about The Book

The idea for The Book was actually initially inspired during Avy K Productions' previous project, Nocturnal Butterflies (2009). This project explored the diary of Vaslav Nijinsky, an artist and extreme introvert, and I became fascinated with both the hidden inner world of the artist, and the nature of the artist as being either an introvert or an extrovert, especially as it relates to today's society. The Book seeks to answer whether the artist can be solely an introvert, or if extroversion becomes a necessity in contemporary society, as it seems that there has been a shift in the art community in that its leaders are more social, more extroverted. Moreover, does sharing one's art—one's internal world—transform the artist into an extrovert?
A second source of inspiration came from an experience which occurred during performances of Nocturnal Butterflies, which was a multimedia structured improvisation. I was interested to experience the performance as neither strictly performer nor audience member, in order to both observe the structure and to influence and change it in unexpected ways, perhaps even to destroy it so that it could be built up anew. This is a very important and untapped aspect of performance, and The Book introduces new guest artists with each performance who are free from the structure of the performance and can alter or destroy the structure as they choose.

For The Book, an invitation into the private world and diary of the artist, it was important to me to understand how I can create a diary, not with words but with my artistic medium: dance/movement. I created video diaries in which I “wrote” a diary with my body, with movement. In order to be completely honest, methods I employed were stream-of-consciousness, randomness, and no editing; this became the method of approach for rehearsal, in order to prepare our diaries for observation.
After a period of time since beginning rehearsals, I see a change in each of the participants; I see that they have digested all the information and can see on their bodies how the project has changed them. For me, the remarkable moment is when suddenly, without my control, the group becomes transformed into a single, connected organism, fully immersed in the world of The Book. On a personal level, I prize the moments in the process of my creative research when I find an unexpected answer to a question, or, better yet, completely change my opinion on an idea.

Avy K Productions has a signature approach to its performances: audio-visual-kinetic. The core idea is that no media serves another; instead, we facilitate a dialogue between artists of different media and unite them under a common theme. It is essential in performances that everything occurs in live time so that a real-time conversation between artists can emerge. In The Book, we invite the audience into our internal world; the viewers participate by bringing in the external world and this creates tension between the two worlds. As they enter into our territory they bring with them their opinions, thoughts, and energy, thus completing the performance so that it is not merely an image we present to the audience but an experience within the same physical and energetic space.