P L A S T I C: A Clown Opera
In Residence: June 29 – July 8, 2022
Work-in-Progress showing: Wednesday, July 6, 2022 | 7 p.m.
Pay What You Decide – a social experiment in which we ask you to value your artistic experience.
Once upon a future time, when the natural world is a mere memory, two industrial clowns play with never-ending streams of transparent plastic.
Within the growing rubbish, double images glow in color, evoking lost life. Extinct birdsongs haunt plastic mountainsides, trash bags become clouds and jellyfish, and clowns dream of sleeping whales. A contemporary spin on the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, only this time the Sorcerer is not turning off the industrial faucet. Dark themes, but seriously funny.
Plastic sheets flutter with weightless grace, shimmering in brilliant color. Ordinary plastic has an inherent elegance hidden beneath its cheapness, abundance, and disposability. Though society is aware of the long-term consequences of plastic use, we have become dependent on the utilitarian, electronic, and life-saving benefits of our synthetic world. With imagination and laughter, PLASTIC probes the uneasy conclusion of humanity’s current path - a world with no more nature.
PLASTIC is the Acrobuffos’ most ambitious artistic project yet: creating laughter for a voiceless planet, compelling the audience to care.
About the Artists
Seth Bloom and Christina Gelsone met at a circus in Afghanistan, became engaged while street performing in Scotland, married in China, and occasionally go home to New York City.
Since 2005, they have created seven shows together, competed in international circus festivals, performed in over 25 countries, headlined at the Big Apple Circus, and were featured on a postage stamp.
Christina is a former ballerina who graduated from Princeton to become a clown; Seth is a former juggler who graduated from three clown schools, including an MFA in physical theater.
THE QUICK ARTIST IN RESIDENCE PROGRAM:
The Quick is dedicated to serving as a creative incubator – providing space for artists around the world to focus on the creation of new work, while simultaneously connecting those artists with our community through dialogues that allow the artist to gain insight from the audience experience and to provide educational offerings that help our audiences engage about the art form. Through making long-term investments in the creative process, the Quick is helping artists sustain and share their work on a nationally recognized platform. Engage with us as we offer artist showings, work-in-progress showings, meet and greets, and more with these incredible artists before their work is seen on our stages later this season.