Procession

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY DAN SHANAHAN | DESIGNED BY TORN SPACE (2011)

Procession is an original site-specific performance designed for an early twentieth century German Evangelical Church. Audiences will be invited to observe the rituals of an unnamed society. These are ancient people, dislodged from time, they have seen the past and they have seen the future. The plot is developed through a religious procession, which will connect two aspects of the same person to their sacrifice. The dramatic structure consists of four cycles: Conception, Birth, Union and Death while the production design is constructed through the iconography of a baroque spectacle. The interior of the space becomes a central character, it is suggested that the space is telling the story, that the audience is experiencing the memories of the space’s interior. The space breaths, attempts to communicate, and disposes artifacts contributing to a landscape of formulas, krump, twins, and gospel.

The production is the result of a collaborative working process that has come to define Torn Space. The theatricality of our theater is the “external force”- the production elements trap, touch and alter the characters, while the reality of the characters is a theatrical reality.