Georgia by: Fariso Maswoswe

The color I wish to portray is gray. It sounds like birds chirping, children playing, adults drinking, and vultures feasting. It smells like the air of a sunny, raining day. It tastes bittersweet. I’ve become very intrigued by, scared of, obsessed with, bewildered, angered, excited, and stunned by the vastness of differing perspectives that can be born of a singular event. I wish to explore the idea of differing perspectives. I wished to explore the differing perspective from the same character during various stages of life. I wish to explore the differing perspective of various characters among differing social categories such as culture, age, and gender. I wish to explore the differing perspectives of the "good" versus "evil" forces of a situation: curruption vs. innocence, villian vs. victim. I wish to embark on a search for truth.

This small glimpse you see of a much larger, work in progress is based upon my following burning questions: Is there such a thing as truth? Is there such a thing as a lie? Is there such a thing as both good and evil, or just one and the absence of another? Where do these terms come from? What happens when they meet? What happens when they mix? What happens when they clash? What happens when they collide to confront each other? What happens when they stay separated, distant, and silent? What happens when there is never a meeting of the minds? What happens when one person preserves knowledge only for themselves but leaves out everyone else? What happens when everyone else knows a certain knowledge but chooses to leave out just one person. What happens when you refuse to acknowledge what is right in front of your face? What happens when something is forced in front of your face? When is ignorance bliss? What happens when you remember something you are supposed to forget? How does the memory betray you? How does the mind, body, and voice betray you? What happens when both parties encounter opposite experiences of the same situation? How many stories can you get from one story? How is this dangerous? How is it beneficial? What happens when you love your enemy? What happens when your enemy loves you? What happens when you can't love? What happens when you don't feel the way you're supposed to feel? What happens when you don't do what you're supposed to do? What happens when you test the waters? What happens when when you step outside the box? What happens when you don't? What happens when you state the obvious? What happens when you do the unthinkable? What happens when break out of the conventions?


I first started my work as a non-text based movement piece with a long, red ribbon. I used this one ribbon to demonstrate many different items: a blindfold, a jump rope, wrapping paper, a shawl, a tie, a borderline, a noose, and eventually a life-saving rope. From there, I created four characters differing in age, gender, experience, and background. I had to discover the very unique way that each character walked, talked, dressed, sipped their morning coffee. In order to get to these exterior identities of each character, I first had to investigate the interior identity of each character. This includes research of psychology behind each behavioral pattern and belief system. This process allowed me to ascertain an understanding of how each individual thinks, and why they would think in such a way, which inevitably affects their ultimate actions and other visible characteristics such as walking, talking. An understanding for each character allowed me to veil myself in objectivity which is crucial to this process. Non-judgment of each character gave me permission to act as a clean slate, empty vessel through which each character is allowed to tell his or her story which inevitably comes to clash, combine, and compete with each other character’s perspective on events.


My virtual mentor for this piece is Anna Deavere Smith. The center of her craft relies on objectively presenting the perspectives of multiple characters through her one, singular body. She eminently displays this with Fires in the Mirror. What was most informative in study of her work in Let Me Down Easy was watching her transformation and transition from one character to another. With such appearance of ease she regularly changed her breathing, speaking pattern, body language for each character. Her simple set and very basic dress attire for each character worked wonders. She is the epitome simple complexity by doing a lot with just a little.