Altars features altars by local artists, families and community groups, with a special altar dedicated to Alaskans who have committed suicide. According to the artists who have created this special altar, "in the spirit of dia de muertos, we invite the spirits of the victims of suicide in Alaska to come visit and enjoy the foods and smells they once loved."
The exhibit is at Out North through November 15, 2010.

New Work: "Pivot Point" premiere reading

Brand Spankin' Drama SeriesA new offering at Out North in Season 26, Brand Spankin' Drama is a live "music stand reading" of new plays, never before produced/never published. Playwrights from Alaska, national and international renown.
Each event features a full cast to perform readings.
There will be quarterly readings in this series throughout Season 26.

Join us on November 1, 2010 @ 7:00pm 
as Out North presents the first Brand Spankin' Drama:
Pivot Point
by Paul Bryner

About the Play

Nicole, an out-of-work journalist, comes home to find the house empty. Her husband, Phillip, has been taken to the hospital. His condition is dire. Still, Nicole opts to leave the country, abandoning both her husband and her twelve-year-old son in favor of a story that obsesses her, a story in the faraway island nation of Sri Lanka, which is in the midst of an upheaval so great that all foreigners have evacuated the country. The upheaval has been dubbed the “Last Revolution.” As Nicole prepares to sail for Sri Lanka, her son, Chester, and his best friend prepare for a make-believe voyage to an imaginary island and Nicole’s husband is on the operating room table, being sung to sleep in a mysterious preoperative ritual.

About the Playwright

Paul Brynner is an Anchorage actor, writer and visual artist. He has previously written one novel, The Conception of Sphinx, and is currently hawking a bunch of surrealist-pin-up calendars plus posting an on-line political satire comic called Miller Vs. Murkowski: The Final Showdown!” at NonsenseGirls.com. He has previously written several plays for the Alaska Overnighters.

“…After that in a more conciliatory spirit he asks Brewster:
‘So, what’s it like in Ceylon?’
A rhetorical question if ever there was one, for as far as Lawrence is concerned he
‘would rather go to Mars or the Moon. But Ceylon if there’s nothing better.’”

—Geoff Dyer, Out of Sheer Rage

This reading lasts approximately 75 mins followed by Q & A with the author.
Admission is $7.50 at the door.

Visual Art: Alzheimers Group Show

Untitled Trees by Bert

EXPRESSIONS:
Artwork of Alaskans with Memory Impairment
October 15, 2010 - November 13, 2010
Gallery Hours: Noon to 6pm, Tuesdays through Friday
Curator: Fran Kelly of Alzheimer's Resource of Alaska

The Alzheimer's Resource of Alaska and the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority have partnered to present "Expressions," a unique art show displaying artwork of Alaskans with memory impairment.

This artwork is created by participants in Art Links, a program offering individuals with dementia a means of self-expression through the process of painting and drawing. Often a person experiencing memory loss loses the ability to communicate verbally. Art Links is an opportunity to share in their memories. And as they say, a picture...

Performance: Paul Zaloom

Paul Zaloom: "...wildly funny puppeteer..." -- Atlanta Constitution

PAUL ZALOOM
October 15-16
If you have never seen the great and sincerely scathing Paul Zaloom in action, here's your chance... you'll laugh till you cry. -- Holland Cotter, New York Times

Paul Zaloom is a comedic puppeteer, political satirist, filmmaker, and performance artist who lives and works in Los Angeles and tours his work all over the world. Zaloom has written, designed and performed 12 full-length solo spectacles, including Fruit of Zaloom, Sick But True, his latest, Mother of All Enemies and, with Lynn Jeffries, The Abecedarium. Zaloom has played the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, the Spoleto Festival USA, and King Tut's Wah-Wah Hut, plus hundreds of other venues in 40 states. Numerous international festivals have featured his work on his 9 tours to Europe, including the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Scotland; Les Semaines de la Marionette, Paris; and the UNIMA World Congress, Dresden. Since 1992, Zaloom has also appeared on the science educational TV show for kids Beakman’s World as Beakman, the whacked-out, weirdo scientist who answer viewers’ questions about science, nature, and various bodily functions.

