Notes from the CEO (Or notes by the CEO or about the ceo or… just… notes. At first I thought this space on the site would be a stage, if you will, for me to act out the part of bf ceo but alas alack, I have been gravely amiss in attending to and filling out this role in the digital realm —
in the so-called real world I have been a bit more active as the show runner behind the bf — but why act out his role rather than be it? Why not take it seriously and just be it? I took the responsibilities I associated with running something well very seriously but I did not feel comfortable with the mask of ceo, perhaps this is why I chose it, a way to mock myself while mocking the project while asserting my ownership and will —
notes #1 thru 6 (below) were written over an 8 year period, the most recent edits were 2012 — after 1 thru 6, let's call them the more recent notes, I've installed a few other documents, things I have written for various reasons associated with the bf and that might shed light on my thinking and 'acting out' and the bf itself —
1) CEO Notes is a space for me, William Pope.L, the CEO of the BF, to set out, cook up, work out, play out, write up ideas, strategies, problematics, challenges, ways of life concerning the BF.
2) Eventually we want to add an email or blog function to this part of the site to give it more interactivity.
As of fall 2012 we have not added this feature. Partly cause it makes the site more difficult to manage. You can also email me at WpopeL2@yahoo.com.
3) Before going on tour, we usually do at least 10 days of rehearsal. For the 2005 tour we did 14 days, next year if everything works out, I'd like to do 17, I think that's an even better number. Note: I think we might have done 16 or 17 but it wasn't intentional.
4) Rehearsal is time for building an approach, a feel to the tour, mostly in the form of feeling out the crew; building nodes (activities, skits, events, moments, attitudes, non-events, reactions, blanks). It's also a time for me and the crew of three (including Ms. Black Factory) to get to know each other, feel out each other's rhythms and inclinations, habits, pasts and fears. The crew also needs to find its own way as a crew and I need to get out of the way. Rehearsal time is for building a rhythm. The building requires my participation yet I cannot remain its center, yet I cannot abdicate participation, interesting problem.
Not easy, especially in two weeks. There are a lot of practical things to learn as well; for example, each crew member had to learn to drive the truck, each had to create his or her own node and learn how to perform it in public, each had to learn the various 'systems,' as pasqualina, miss bf 2005, once called all the different ways and means of the bf.
Speaking of MISS BLACK FACTORY, which was the titular name of a contest I cooked up to recruit interesting and competent performer-collaborators, the casting of crew-folk was never a fluid or fool-proof process. It was always fraught with anxiety. During the process, in most cases, the closest I'd ever get to a candidate was an interview phone call near the end of the process. This was partly design, partly practical. I'd meet face-to-face with only 1 or maximum 2 candidates per year. This person was usually a 'local' and I may have worked with him or her in some other capacity previously. But no matter how careful and detailed the casting process, you never really knew until the crew spent some time together how they'd gel and what fate had wrought.
Timing is very important in XXXXXX performance. And there is a sense of intuition to this sense of timing I am referring to. It is not achieved by rote repetition, though repetition is extremely important — one of the most difficult gifts to give a new performer is the precarious freedom of allowing him or herself to be in the moment without judgment. To suspend the requirement that he or she must know where the dance is going in an encounter at every moment. Or better said, to be able to build a moment with someone else in which judgment is so fluid it does not feel or seem like you are deciding, you just enter into it, like a series of hallways with a few missing floorboards — you act with a certainty and confidence that no matter what you do, where you step, it's okay — with technique: repetition, stress, goal, suspension, more repetition, more stress, etc. — sensing right action with judgment on the fly without the safety net of 'enough time.' Technique, in this case, functions as both a resistance and a barrier and a sieve. This technique or way is difficult to describe, or perhaps more, accept or account for, as big dave would say early on in the bf rehearsal process: "So what's the point?" Side note: David went on to work with children and later studied for a business degree. Part of learning this technique was the thrill of learning a skill and a confidence in allowing oneself to enter the stream of being in a public with a demand or a request or a mock for the world and where you knew, you and your request would eventually find your real stakes. Once you became accomplished at your node, first in rehearsal, then out in public, you recognized the feeling, and strove for that balance.
5) What do I mean by feeling? Feeling lets you know you are and how you are in the world with others. One of the most important resources we have, as humans, is our ability to create and understand through non-verbal interactions, that is, the stuff that happens when we are not talking AND the non-linguistic stuff that swirls around and underpins the linguistic stuff. I am interested in feeling, emotion, the somatic — as a psychological field or stage, as a means of analysis, a form of intelligence. For many years, folk practices, ritual, early forms of theater, and more recently psychology, biology and sociology have come to recognize that feeling, that is, emotion is not necessarily irrational or mysterious or even unstructured but part of our kit to understand ourselves and the world.
Today, if we analyze how our feeling works at all, usually it is to control it or free ourselves of it. Usually we look for single causes not networks of relationships. Frequently, we do not know how to be with our gooey mixed up selves. The muddier the variety of feeling, the less we know how to deal.
BF nodes sometimes had a clear goal, sometimes the only goal was to get at a feeling, not a position. To do this, a performer needed to reject final answers yet accept the performance situation. So -- no matter what I say in these notes, no matter how confident they might sound, the on-going challenge was always to arrive at and accept a radical in-betweeness that disturbs.
