JohnHarrigan.net

Red Threatening Sky - Updates

Things are moving along quickly towards the opening night of 'A Red Threatening Sky'.  One of the artists I'm most excited to be working with is Xanadu Xero. 

 

The work Xanadu has created for the project brings glamour and sex into an old Abattoir. She's one of those rare people you meet that hold honesty, integrity and art above all else. 

Xanadu is part of the second wave of artists we just announced on FP.

Tickets are on sale now. If you're planning on coming, then buy online now and you'll save yourself some money. We open on the 11th of February. Come see Loves dirty little underbelly.

Art & Design by P. Emerson Williams

A Red Threatening Sky

 

In conversation with Joseph Matheny on the Gspot.

The Gspot: John Harrigan

In anticipation of the upcoming performance of The Abattoir Pages, Joseph Matheny in conversation with John Harrigan about anything and everything that comes to their mind.

All music provided by Veil of Thorns

Songs, in order:

• And the Beast of the Vision Still Roams in Dream
• Intellectual Institutional Object
• Thought Pollution Evolution

In Your Ear: Reviewing Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story

The Abattoir Pages - New Performances Added.

The Abattoir Pages

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - LONDON 07/09/09

Guerrilla Zoo and FoolishPeople present

The Abattoir Pages

Thurs 22nd - Sat 31st October 2009

Guerilla Zoo and FoolishPeople present The Abattoir Pages, an immersive Halloween event, hosted in a vast, secret subterranean landscape that was once one of London's largest abattoirs.

The Abattoir Pages combines immersive performance, art installation, haunting and treasure hunt-style devices to form a labyrinth of mystery and horror, exposing the earliest Gaelic and Pagan rites. Once inside, audience members will be free to explore the abandoned underground chambers, join the secret party or may be caught in the middle of the most terrifying of puzzles.

Synopsis

This Hallowe’en, the infamous horror author Helen Mayer will hold court at a debauched secret party. She will share the perverse and warped research conducted inside the old abandoned abattoir, which was the genesis of her greatest work. In this dark playground, the very nature of human terror has been tested, abused and fed into the living story 'The Forest'.

The author invites you to solve the puzzle and unlock the terrifying history within the old and powerful pages hidden throughout the slaughterhouse. Each holds a key to learning the truth of an ancient tale, which will ensure your survival.

Tonight, a debt will be repaid to blood dishonoured. An eternal nightmare rises up from the depths of the dark boreal forest, in the shadow of the mountain. It comes to feed on new meat inside an old abattoir.

The Abattoir Pages marks the evolution of the open source meta event as FoolishPeople partner with Guerrilla Zoo in an exciting first-time collaboration of two of London’s most renowned art organisations alongside cutting edge artists and performers. In addition we are excited to have the infamous purveyors of fine adventures, Hunter-Gatherers as part of our outstanding creative team.

The production follows FoolishPeople's critically acclaimed sell-out run of 'Cirxus' at the Arcola Theatre and precedes Guerilla Zoo's 'Season of Alejandro Jodorowsky' productions. ‘The Abattoir Pages’ is the prologue to a new, large scale work which will be undertaken by FoolishPeople in 2010.

Creative Team

John Harrigan
James Elphick
P. Emerson Williams
Lucy Allin
Claire Tregellas
Victoria Karlsson
Tereza Kamenicka
Jenny Reina
Bryony Henderson

Listings Information:

22 October- 31 October 2009

7.30pm, 8.30pm & 9.30pm entrance times

Entry price £15

Limited edition tickets £20

Tuesday 27th Pay what you can- Subject to availability

Book tickets online: guerrillazoo.com or foolishpeople.com or call 07597576075

The Old Abattoir, 187- 211 St. John's Street, Clerkenwell, London. EC1V 4LS

Not suitable for people of a nervous disposition.

Notes to editors:

• Guerrilla Zoo is also producing a ‘Season of Alejandro Jodorowsky’ productions throughout November 09 including a theatre production, a live event, 2 major art exhibitions, exclusive talks and midnight film screenings.

• FoolishPeople is currently in pre-production for their forthcoming feature film entitled 'GraveLand' and are planning another large scale immersive event next year, forming a collaboration with Integrate design company.

• The Abattoir Pages will feature a transatlantic collaboration between sound artists P. Emerson Williams and Sonica Storm.

