SUNDAY SCHOOL
JUNE 7, 8
Performance by Jessica Davenport
Sat June 7, 7pm
Sun June 8, 2pm
at Liggett Studios.
JOIN US! Enter into a place of memory, of deep and tender roots; of fear and wonder, and one child’s long ago lived experience,
kaleidoscopically colored by the Charismatic “Jesus Movement” of the 1970s. A love letter to the past. A bittersweet remembrance. A testament of grief, and a reckoning.
Noise Level, Fundamental; The SUNDAY SCHOOL PROJECT is an immersive theatrical experience offering a window into the world of American White Evangelical Christianity as viewed through the lens of childhood memory. Loosely structured as a Sunday School children's church service and surrounded by a collage of church imagery and ephemera, the objects, sounds, and experience are heightened and dreamlike, the familiar made new by a change of context and viewpoint. Visitors can take an active role in the story and spectacle as it unfolds, or attend and witness as curious observers. Interactive writing and art-making stations provide opportunity to reflect and respond to the experience, and add to the collage and the collective conversation.
Though the specific White Evangelical christian experience may be foreign to some, many will no doubt find echoes of their own encounters with American church-life. In these places of recognition and resonance, I hope this work can open up a space of communal dialogue and reflection; perhaps invoking some understanding and empathy across our current divided landscape.
Sunday School is a study of how the primary experiences of youth shape who we are, and how time and scrutiny can disrupt and challenge deep personal narratives, as well as my own effort to understand how we have come to be at this strange and harrowing juncture in history.
Bio:
Jessica Davenport [artbabyperformance.com] is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in performance. She holds an MFA in Directing from the University of Oklahoma, and a Bachelor of Science in Drama/TV/Film Performance. She frequently collaborates with artists across disciplines in the creation and development of performance-based work. Informed by her background in theatre, Jessica’s work is highly conceptual and frequently movement based and choreographic. She also draws from her experience in theatrical design and craft, often building performance and installations around costume, objects, and structures.
Her work examines the ties between the deeply personal and the universal. Her recent practice wrestles with questions relating to the growing global phenomena of existential dread and anxiety, juxtaposed with the overarching presence of uncontrollable forces. Jessica’s character, <Figure A>, is the embodiment of these, and appears in various iterations of her work, including the NoiseLevel series.
