Bellona: Destroyer of Cities

Jay Scheib is at it again so hang on to your belly: turning our insides outside and upside down, demanding, questioning, tickling, fumbling, destroying. His latest addition to the Trilogy, Simulated Cities, the first of which was a hilarious and raucous trip to Mars, is again focused on the psychological and physical effects of an apocalyptic environment.

Without law or structure, without a place to escape to - physically or figuratively - the world dramatically shrinks, as do the rules we live by. Every normalizing social more is thrown out the window because there is no one left to watch or judge, we are alone. It is this intersection of events that Scheib is after - the moment that everything else is stripped away, and we are left only with ourselves. How would we respond? What would we not be able to live without?

I got to photograph Jay when he was rehearsing for the first part of the trilogy in an old bank vault in Lower Manhattan provided by a grant through the LMCC. The Village Voice's review includes one of my images and has an interview with Jay and review of the play.

Bellona: Destroyer of Cities is playing at The Kitchen and on one night is followed by a discussion with the eminent photographer Carrie Mae Weems and Jay Scheib. I highly recommend this roller coaster of a performance - an athletic, intelligent, thunderstorm of a performance told through live video streams, dance and poetry.