The ReBegin is here, and in a very Happy Happy way! The Saturday, Dec. 29th performance proved to live up to the name and be a wonderful way to honor the long-time collaboration between performance artists April Hava Shenkman and Jason Jenn upon their shared birthday. It was a very festive occasion, honoring the archetype of Divine Fool in all of us, the idea of Calendar Girls and the human fascination with dates and time, Janus Geminus (the Roman God of beginnings and the New Year where we get the word January), and the cosmic transition our little blue planet is on as it recently went through a Triple ReBirth of the Sun (an alignment of the Earth, the Sun, and the center of the galaxy as predicted by Mayan Astronomers).
When I first met April, in Rachel Rosenthal's workshops back in 2004, I was immediately intrigued. She's always had her iconic spiky hair style and ability to bring intensity to spoken word and rattle off some fast-talking gibberish like no other. I was stunned when we discovered we shared the same birthday. It was jarring at first, there went my unique "possession" of the day, but then I realized we were kindred spirits, and there was a mirror there to explore. We performed and created several performances together in Rachel's workshops, but it had been some time since the disbanding of Fauve Conspiracy in 2007 that we'd done a true collaborative piece together. So this year, the timing of our birthday on a Saturday evening seemed a most auspicious time to manifest some magic again.
April has been hosting her cabaret style event, The Happy Happy Show at various venues for many years now. The idea was to combine that element with my concept of The ReBegin, and viola, the performance was born and the idea of piecing together elements began. April and her partner, Jared Whitham spent 2012 creating a series of 12 short movies to commemorate each month in The HAVA Calendar series. HAVA means life in Hebrew, and indeed, April brought the months to life with her unique styling and flare, a nod to classic Hollywood, vaudeville, and clowning. So we framed the first act of the show around videos with The HAVA Calendar Series as the centerpiece, and the second act around live performance.
It was indeed an outrageous outing, requiring a lot of work and energy to be generated around an already crazy holiday season and end of year chaos. But the end result proved to be the best way I could image spending the birthday and celebrating this once-in-a-lifetime cosmic transition we are in. I learned a lot about myself and my connection to the archetypes we celebrated. In particular I had always been drawn into the double heads of the Roman deity Janus, but I didn't quite understand the full relevance. In doing my research I discovered innate connections that astounded me and proved to add another piece of the puzzle into the mystery of life.
I had an incredible time that lived up to being a Happy Happy ReBegin Day Celebration! It was so much fun, that I am sure that our performance will manifest itself in some way, shape, or form again at some point in the future. The audience too appeared to brighten up as the evening progressed, and several beautiful comments afterwards assured that this was not just a birthday party, but a true gift to everyone who attended. It was a remarkable way to end a remarkable year and propel energy into 2013! Many blissings and blessings to all!
A special thanks to Spirit Studio Silverlake, all our support/tech crew, and wonderful audience!
Also, you can get your special edition, hand-drawn by April Hava Shenkman, HAVA, 2013 Calendars here:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/114946226/hava-art-calendar-2013-with-12-drawings
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