The Master/a piece that manifests itself from thin air | 2014

Commissioned by the RightHere Showcase. Additional funding provided by private funders.

Presented by RightHere Showcase at the TEKBOX in The Cowles Center for Dance & The Performing Arts, Minneapolis

Directed/Choreographed/Written by Vanessa Voskuil
Set Design by Vanessa Voskuil
Set Construction Max Herman, Thomas Keeler, Duane Voskuil, Vanessa Voskuil
Costume Design by Vanessa Voskuil and the ensemble
Performed by Tara Pfeifer, Jesse Neumann-Peterson, Vanessa Voskuil
With Ensemble Performers: Anna Andahazy, Diane E. Anderson, Chris Conry, Dane Cree, Brinsley Davis, Simone De Los Santos, Christina Elias, Beth Erickson, Diane Hellekson, Tera Kilbride, Yumi Inomata, Pat McManus, Robert Skafte

About the work

"The Master/a piece that manifests itself from thin air" is a sister piece to epic dance and theater work “The Student." Finding itself inside the depths of “The Student,” “The Master” embodies a reality theater experience. The work takes the stance that we are on this earth to master ourselves, and we can only partake in our lives as much as we are aware of it. The action generates a plot of desire and plain passiveness in our lives and how we manage to pull ourselves out of the abyss and clean up the mess that is of our own making. Culminating into a theater fantasy, “The Master” is about manifested drama on a personal and theatrical level.

Response

"In her dance-theater work "The Master," Vanessa Voskuil evoked zen serenity and cosmic uncertainty with a surge of movement that can only be described as speaking in gestural tongues. Like the set that she and her fellow performers demolished in the finale, Voskuil dismantled herself and illuminated all the working parts. She gave an intensely focused performance, simultaneously invoking ingénue and crone, trickster and guru. Moving to a highly philosophical and at times mordantly funny taped text about (among many other things) the relationship between performer and audience, Voskuil summoned up the mad woman in the attic by way of Mozart's "Queen of the Night." - City Pages, "Best Dancer Minneapolis 2015"

"Unique in its structure and ponderous in its expression, “The Master” served a plate of introspection and fundamental perfection of insubordination in the traditional arts culture. Voskuil takes the bull by the horns and directs in an unapologetic way and turns the audience inside and outside during her vision of endless self-suffering due to their own accord. It is likely one will be a witness to such events and feel strange, due to the nature of the work's element and vision, but Voskuil's speech is riveting and spectacular to witness. Voskuil is subservient and light-hearted in the same paragraph. As it unfolds, the narrated text says "this and that" and how does one do "this and that" towards all that is created." – production collaborator