The Byrne Diaspora

Twere

"Twere" is a nickname for Clare. More precisely, "Twere Bun," for Clare Byrne. Anyone know the origin of this? Anyway, here are some great photos of her that Julie sent.

Here is Clare with some of her company members (or shall I now say order? - dis-order?), with Patrick in the woods at Yulan, present at the burial of our grandfather and patriarch, celebrating a birthday in Yulan (present-ribbons around her neck), Stefan with his boy kitty Diego, Stefan's family celebrating Thanksgiving, and doing the Christmas Eve oyster thing.

Clare's new order

Clare sent out a press release today with lots of exciting news from her dance company!, including three upcoming performances: To the Tree (a dance to a 13-foot cross at the Union Theological Seminary), Letter to the Church (a response to her visit to Italy, and the Vatican, in November), and Kneelings (a series of public prostrations throughout New York City). I'll post more about these as their performance dates approach.

As for now, Clare presents this:

THE ORDER

 

Clare Byrne announces the beginnings of a dance order, as a vehicle from which her experiments in dance can speak truthfully and heart-fully. Byrne is called to the intention of contemplation, and inspired by monastic orders and hermits from the past as well as present-day intentional communities responding to economic, environmental, and spiritual challenges.

 

Byrne envisions the order as enabling dance's function to lead, be prophetic, and enact spiritual and tribal truth. The order will be a community that is itinerant, mendicant, and interactive with the world. Byrne, along with performers Sharon Estacio, Meredith Mandel, Jeffrey Peterson, Patrick Ferreri, Nicholas Leichter, Will Rawls and others will continue to makes dances moving toward this clarified purpose.

 

But clarity without rigidity: it is more accurate to say, at this point, that Byrne announces a dance dis-order. With faith and foolishness, she launches this endeavor nameless, structure-less, and with no novices; the defining and redefining qualities of the order, and its practitioners, will come from its practice.

Pictures from the flower child

As Julie commented in the previous post, she just sent me a WHOLE bunch of awesome pictures she's been meaning to send me for awhile. So I thought I'd serve them up piecemeal! First, here are some of Julie's contributions to her own album - new pictures start here.

On the crest of spring

I went out to visit Melleray today. It was a beautiful day - sixty-eight degrees, warm, with a percolating cold wind; so you could sweat one minute, and shiver the next. Dad says that with more of this warm weather, and some rain, the woods are going to absolutely explode. Already the red maples have put out their blossoms, and the bees are going crazy. We sat and watched them come and go, with spots of yellow pollen on their hind legs.

Dad has been hard at work on the garden. It is shaped like a large circle, with beds planted in concentric circles around the well; and it is framed by a larger square, with four quadrants that will be named for monastic saints. In the western quadrant, Dad has planted two pear trees and three fig trees (here he is cursing one...a la Jesus). He also planted three beds of potatoes, noting with chagrin that he bought way too many seedlings. Finally, the grape arbor is finished, a veritable work of art - especially the "mobile" of cedar root that hangs from one end. And here I am, wearing a grape-y dress.

Blue Laws in a Purple State

Mark wrote a great piece for Atlanta's Not For Tourists, part historical and part autobiographical...you can read it here!

Monica-Bianca

More great news! I've been cast in a production of Othello that is, to say the least, untraditional; to say more, gloriously inventive. It will be staged in an abandoned mill house by Single Shot Theatre Company, directed by savants Lucius Robinson and Jonah Garson. I have been cast as Bianca (delightful, because "Bianca" is my longtime family nickname). She represents the "casualties of society," a lost soul, a ragamuffin whore who patrols the war-torn wasteland of Cyprus, and develops a fatal attraction to Cassio, also played by a woman. Those in the acting ensemble and production staff are extraordinary talents from the UNC drama community, and I'm terribly excited to work with them.

Show dates will be the third or fourth weekend in April; I'll post again when I know for sure. All who read this blog are most graciously welcome to attend!