Performance Dates: 10/15 – 7:00 pm; 10/15 – 10:00 pm;10/16 – 8:00 pm

Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation Book Review | Queer Fat Femme

October 6th, 2010 

Oh friends, I’ve been gone so long and yet not gone anywhere but inside my big, sweet heart and head. I’m doing The Artist’s Way and life coaching and as Lynnee Breedlove, my coach, says “Filling the well. Putting gas in the tank.” I’m still brewing some interesting mind blowing blog topics, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, I have a book to recommend to keep you company! It’s Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation edited by Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman. Just released on Seal Press it is extremely accessible and interesting.

The term “anthology” makes me think of things that are stuffy or academic. However, this reads more like an extremely well-edited and organized zine, which I believe is to its credit. Transgressing the anthology format, as the editors and authors transgress gender and sexuality. Some of the contributions are only a couple of pages and pack just as much punch as their lengthier counterparts. I love having something to read that can fit well between subway stops, which is where most of my reading takes place.

Kate, reading at Rebel Cupcake: Sci Fi Cupcakes.

The editors use an AOL Instant Messenger format (old school!) for the introduction, intermission and conclusion of the book. They also discuss the topic of the next genderation, usage of the controversial terms “tranny” and “cisgender” and the reactions to both Kate and Bear when they came out as transgender during different genderations. I love that they’re not afraid to say what they think in this conversation and they really go there.

I also loved the organization of the anthology. I love systems of creative organization and this just tickled me.
Part One: Do I look like an outlaw to you?
Part Two: Being reconfigured is not the same as being reimagined.
Part Three: …which is why I’m as cute as I happen to be.
Part Four: It might not be a picnic but there’s a great buffet.
Part Five: And still we rise.

S. Bear Bergman hasn’t performed at Rebel Cupcake (yet!).

Several of the contributions resonated with me, including a touching account of “The Manly Art of Pregnancy” by J Wallace, which did a lot to counter the version of the “Pregnant Man” propagated in the media a couple of years ago.

I really loved the comic Transcension by Katie Diamond and Johnny Blazes. I love words and their application of language theory to finding a place within and without identity labels was extremely well-illustrated, both in text and pictures.

Scott Turner Schofield’s intense and powerful “The Wrong Body” has been swimming around in my head for weeks. It’s such a stunning and succinct narrative of why, as a fetus, he chose to be born a baby girl. “I saw that I would have time to appreciate my journey, with the head to understand it as a gift and the heart to achieve my whole self through all the trials it takes.”

And there are contributions to this anthology by trans allies as well. The piece that had me crying on the subway was Fran Varian’s “Daddy Gets the Big Piece of Chicken.” She weaves a gorgeous comparison to preparations for a date with her gender-variant lover and her working class family’s gender roles.

Me, giving Kate an umbrella sheathed like sword
with a sword handle fromSITE Design at Rebel Cupcake.

She shows the beautiful nuance of the unspoken dance between gendered energy and the ways in which we care for each other in our gender queer (and queer in other ways) relationships. “You walk on the outside, closest to the street. You do this because we are moving targets, even in San Francisco. You do this because you have been attacked for the masculinity you have constructed and because I am precious to you.” How lucky to have someone tell you how precious you are to them; luckier still to have someone show you how precious you are.

While I always want you, precious reader, to shop at a local feminist bookstore, if you buy Gender Outlaws: TNG on the internet and clickie through my link I get a tiny referral fee and it goes to buy me books and other delights.

NYC Readers! There is a reading at Bluestockings by some of the authors of Gender Outlaws: TNG (including Kate!) on October 8!

Rebel Cupcake photos by Nogga Schwartz for Rebel Cupcake.

Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation Book Review | Queer Fat Femme:

'via Blog this'

Visual Art: group show

Touchable Art Show.

Oct. 1st, First Friday

Out North Gallery in conjunction with Alaska Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired are presenting this exhibition. The original show was held in October, 2001 in the old International Gallery of Contemporary Art. It was an “eye opening” show that dealt with the accessibility of art andvision loss by allowing all of us to TOUCH THE ART! The show put a new twist to what ”visual” art actually is or could be. So, let your imagination go while remembering that a common misconception is that the person who is legally blind lives in darkness. The ability to touch, feel, and even squeeze will help everyone experience the art in their way. -- curator, Lowell Zercher