Ophelia | Leaves

Presented by


Friday, Jan 27 - Saturday, Jan 28
7:30 pm - 9:00 pm

Location
ATLAS Black Box Experimental Studio, Roser ATLAS Center, University of Colorado Boulder

Event Details

WESTWORD REVIEW: “Artist Niki Tulk’s Irreverent Look at Ophelia’s Suicide” by Kyle Harris

 

niki-tulk-ophelia-leaves-web

What would have happened if someone had listened to “Hamlet’s” Ophelia, and learned her song?


The question is a mark, a curled finger at the end of my thought. The question is the sign of a path to travel, maybe the path to an undiscovered country and the path is trod with caves of desire pressed deep into the mud and loam, the earth fleeing from my feet, rustling against my skin.

Between to be and not to be, what exists? Who exists? What are the stories and landscapes that breathe in the space between being and non-being? Poetry, soundscapes, video projections, live and recorded cello are gathered into this meditation on the spirit of Ophelia as she might have existed—an “undiscovered country” who defies that she can speak only of absence. With influences such as Ann Hamilton, Ruth Zaporah, and Australian theater-maker Jenny Kemp, Ophelia | Leaves is an exploration into what might have happened if someone had listened to Ophelia, and learned her song.

Written, directed and designed by Niki Tulk
Performed by Niki Tulk, Mark Tulk and Teri Wagner
Sound Design by Mark Tulk
Lighting Design by Iain Court
Textile Creation and Design by Teri Wagner
Graphic design by Mark Tulk
Photography by Corrina Tulk

About the Director 

An Australian writer, cellist and theater-maker based in the U.S., Niki Tulk is currently a Ph.D. student in theater at the University of Colorado Boulder. She studied literature, music and theater at both the University of Melbourne and Victorian College of the Arts. She holds a master’s in education from the University of Georgia and an MFA in creative writing from The New School, NYC, where she also taught practice-based research to undergraduate artists at Parsons, The New School for Design and directed a multi-year, Off-Broadway production of Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons. She has published a novel, as well as poetry, fiction, dramatic and literary criticism in Emergency Index, The Saranac Review Tenth Anniversary Edition, Rock River Review, The Sheepshead Review, The Feminist Wire, The Journal of Language and Literacy Education, The West Trade Review and Antipodes. She is currently fiction editor of Antipodes, and co-managing editor of Research PARtake: The Journal of Performance as Research. Niki has been studying with Ruth Zaporah (Action Theater) for several years and her collaborative arts practice combines improvisation, music/sound, material and language-based poetics—and occasionally a custom-made re-pluckable chicken.

 

www.nikitulk.com

Free and open to the public

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