The local theater company reproduces original compositions on stories and memories to honor and congratulate the lives lost.
Blindspot Collective, a San Diego-based theater group, has called in recent years with inclusive, anti-barrier and site-specific works, adding The Without Walls festival at La Jolla Playhouse.
This summer, they presented “Refractions,” a task that creates “human anthems,” original songs written to honor the lives lost by the pandemic.
While the pandemic has set aside its operations in many ways, artistic director Blake McCarty said he has also created a kind of intersection of the values the company strives for.
“It demands situations for performing artists to re-imagine what theatre is like,” McCarty said, and Blindspot had already taken an interest in that conversation.
They have also been interested for a long time in telling real first-person stories in the documentary style. During the pandemic, when families affected by loss or disease become statistics, Blindspot sought to translate those skills into paintings and honor the victims by telling their stories. Verbatim Theatre, or Documentary Theatre, is an express form of nonfiction theatre and dramatic writing that consists of conducting interviews and turning those interviews into a script.
“Each discussion topic is something genuine and original from an interview source, so each character is based in particular on a genuine user and their true and genuine experience,” McCarty said. He noted that textual theatre attempts to galvanize verbal exchange and social change, and that “The Laramie Project” at the Tectonic Theatre, Matthew Shepard’s true story, is a remarkable example of the genre.
Drawing stories and interviews helps humanize and commemorate anything bigger than a person.
“Documentaries are not the truth; are someone’s point of view,” McCarty said. “It is the ability to embrace someone’s truth without making this truth monolithic in any way.”
Shellina Hefner, one of the artists leading the project, said telling stories is essential as communities deal with pain, but it’s a role she lacks, along with many other artists, right now with closed scenes.
“For me, our task is to create empathy and tell stories,” Hefner said. “In all those numbers that flood us on television, we’re wasting the individual right now. Yes, we see like, three hundred new instances and we think, ‘Oh, that’s a lot,’ but I think we’re wasting who those other people are. Everyone has a story.”
The band will pair grieving families with songwriters and performers to produce original music, with lyrics directly from interviews and conversations with people they enjoy.
Hefner said they first collected family stories through personal interviews. It’s a way to get to know a user beyond statistics: the things they liked, their slogans and what friends and the family circle remember. They also ask what kind of music the user liked and what kind of music the circle of family members listens together.
Blindspot then relates the circle of relatives to artists from their list of composers, and composers create lyrics and paintings with artists who record the song as a video. The circle of relatives can maintain the personal song or allow Blindspot to share the paintings with the public.
In the absence of a public funeral, McCarty said the procedure is consistent with the human desire to congratulate his loved ones. When these songs are shared with the audience, they put a face, and a story, on the human cost of the pandemic.
The first song produced through Blindspot revered the reminiscence of Juliet Davis. His son, Tavi Tory McNeil, told Davis’ story to composers Bryan Barbarin and Kendrick Dial, who wrote “Momma’s Gonna Work It Out”. Local rap and R-B band Kendrick Dial – The Routine directed the play, with vocals by Dial and Barbarin.
“One way or another, no matter how the universe works, it got this far. It was precisely what I needed. And all I can say from the back of my center is thank you,” McNeil said, adding that his mother had raised him. with music. “My mom liked music.”
Blindspot Collective is running lately on several other songs, and are for more families to participate in the program. Families can complete this questionnaire if they are interested.
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