Événement

Dance Up Close/East Bay presents Paul C.'s Homeroom Journal

Choreographed & performed by Stranger Lover Dreamer

Saturdays & Sundays, October 4-5 & October 11-12 at 8pm
at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, 2704 Alcatraz Ave, Berkeley

Paul C.'s Homeroom Journal is a dance theater collage inspired by a found object: a purple spiral notebook containing the witty, honest musings of an anonymous high school boy - Paul C. Features choreography by Stranger Lover Dreamer co-directors, Andrew Merrell, Elizebeth Randall, and Shaunna Vella and guest choreographers, Tyler Eash, Rogelio Lopez, and Todd McQuade. Featuring performers: Tyler Eash, Leah Hendrix-Smith, Edgar Mendez, Sarah Nguyen, and Tashanay Spain.

Photos by Matthew Kertesz

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One day, this purple spiral notebook fell into the laps of Stranger Lover Dreamer. We opened it and discovered the voice of "Paul C." - an anonymous high school boy whose witty, honest musings surprised us with their universal relatability. We let the notebook sit for many months, but the voice of "Paul C." kept surfacing as inspiration in our conversations, jokes, and rehearsals. And so this purple notebook floated between hands and the words began jumping off of the pages and into our bodies and hearts. We abstracted his reflections, lists, memories, and insights into a partly improvised theatrical performance collage.

The sections in Paul C.'s Homeroom Journal are all very different, but the voice of this anonymous teenage boy is the through line to the entire evening. We honor him, we adore him and we want his creativity, sensitivity, brooding, sarcasm and overall sweetness to come to life. We hope to remind ourselves that childhood, adolescence and adulthood are inseparable, and that is a really beautiful thing.