• Guerrilla Zoo curates and creates conceptual spaces and events with cross-platform ideas, promoting artists from contemporary music, art and performance, via their unique approach into creative platforms, networking and audience participation.

• Founded in 1989, FoolishPeople create immersive theatre, live art, collaborative events and film which aim to raise a numinous, transformative experience within the witness to instigate positive change.

For further information, please contact:

Lucy Allin, FoolishPeople

lucena@foolishpeople.org

FoolishPeople
Guerrilla Zoo
Hunter Gatherers

Remnants of Calder Hall

Cirxus photo album. All photography taken by Yiannis Katsaris.

The GSpot: User's Manual for the Human Experience- CIRXUS

The GSpot: User's Manual for the Human Experience- CIRXUS

Joseph Matheny talks to Michael Dean about his newest book, A USER'S MANUAL FOR THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE. Also in this show: Sleepchamber and and excerpt from the Foolishpeople production of CIRXUS.

Show dedicated to my dearly departed friend: Dave Szulborski

Information: In the SLEEPCHAMBER bit, John Zewizz and co. gives updates on the band, shares tracks from the forthcoming album "Stolen Sleep", and thanks the fans and collaborators who have supported the return of SLEEPCHAMBER.

Exerpt from Cirxus, a FoolishPeople production written and directed by John Harrigan. This psycho-audio sequence is produced and performed by P. Emerson Williams and directed by John Harrigan. A promenade performance will run from 25th May - 13th June 2009 in Arcola Theatre's new industrial space, Studio K in London.

CIRXUS - Tickets Now Available!

25th May - 13th June 2009 

Starting time: 

8.30pm & 9.15pm 

STUDIO K 

Written and directed by John Harrigan 

1957- Seascale, the North of England. Cirxus is an old English circus lost in the shadows of the smoke stacks of Calder Hall, the world's first commercial nuclear power station. FoolishPeople will use mythology, shamanism, music and dance to bring the darkness of an atomic circus to life. The performance will allow audience members to step into the world of an old English circus lost in the 1950s, explore its sideshows and meet extraordinary characters from the past and future.

Athalia the ballerina waits in the ring for Loudon the Clown to return with directions to the Black Pool, the mythic site of the Home Sweet Home, the final show of the season. Join her as she begins a bizarre and wondrous search for Loudon through the irradiated secrets of Cirxus, where she must face the macabre atomic menagerie, haunted by circus animals and navigate her way through the maze of strange, hallucinogenic sideshows on the other side of time. Immerse yourself in the world of Cirxus, where theatric arcana and Atomic fallout irradiate the sawdust arenas of our inner worlds.

Presented by FoolishPeople

Written and Directed by John Harrigan

Creative Team 

John Harrigan 

Lucy Allin 

Victoria Karlsson 

P. Emerson Williams 

Claire Tregellas 

Tereza Kamenicka 

This is a promenade performance in Arcola's new industrial space, Studio K. Cirxus is based on fact: the German Bremen University confirmed that radioactive contamination by Americium-241 found in some soil samples taken by Greenpeace 11.5 km south of Sellafield, were 400 times higher than those taken 11 km from Chernobyl. 51 years on, the villagers of Seascale still live with the ramifications of the accident at Pile 1 of the Windscale Works Atomic Energy Factory. 

Cirxus will be FoolishPeople's first London performance run since the critically acclaimed Dead Language at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2007. 

[ Buy Tickets ]

TICKET INFORMATION: 

• Ticket Prices £14/£10 

• Tuesdays 'PAY WHAT YOU CAN' (subject to availability) 

• Free tickets are available for under 26s under the Night Less Ordinary Free Ticket Scheme Monday-Thursday evenings for the first 2 weeks (please ring box office more information) PLEASE NOTE: 

• No concessions on Fridays and Saturdays 

• Proof will be required for concessions 

• All tickets are NON-REFUNDABLE 

Cirxus Image by P. Emerson Willliams.

DPRGRM, PILOTLITE, MYTHOS MEDIA & FOOLISHPEOPLE PRESENT ‘Y’

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 

DPRGRM, PILOTLITE, MYTHOS MEDIA & FOOLISHPEOPLE PRESENT 

‘Y’ 

In a post-apocalyptic world, ‘Y’ is a documentary-style reality show where the grand prize is the future of our species on planet Earth. 

