RICKY FRANK - Mendocino Art Center

Meet the TeacherSHA SHA HIGBYWHIRLING SILKEN VISAGES – MasksAugust 14 – 16Performance:August 13th, Matheson Theatre, Mendocino“Unique” doesn’t even begin todescribe Sha Sha Higby, what she creates,and her legendary performances.She designs and makes fabulouscocoon-like costumes for performanceart – costumes made in sculptural layersof fabrics, leaves, twigs, seed pods,batiks, paper, and clay, among otherthings—in which she moves fluidlyand evocatively on the stage, like a lifesizepuppet. Her costumes, masks anddances have been influenced by hertravels in Japan, Indonesia, and India,and by her study of Noh Theatre andshadow puppets. The San FranciscoFringe describes her performances as“a slow unfolding of almost primordial,dreamlike, other worldly imagesand sounds.” In her three-day workshop,Sha Sha will help her studentsdesign and create performance masks,from clay, silk papers, and other materials,concluding with an informal performancefeaturing the masks. HerThursday evening performance precedesthe workshop.Sha Sha says, “I approach dancethrough the medium of sculpture.Using the painterly manipulation ofphysical materials and textures, I makecostumes one by one from wood, paper,silk, ceramic and gold leaf, interwovenwith a labyrinth of delicate props.My work strives to create a path wheremovement and stillness meet. Shreds ofmemory lace into a drama of a thousandintricate pieces, slowly moving, stirringour memory towards a sense of patienceand timelessness. Every time we moveabout, the space around us is filled withdrawings, colorful sketches and complexpatterns. Our thoughts blend into the airand space about us. With my “costumesculptures,” I want to show how weare embraced by the elegant complexityof the atmospheres about us. Emotionsand thoughts cluster on the surface ofour bodies and then break away, fly,and float off. Each bundle of emotionbecomes yet another entity in itself, splittinginto many facets again, and gathering,and returning again to their source. . . On the surface of our skin are multiplelittle theaters and stages. One inchaway from our body is already the skyunder which the drama of a tiny worldunfolds. As the costume stirs itself, it isas if every crevice of movement is filledwith thousands of smaller adventures.”62