Vita Activa
JANUARY 2020
Meany Studio Theatre
Co-Collaborators/Dancers/Sculptors:
Alethea Alexander + Adele Nickel
Costumes: Jordan Fell
Soundscore from: Caroline Shaw, Digiffects Sound Effects Library, The Sound Gallery and Rest Television
Sound compiled and edited by: Alethea Alexander
Showings and residencies at the
Firehouse Performing Arts Center (Bellingham, WA),
the University of Washington (Seattle, WA),
Sam Houston State University (Huntsville, TX)
Vita Activa is a collaborative work for Adele + Alethea, twenty 10-foot-long PVC pipes, and an 80-pound bag of concrete. It posits a feminist response to Hannah Arendt’s notions of “labour, work and action” with explorations of effort marked and practiced by female bodies. In Arendt’s “vita active,” action is the only form of human effort independent of sustenance and survival; action is effort in creativity. Vita Activa draws on imagery of forests, fields and construction sites to bring the organic and inorganic into conversation.