Headlands Center for the Arts

Sculpting Landscapes of Desire 

A Collaborative and Improvisational Movement Workshop Led by Alumni Artist Josephine Devanbu

Program 

11AM Workshop starts; Coffee and tea provided 

1:30-2PM Lunch offered following the workshop

In this workshop we will sculpt a massive pile of reclaimed upholstery foam into a landscape shaped by our collective longings. This terrain will then become the basis for a collectively authored improvisational performance. 

This workshop is inspired by the medieval Tamil tradition of building and riding the matal—a horse crafted by the lovelorn out of salvaged palm fronds. Desperate for greater intimacy with the world, the matal rider sculpts the landscape into a platform for her radical demands.

Salvaged upholstery foam offers a rich material with which to re-engage this tradition. Yielding, bouncy, impossibly lightweight, foam allows us to sculpt at a massive scale and then absorbs us into the creation. 

Participants will be supported through the process of assembling the foam into a large-scale sculptural landscape, tuning into desire as a source of power and information. Immersing ourselves in the texture and sensations of our individual longings, we turn to the emerging landscape as a terrain in which to express this experience, attuning to and acting on impulses to re-shape the landscape, noticing and responding to the resulting shifts in energy.  

The landscape we assemble will become the basis for a series of guided improvisational movement explorations. Resting, rolling, and rebuilding the landscape from within, we will explore what it feels like to cry out our longings through movement, to pursue what we long for, perhaps even to glimpse attainment. 

We will then come together to collaboratively devise an original improvisational performance informed by our experience thus far. Participants will be introduced to the process of creating a score—a guide for an improvisational work designed to be re-interpreted each time it is performed—collectively addressing questions of structure, motivation, pacing, and duration. After performing our score we will reflect on the experience and perform it a final time before concluding the workshop. 

Participants will receive professional video documentation of the collaborative performance and will each be credited as co-authors of the piece.

This workshop is open to ages 18 and up, and no prior experience is necessary. The workshop will take place outdoors on a concrete surface in The Commons, the area between Buildings 944 and 945.

We want to make the workshop as accessible as possible. If you have mobility or other accessibility needs, or if the cost of the workshop would prevent you from attending, please reach out to Juliana Gerdts, Headlands’ Program Manager, at jgerdts@headlands.org. We’d be happy to discuss how we can best support your participation.

Tickets are required for the workshop. Maximum 6 per order. Interested in our Members Ticket? Visit our Give page to join, or contact Allie Wells to learn more at awells@headlands.org.

The workshop will be held outdoors in The Commons, area between Buildings 944 and 945, which is accessible to people with mobility aids.

Video stills from “And in this, I shall find you” Performance by Josephine Devanbu, Videography by Will Pierce.