Mythos Media and FoolishPeople will join with DPRGRM/Pilotlite to create 'Y', a feature film that starts shooting in Los Angeles July 2009. 

LOS ANGELES, CA 02/27/09 – DPRGRM/Pilotlite announced a project today that forges a new path in independent cinema by bringing together real world experience and film in a unique way. 'Y' brings an audience inside the creation of a modern myth. The audience will become actual cast members, and be immersed in the story in real time. The film crew will also be part of the story as well as part of the cast, therefore creating a total immersive experience that bridges the traditional proscenium of audience/performer. 

The ambitious staging and shooting technique is enhanced by the premise that in the future, government facilities, such as the one depicted in this film, will have to turn to unorthodox means of funding, such as contracting the facility out as the subject of a reality based TV show. The actual crew will be made up of news, reality and documentary style cinematographers and the production will be filmed entirely in the Cinéma vérité style.

Written by John Harrigan and James Curcio, and directed by Joseph Matheny, ‘Y’ is a unique production fusing characters from Curcio’s second published novel, ‘Fallen Nation: Babylon Burning’ and Harrigan’s screenplay ‘GraveLand’, currently in pre production. 

DPRGRM will finance and distribute the film, working alongside online media corporation Pilotlite, a joint venture between Joseph Matheny and Michael Mailer Films. 

Joseph Matheny, founder of DPRGRM and Pilotlite co-founder says: “We will be employing cutting edge production, post production and distribution techniques that have been gestating for several years while the technology caught up to the vision. We chose this project and this team specifically because the project lends itself to the medium and the people can keep up.” 

James Curcio, Creative Director of Mythos Media, says: “Mythos Media was founded specifically to work on projects like this, and modern myths have been my life passion. I am eager to dive in and create this world, both as production designer and producer of the soundtrack. However, even more, I am eager to collaborate with all of the creatives that are already lining up to become a part of this truly one-of-a-kind project.” 

John Harrigan, Artistic Director of FoolishPeople comments: “Members of FP and I are extremely excited to be working on a project with such a talented and unique team. 'Y' will redefine what is possible in film production and I'm looking forward to taking on the role of Performance Director.” 

About ‘Y’: 

Civilization has fallen. In the rubble, we at the Y Corporation have developed the ultimate solution to save society: the Y Show. 

We encourage all good citizens to sign up for the Show. You will be housed within a wonderful Haze Treatment Facility and undergo unique psychological treatment, which will clear away the illness of individuality. This reprogramming will be broadcast to the eyes and ears of Citizens in our New World, populated with previous contestants and patients. This is a reality show unlike any other! 

There is a secret that haunts Haze01, the original treatment facility. Two patients, locked deep within its walls, contain archetypes that reject all reprogramming. They channel portents and omens of another future, a world where myth and divinity remake reality, manifesting a planet fit for Gods. 

In this season of the Y show, the doctors of the facility make their final attempt to process these two patients, before they break free and unleash total anarchy. Tune in. 

### 

Notes to editors: 

About DPRGRM/Pilotlite: 

DPRGRM was founded by auteur Joseph Matheny to meet the new age of media convergence head-on with cutting edge media projects like ‘Y’ and Pilotlite, which Matheny co-founded with Michael Mailer of Michael Mailer Films. For more information visit: http://jmatheny.wordpress.com 

About Mythos Media: 

Mythos Media was founded by James Curcio, Peter Emerson Williams, Michael Szul and Tovarich Pizor in 2006 to produce modern myths. In the past, these have taken the form of comics, novels, and albums. For more information, please visit: http://www.mythosmedia.net/   

About FoolishPeople: 

FoolishPeople was founded by John Harrigan in 1989, taking its name from one of the major arcana of the tarot, card 0: The Fool. FoolishPeople create weaponized art, ritual theatre, collaborative events, books & film to raise a numinous experience within the witness. FP engineer immersive, open source experiences that become a catalyst for positive change. For more information, please visit: http://www.foolishpeople.org  

Press Contact: 

Joseph Matheny 

DPRGRM 

jmatheny@dprgrm.com 

310.928.6959 

http://citizen-y.com

Y

Things should be getting very busy around these parts, I'm about to announce what I've been working on with Joseph Matheny and James Curcio for the last thirteen months.

Press release forthcoming. This site will document the journey from here to Y.