Support by

/The Saison Foundation Creative Exchange Award

Produced by

/mayajirushi (TOKYO) + science project (NYC)

Creators include

/Baron Michael, Dubson Dima, Gluzman Yelena, Lloyd-Jones Rebecca, Nakada Yasuko, Nishida Maya, Okura Maya, Sato Ryoichi, Uemoto Ryuhei, and Urquhart Lauren

This project was developed over several months of workshops and rehearsals, as a collaboration between mayajirushi and a number of Japanese performers and directors, and Science Project, a New York based theater group, directed by Yelena Gluzman. It is an experiment in the possibilities of collaboration across cultures.

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English page

Worm Man

Inspired by Margaret Mead’s seminal study of pubescent girls in the Pacific, Coming of Age in Samoa, and based on a range of poetries from Africa, Asia & Oceana, edited by poet Jerome Rothenberg in the anthology Technicians of the Sacred.

A play about becoming conscious.

Question: What is the doorstep?
Answer: The doorstep is a woman.

Q: And the crossbar over the door, what is that?
A: The crossbar is a man.

Q: And the hingepin on the door?
A: His penis.

Q: What is the ceiling on the hut and the floor beneath?
A: A boy and girl who are mating.

Q: And the grass bundles hanging down above them?
A: The python.

Q: Then what is the beaten floor?
A: That is my aunt.

Q: Who has been beating the floor then?
A: A hand.

Q: But what is the door?
A: The door is the crocodile.

Q: And if the door is closed, then what is that?
A: The crocodile stretching out.

Q: What is the door from the outside?
A: The crocodile’s back.

Q: And if that one is closed?
A: A pregnant woman.

Q: Then what is a door that is open?
A: A woman after delivery.

Q: What are the two sides of the river?
A: A boy and girl when they meet.

Q: But which one is the crocodile that bites?
A: That is the top one, the one below has no sense.

Q: What is the wall in front of you?
A: A man that is verile.

Q: And the wall behind you?
A: A man who is impotent.

Q: Then what is this housepost?
A: A man who rips a girl apart.

Q: And that one?
A: The striker of the thighs, the crusher of little ribs.

(“LANGUAGE EVENT III” in Technicians of the Sacred, ed. Jerome Rothenberg)

This project was begun at NEST, in Dumbo, New York, and at the Old American Can Factory in Brooklyn. It is currently in progress, a collaboration between American and Japanese performers and artists.
Worm Man

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