I Don’t Know and Never Will

I am taking my installation work in a new direction with I Don’t Know and Never Will. The smell of damp earth and leaves fills ODC Theater. Tactile and not really recognizable objects gradually collect in one of the three performance areas. My memories of a friendship from decades ago that is frozen in time and kept vivid by our letters makes I Don’t Know and Never Will the most personal work I have made. Written without editing or premeditation, with immediacy and forthrightness, his letters juxtapose descriptions, observations and feelings so acutely that I can see, feel, hear and smell it all. I’ve lost touch with him. I picked up a very old thread and wrote him. I want to know who he is now, but he hasn’t replied.

Speaking excerpts of the letters, actor Val Sinckler is inside the installation alongside the dancers (Jeremiah Crank, Sonja Dale, Megan Kurashige, Shannon Kurashige, Sarah Woods-LaDue). A commissioned score by percussionist Jordan Glenn is played live by three musicians from platforms placed over the theater seats. The world of these letters is made complete by Matthew Antaky’s installation design and Mary Domenico’s costumes.

An installation in the lobby of ODC Theater invites the audience and a broad range of people in the community to write a letter or note (anonymously) to the prompt: Write to someone about something you wish you had done and didn’t do. At one point in the piece, excerpts of a few of these will be read, with dancers and musicians improvising.

Author: lissfaindance

Liss Fain’s work ranges from pure dance pieces to collaborations with composers, lighting and set designers, videographers, actors and technologists. The company presents performance installations that bring the audience inside the set and close to the performers, proscenium performances, artistic exchanges with companies from abroad and free public outreach performance events. Liss Fain’s work expresses the unpredictable course of events that comprise one’s life and peoples’ responses to unforeseen situations. Non-narrative, highly physical and emotionally powerful, her work fuses modern dance’s forceful energy with the kinetic precision of ballet.The company has performed and taught at festivals and venues in Poland, Germany, Belarus, Russia and the UK as well as colleges, universities, festivals and presenting organizations in the US. Their home seasons in San Francisco are presented at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Z Space.

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