Alive Presents Presents

2017–Ongoing

Alive Presents Presents is a lab + performance series conceived and co-facilitated by Emma W. Howes & Justin F. Kennedy researching the experience and analysis of trance forms as well as its translatability into live performance. Alive plunges without hierarchy into various trance states and operatic voice practices. The laboratory addresses the challenges of interpreting transcendental experience through a process of ‘Auto-Mythologizing*’, and how the materials generated translate into lucid science fiction operas. Each presentation is accompanied by a ‘Zymns Zine’ – a combination between a book of hymns, zine, and a libretto book.

*The ‘Auto’ comes when the practice is so deeply embodied that it becomes second nature or automatic. The ‘Mythologizing’ emerges after physical exercises (prompted by images, tasks and movement qualities), when the participants exchange stories, archetypes, and impressions without judgement or hierarchy. Lucidity is an essential aspect of the work and only arises once the participants have exhausted their constraints and habits. These emergent mythologies inform and are folded into pre-existing science fictions and lay the foundation for rock operas, as well as a deeper relation to the materials. The work reclaims the value of a-live experience that disrupts notions of individual authorship, in favour of collaboration that expands towards, with, and for others.