LAST DAY OF MAGIC - Reenactment

(image: Brindalyn Webster)

Last Day of Magic
A Reenactment

Curated by Jan Van Woensel


Orange Alley Project
Saturday April 25th, 2009, from 6 to 9PM

Orange Alley (between 25th and 26th St)
San Francisco, CA 94110
http://orangealleyproject.com/

Featuring: Sung-Hee Chang, Emily Hoover, Amy Keefer, Dustin Kelly, Christine Kesler, Stephanie Lagarde, Elyse Mallouk, Amy Martin, Josh Martinez, Lynne McCabe, Piero Passacantando, Brin Webster

Last Day of Magic was a one-day closed performance of rituals about departure and transformation that took place on March 28th, 2009. The rituals are designed with a personal significance and shamanic purpose. They examine the artist's interpersonal experiences with belief, sacrifice, loss, disappearance, and memory. The undercurrent apocalyptic character of this project is based on the belief that after the last day of magic life ends. The project's focus however, is on the quality of the shared experience of a suspended moment before the end. In-group, the artists sang a song that honors the departed, built a fire, sacrificed personal objects, drank wine, and meditated. Last Day of Magic is a melancholic journey to the metaphoric edge of the cliff of life where the artists take halt, build a secret community and reside.

Each ritual is a performance designed by artists from Last Day of Magic and will only be performed by this group once. The original ritual ceremony of March 28th, 2009, is documented in video form, and as a set of published instructions that can be distributed and reenacted by others. At Orange Alley, twelve volunteers reenact the rituals and create their own last day of magic experience. The reenactment is open to the public.

Last Day of Magic is a project initiated, organized and curated by Jan Van Woensel in the framework of his 2009 cross-departmental class at California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA. http://www.last--day--of--magic.blogspot.com Jan Van Woensel is an independent curator based in New York City and the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of New York Magazine of Contemporary Art and Theory http://www.ny-magazine.org