TOM
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Change remains one of the few constants.
The 2019-2020 Ambitious SEASON FINALE in October was performed
at ODC THEATER SAN FRANCISCO.
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2020 has been a year resulting in substantive change. Like many we were given the opportunity to reconsider the why, what, where and how.
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I am happy to announce that we have signed contracts to open our new studio in Santa Cruz, California 95065. The space will not only be the home to the creative work of Tom Brady but will continue to support alternative work by an international list of artist whose work challenges, innovates and speaks to the human experience to make comment.
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Our opening event will be in January of 2020 then be prepared for an ambitious schedule of COVID sensitive performances, workshops, film festivals and exhibits
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Man in the Box
Tom Brady and Monica Newsam
Video Artist Zlatko Cosic
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Beneath the Surface
A new project in the concept phase will begin stage constructions mid 2022.
A team of collaborators will be assembled to deepen the vision.
Auditions we be opened in late 2022.
Scheduled Events for season are being developed. Opportunities pop up, so watch for
additional projects.
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Opens creative highway between artists, Chicago and St. Louis
Man in the Box
Man in the Box top view | ||
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Boxes was originally created and performed as a solo piece by performance artist Tom Brady in New York at Franklin Furnace in 1979. Since that time Brady has revisited this complex work numerous times in pursuit of deeper meaning and each time encounters the complexity of being.
Boxes, now entitled Man in the Box, is truly a living piece. Its evolution continues to pose new questions helping to create new vocabulary, defining the search for intuitive knowledge.
The current project is the result of an intense collaboration among three self-determined artists—Brady and long time collaborators Monica Newsam, choreographer, dancer, aerial artist, and video mapping projections with video artist Zlatko Cosic. "You know a collaboration is truly productive when it becomes impossible to lay claim to any piece of the whole."
Brady, Newsam, and Cosic collaborate to stunning effect as they perform together moving through a forest of 18, 15’ poles, set to Brady's original music. Audience is immersed in the vision as catalyst. The juxtaposition of the sculptural stage space, light and shadow, original sound track and innovative movement vocabulary, create a transformative, visceral response.
Man in the Box is a requiem honoring and, at times, cherishing the individual challenges, reversals, failings, insights, generosity, and forward thrusts in the journey to wisdom. The audience pays witness to the collision of the final moments with the recollections of the younger self and a life well-lived. In the dialogue between one's past and of the aging self, the two performers create movement vocabulary through the complex sculptural space.
They share youthful insights reminding us that wisdom is not found solely in years earned, while recognizing that age does provide the young and ambitious with needed perspective.
Works in Process
Most of Brady's projects are conceived, considered and developed over multiple years, some even decades. He is therefore continually developing the following works in concept, stage and production to be performed in the coming 12 to 48 months.
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Currently seeking funding for the following projects. If you would like to join the team, help, donate or learn more email Tom through the contact tab on this site.
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Beneath the Surface
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La Foresta Perduata—The Lost Forest
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3 Row Poles to Enlightenment—originally performed 2004, Milan, Italy
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Prodigal—originally performed 2009, Shakespeare Glen, Forest Park, St. Louis, MO
La Foresta Perduta—The Lost Forest
Transcending Moment
Performers begins as one homogenous group but when the island separates into three they each must adapt to the environmental and social challenges.
La Foresta Perduta ( The Lost Forest) is a project Brady is currently developing. This large scale project involves 3 stages which rotate slowly around each other.
Scale model
Scale Model - Stage 1
Scale Model Stage 1
Scale Model Stage 1
La Foresta Perduta—The Lost Forest
La Foresta Perduta is currently under development—see illustrations above. We are seeking funding from various arts orgnaizations and private donors.
La Foresta Perduta is an original interdisciplinary work challenging established western concepts of theatre, music, and dance, uniquely setting movement into the context of sculpture as stage. This work will investigate the cultural diversity of the multi-ethnic cast as they struggle to survive and ultimately to soar, reaching beyond judgments, beyond hatred and jealously, beyond the self to gain intuitive knowledge. The work focuses on the universal, primal need to transcend. Sound, movement, and objects empowered by association and infused with mystic meaning emerge as visions of the unknowable, the untouchable, the unheard and unspoken.
La Foresta Perduta stage space is constructed as an island approximately 45’ x 35’. The stage surface is topographical with natural rises to 8’ and falls to 3' across the surface.Clustered to one side of the island stage 75, 15’ to 20’x3”dia., aluminum poles are mounted vertically into stage set approximately 30” apart allowing performers to create gravity defying movement. The entire stage built on wheels is slowly rotating in a random pattern across the theatre box space.
The performance begins in darkness after the sun has set. A series of mirage like videos projection onto the stage and walls of the space surrounding the stage provide just enough light to make the performers visible, recognizable, then instantly gone. Lighting is critical to setting the mood of this work. Brady has repeatedly demonstrated through earlier work his mastery of light, preferring to use it as a painter might to control the message with clarify, intensity, and focus.
The cast is assembled on the island surface, a homogenous community of people. As the progression continues the stage gradually splits into three separate islands. Drifting apart, each island rotates around the other and the performers now separated begin to evolve in unique and disparate ways. Each group learns to adapt to natural and manmade challenges and disasters, each developing their own cultural systems. La Foresta becomes a study of the evolving resultant cultures. As they explore beyond their new world they encounter differences of color, class, religion resulting in conflict and distrust. Each is a studied system based on history and anthropological precedent. (Concepts informed by artists independent research as well as inclusion of a Social Science Researcher.)
Performers will ultimately ascend as a crescendo of movement into the forest poles. They sway and, leap through and to the tops of the 15’ to 20’ poles in choreographed movement—a transcending moment.
3 R o w P o l e s t o E n l i g h t e n m e n t
Originally performed in Milan, Italy 2004. Currently, we are reviewing performance venues and partnerships to help sponsor the recreation of this work. See additional photos under Portfolio tab. For more information use the contact tab.
P r o d i g a l—A Secular Retelling of the Parable
A revisiting of Prodigal originally performed in 2009, is being considered for 2014. We are currently seeking funding for this project. If you would like to help, donate, or learn more email Tom through the contact tab on this site. See additional photos under Portfolio tab.