You & Me... Europe is an extension and expansion of You &Me... Tara's House - Created by Tara Rynders premiering on the 10th of April 2010.
You & Me... Provides an intimate, evening-length interdisciplinary dance performance to an audience interested in alternative live art that incorporates local talent, one-on-one performances and site-specific stage.
It creates an experience that cultivates interactions with the audience without losing the integrity of high-art performance, resulting in a full embodiment of art, where the roles of performer and audience coexist and merge within the same shared space.
The core of the performance identifies, understands, and encapsulates the role of intimacy in a socio-political community that is conscious of the presence and, or absence of intimacy within and between the community's members.
As a member of You & Me I have created a one-on-one performance titled "Happy Mourning". This 10 minute performance gives the audience a chance to discuss a person or thing which they have lost. Creating a safe-space, the audience feel comfortable sharing their story with me. Once the person or thing lost is talked about, we then proceed to create a small movement phrase - usually gestural - that embodies their loss through a personalized dance. We repeat this dance together until the audience member recalls the movement without my assistance. before leaving the space, the audience creates a paper sculpture of the person or thing they are mourning, and places it on a wall - where others have mourned as well. They create an artifact and leave with one. I have performed this piece in San Francisco and Reno and am looking forward to extending the experience to a European audience, as each culture mourns in its own unique way.
My goal is to adapt Happy mourning to each culture, and to discover similarities and differences between them, if any exist.