Boneyards EVP Session – 6/27/15

The Saturday 6/27 show concluded with yet another simultaneous Ouija board-EVP session that gave us all plenty to talk about. Audience volunteers JOY and JOE (not the same Joe who sat at the board in the previous show) personed the board while the audience and I gathered round to watch. Joy and Joe contacted someone named V I V (short for Vivian, or perhaps it’s 3 initials) who was 7 8 years old and standing to my R I G H T.

 
Those who live, live off the dead. Likewise death, too, has to live.
The theater, which is in no thing, but makes use of everything —
gestures, sounds, words, screams, light, darkness –
rediscovers itself at precisely the point where the mind
requires a language to express its manifestations. To break
through language in order to touch life is to create or recreate
the theatre.
– Antonin Artaud

suitcaseThe Saturday 6/27 show concluded with yet another simultaneous Ouija board-EVP session that gave us all plenty to talk about. Audience volunteers JOY and JOE (not the same Joe who sat at the board in the previous show) personed the board while the audience and I gathered round to watch. Joy and Joe contacted someone named V I V (short for Vivian, or perhaps it’s 3 initials) who was 7 8 years old and standing to my R I G H T.  What did she think of the show?  S U B T L E.  (That was a first, and a particularly eloquent response that made me blush underneath my sadhu ocher, ash and dirt).  Did she know anyone in the audience? YES.  J O E.  How did she know Joe?  H O M E. Joe and I didn’t like where this was headed so I quickly changed the subject:  would Viv like to speak with us electrically?  YES.

I took a few steps away and fired up my trusty P-SB7 “spirit box” and connected it to a loudspeaker as usual.  Somewhere between the hiss of the spirit box and my ad libbed one-liners Viv’s seemingly jovial mood changed and she suddenly got annoyed with us.  When I asked if she could say my name, a voice Continue reading “Boneyards EVP Session – 6/27/15”

Boneyards EVP Session – 6/19/15

We had an enthusiastic crowd Friday night for my first show and first concluding seance at the Art Church of West Philadelphia. The Ouija board was personed by audience volunteers JOE and JOHN and the planchette was zooming about urgently.

jeff boneyards
“American sadhu.”

We had an enthusiastic crowd Friday night for my first show and first concluding seance at the Art Church of West Philadelphia. The Ouija board was personed by audience volunteers JOE and JOHN and the planchette was zooming about urgently. We spoke to a M A N who was 5 0 and A R M E N I A N who told us he did not speak or write English well.  His name was L A M E K (Lamech? A Hebrew surname; were we talking to an Armenian Jew?).

IMG_0393
This photo of a gangplank leading down to the Armenian Ghat is a key part of the show.

Kolkata’s Armenian Ghat, a former loading dock along the banks of the Hooghly built long ago by Armenian merchants, is mentioned in the show, and after the Ouija board spelled the word Armenian an audience member, someone who was not touching the board, spoke up and self-identified as Armenian).

I asked Mr. Lamek if he knew anyone in the audience and he spelled J O E. When asked if he had a message for Joe it spelled out L A L A L A L A over and over. This oblique response has happened to me twice before (in 2011 during my previous show Beautiful Zion: A Book of the Dead and in 2012 during a midnight seance on the stage of  Philadelphia’s historic Plays & Players Theatre) and my belief is that it means the spirit doesn’t want to answer the question, or Continue reading “Boneyards EVP Session – 6/19/15”

FINAL BONEYARDS THIS WEEKEND!

As long as you’re also coming to see Jeffrey Stanley’s BONEYARDS (6/19, 6/27, 6/28) why not make a night of it and also check out the rest of the exciting triple bill featuring work by Philadelphia performance artists Joseph Ahmed and Joy Cutler?

Cara Blouin and the Art Church of West Philadelphia

present
The Body Horror Mini-Fest

as part of the

2015 Philadelphia SoLow Performance Art FestivalAs long as you’re coming to see Jeffrey Stanley’s BONEYARDS (6/27, 6/28) why not make a night of it and also check out the rest of the exciting triple bill featuring work by Philadelphia performance artists Joseph Ahmed and Joy Cutler?

at
The Art Church of West Philadelphia
5219 Webster Street (MAP)
Philadelphia, PA

All shows are pay-what-you-can but individual reservations are required for each show, as follows: Continue reading “FINAL BONEYARDS THIS WEEKEND!”