I do not think I was completely clear with the crew about this goal -- it was hard to arrive at it myself. It was hard to ask them to come to it especially within the overall discomfort of touring itself--
6) In rehearsal, I constructed situations of comfort and discomfort. Comfort created trust. Discomfort created strength. Frequently the unfamiliar with which we are most intimate, yet gravely ignorant, is ourselves.
I used the "wrong & strong" method. A performer is introduced to a new technique or node. Before she is ready, I ask the performer to perform the node in public. I decide when a performer is ready. The performer is rarely ready. The key, at this point, is that nothing the performer does is wrong. All is useful, even reluctance. Eventually, over time, all is focused to create an open-ness to which even the performer is a creature of, is beholden to--
Many performers believe they must know everything to perform well. For me, perfect knowledge forecloses on experience. It is when a person only partially knows that they adventure in knowledge. Failure. Trial and error. Success are all elusive. Knowledge re-makes and erases itself like the sea.
Once knowledge becomes familiar, its status as truth has only been made even more theatrical.
1. guggenheim grant application text, sep 30. 03
2. bf art talk @ center for maine contemporary art, rockland, maine, aug 4. 04
3. bellagio residency application text, may 05
4. bf lecture @ bishops, feb 20. 06
6. bf talk @ nova scotia art fair, may 9. 06
Dear Miss Black Factory Applicants:
We are pleased to announce that Ms. Black Factory 2006 is Josh Atlas of Pittsburgh, PA.
We want to thank all the folks who applied and the CEO, William Pope.L, will be writing to each of you individually to express his gratitude.
Again, thank you for applying and we hope to see you on the 2006 tour.
Sincerely,
Lydia Grey, tour manager
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The Looking for Miss Black Factory Contest is a real contest looking for a real person (including men!) who will be the third member of a three-person crew that will staff the Black Factory truck for its 2006 national tour of the U.S. Miss Black Factory will also represent the Black Factory at all official functions.
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Beginning Tuesday, May 30, the tour begins with approx. 2 weeks of rehearsal in Lewiston, Maine, the corporate headquarters of the Black Factory. After rehearsal the truck takes off across the country. Depending on scheduling and booking the tour will last 4 to 6 weeks.
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Touring:
The BF National Tour 2006 is a hands-on down-and-dirty experience with all the adventure, disappointments and epiphanies of an actual tour. The team of three performers will undergo a two week boot camp rehearsal with CEO William Pope.L, where under his guidance they will learn and develop a diverse performance practice suited to the needs of the BF and its (figurative and literal) service to community.
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In other words:
1) Develop team structure and group reliance.
2) Assist in any and all ways to prepare for the 2006 tour; this includes discussions, brain-storming sessions, building scripts and props, and the day to day running of the BF.
3) Develop with Pope.L a performance practice.
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Note: Miss Black Factory's official duties are curious in that they resemble very much what every crew member does.
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A tour is a performance. While on tour you are always performing at some level. At each venue, each performer will regale, mix it up with the audience on the subject of difference, possibility, and infrastructure, while being educated by those you meet. Each member will be expected to serve as roadies and facilitate the loading, unloading, set-up, break down and overall care of equipment, props, and materials of the BF.
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While on tour Performers drive the BF truck, run the BF gift shop, and facilitate the myriad daily tasks of being on the road, as well as videotape and journal their experiences.
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Each performer will receive:
$300 weekly stipend (this includes the rehearsal period)
At least one day off every five days
A travel allotment
Room and Board for rehearsal and tour.
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Eligibility:
Anyone may enter who is 18 years old or older, has a valid U.S. driver's license, and a major credit card. Other necessary assets are: a strong back, an enthusiasm for making social change, flexibility, good people skills, the ability to use power tools, attendance at all BF rehearsals and tour activities, and a willingness to submit to a collaborative process with CEO Pope.L.
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A few not so necessary but still excellent skill areas with which Miss BF might be familiar: community organizing, playing music, street theater, chemistry, ethnic culture, international law, political theory, baking, working in a factory, etc.
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Application:
To enter the Miss BF contest, send your entry so we receive it by March 24, 2006.
Your entry must include:
1) the Miss BF Contest Form
2) a short paragraph (up to 150 words maximum) explaining the skills and experience which makes you the best choice to become Miss BF
3) a video of you telling us who you are and showing us why you should be selected, and
4) a self addressed stamped business-size envelope for notification.
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Your video presentation should be 5 to 7 minutes long. Please cue tape to the beginning. Tell us who you are, where you're from, and explain to us why you should be Miss Black Factory 2006, what skills and experience you bring to this experiment! etc. Please use VHS NTSC format for your video. If you choose to send a different format, DVD, or other media we cannot guarantee our equipment will be able to play it. We will accept entries on DVD, however if we cannot play your disc you will not be considered for the contest.
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Click the "Contest Form" button to print a Miss Black Factory contest form. Send the completed form, your video, 150 word paragraph, and self-addressed stamped business-size envelope to the address indicated.
If you have any questions, please contact us at:
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Deadline:
March 24, 2006
This is not a postmark date. We must receive you entry by this date.
Winner will be
announced by May 20, others will be notified afterwards via the self-addressed,
stamped business-size envelope provided with your entry.
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Incomplete applications will not be considered. All materials received become the property of The Black Factory.
Please note that the Black Factory reserves the right to alter, amend, adjust to whatever extent the contents of this proposal. The Black Factory reserves the right to choose no applicant.
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