For a recent family reunion (250 Forsters in San Juan Capistrano, CA!), I adapted the research on Ysidora Pico de Forster (1808-1873),
which I collected during the creation of my performance “What’s on [My] Mind?“ and presented it to my family members in a straight-up presentation, complete with a Keynote slide show. In contrast, the intergenerational persona I embodied in WO[M]M? grew from historical details about Ysidora’s life, which I amplified and refracted through my imagination and my own life experience. But for the reunion, I felt like I had to stick to the facts about her life, an appropriate and ethical thing to do in this case. Yet imagination played a large role in how I interpreted the facts for my family.
For example, in figuring out the organizing principle for the presentation, I focused on Ysidora’s birth order: she fell exactly in the middle of 11 children. This focus turned out to be extremely powerful one for me.
These “filters” helped me fill out the details that I’d caught in the research, helped me explain some things about her, like
- More likely to embrace change/open to new experiences: she was the only one in her family to marry outside her race (she was Afro-Hispanic and married an Anglo)
- Independent: she did not marry until she was almost 30
- Flexible/easy-going: she managed the multiple, rapidly-changing citizenships Californios faced in the 1800s: Spanish, Mexican, American
- Generous: she and her husband were consummate hosts to all who ventured through their rancho, unfailingly providing refuge, food and entertainment for not only guests, but also the large household they managed.
- Secretive/Rebellious/Concerned about fairness: she was inordinately preoccupied with the physical (and spiritual) sanctity of the unwed women who worked on the rancho — so much so that she locked them every night in the attic loft above her bedroom to keep the vaqueros away from them (obviously, a problematic solution — a drastic one, too).
- Strong negotiator/peacemaker: she was able to manage the highly conflicted relationship between her husband and her brothers (Pio and Andres Pico) after the lawsuit that occurred in the 1870s, Pico v. Forster.
- Social: she was a favorite friend throughout her life
Using birth order filter, I forged her story within a blaze of history and imagination.
The Forster family appreciated the presentation. Afterward, many members approached me, thanking me for bringing her into their own imaginations, from which she’d been absent — always overshadowed by her husband, Don Juan Forster, in the historical documents. For me, the experience of working with this material continues to gratify and inspire me.
Now, I’m figuring out the next mode the story will take.
Thanks for sharing this Christa! In today’s (Mon 11 Aug ’14) hangout we were just speaking about Intermedia art and the idea of choosing your ideas first and the media later (vs being a “painter” or “video artist” etc) It’s so great to see you take this growing body of research and be able to realize it as Performance Theater and as Keynote Presentation. I love that you’ll keep on this over time, both learning more information, processing it, and considering a variety of presentation modalities or “media” for it.
Bravo!
Why this doesn’t let me reply?
Oh. It let me reply! Now I gotta figure out how to get my mug in there.
Thanks, Van! During our G+ hangout, I was indeed reflecting on the resonance between our conversation and the way I’m working with the material.
Hi Xta! I’m not certain why you had reply troubles – it (haha, of course) is working fine for me. I’ll ask Izzy & some other peeps to check it out.
Now that you can post, probably the reason you don’t have an icon is that your signed up with Disqus under a different email address than the one you’ve logged in with now, so “this” Xta Disqus doesn’t have an icon for.
Sorry for any hassle! .Re/search has always had that funky comment icon issue so this is supposed to be the fix! 😛
You can also try going to
Disqus > Edit Profile > Merging
and it seems to collect “stray” comments and put them all together for you. I just did that and it’s added my icon to posts here. I guess since they were originally “WordPress Comments” and not “Disqus Comments,” it didn’t “officially” connect them to “me”… kinda… sorta…
OMG WHY do .Re/search comments so often use the wrong avatar?? Uggh! 😛
this is me “logged in 2 .Re/search. See if that makes a difference.
I have been trying to reply to your comment, but even after signing into Disqus, I’m not getting anywhere.
this is me logged out again.,..
“Jetpack Comments” caused some (different) problems over on .Re/act. This is with JP C’s turned off (and me logged out of .Re/search) let’s see what happens…
Test comment with our new Disqus comments.