The SITES OF PASSAGE Performance Series moves from the garden to the indoor lobby, which serves as our new performance space. As the cold weather settles on this part of the world, we begin to prepare for major religious holidays and festivities. Performance artist, writer, and director Anya Martin does the same, only she views things from a different lens—a multifaceted one.

Anya was brought up Mennonite. When I first met Anya I asked her what one of her earliest memories was. She told me that it was squirrel hunting with her father in the woods of Western Pennsylvania and the sound of the skin as it is being pulled back from the squirrel meat. She explains to me that she grew up poor, but this was also part of the culture and did not seem like a strange first memory to her.

I grew up in Brooklyn, New York and although squirrels were a part of my life, the concept of “hunting” was very foreign to me. I just went to the bodega down at the corner when I was hungry.

When you talk with Anya, similar to speaking with the Egyptian artists, she often doesn’t recognize cultural references…because television and radio was not a part of her youth. In that way, working with Anya can be like a cultural exchange. She describes the photos she used as inspiration:

"The first one is of my Grandmother and her sister's holding up their first-born children. Although this looks like it was taken at the turn of the century it's actually about 1950. They are wearing traditional Mennonite head coverings and dress. The second photo is a picture of her holding my father as a child. The third photo shows the black head covering she would have worn out in public."

Anya communicated with Egyptian women artists while creating the piece and explained in an e-mail conversation:

Muslims, Mennonites, and Mommies explores the influence of religion and fashion as it relates to womenʼs head coverings. In a free society where women may choose to cover or not to cover their heads, what influences the choices they make in this regard? Religious Teaching? Societal Pressure and Cultural Norms? Familial Obligations? Personal Convictions?”

I grew up in a very conservative Christian home in a denomination of Protestant Christianity called Mennonite. Mennonites traditionally dress very conservatively by western standards and Mennonite women used to commonly cover their heads by wearing what is called a prayer bonnet. The Biblical scripture that is often quoted as the reason for this is found in the New Testament in 1 Corinthians 11:2-13.

By covering their heads traditional Mennonite women were supposed to show reverence for “Godʼs order of things” – meaning that Christ is to have authority over man, and man is to have authority over women. Women were also supposed to cover their heads while in prayer – and since one is to be praying all day long, women were to war their head coverings all of the time. (Except for sleeping of course.)

However, in modern Mennonite teachings these verses have been reinterpreted through more researched Biblical translations. The mainstream Mennonite church no longer requires women to cover their heads.

In my lifetime I witnessed the transition from almost all women wearing head coverings to virtually no women wearing head coverings. For example my Grandmother wore her hair in a bun along with a very traditional covering until the day she died. At first my mother wore her covering all the time, then only to church, and then not at all. After I was baptized I wore a covering to church a few times and then never again.

In my research with my Mennonite family and friends on the topic of women’s head coverings, I found that surprisingly the strongest factor in women covering or not covering their heads was much more motivated by social peer pressure. If their church friends and family members wore head coverings they did too, and when friends and family members stopped wearing head coverings that was a big motivator for many of them to stop wearing them also.

I am no longer active in the Mennonite church, however, I am still a Christian and my spirituality strongly influences my artwork, which is often rooted in social justice causes.

I am also about to become a new mother of a little girl and am seven months pregnant. I will be about 8 months pregnant when “Muslims, Mennonites, and Mommies” premieres. Since I will be performing so obviously “with child,” I have decided to make this a part of my performance as well.

Here is an edited version of Anya’s final performance. The final product included not only her unborn daughter, but also her husband! Anya is a brilliant border stretcher and crosser. She was greeted with many questions afterward about the process, the cultural symbols in the performance, and how to use humor as a bridge for crossing cultures.

As fall gently cascaded down upon Pittsburgh, Firefly Performance Artist Mark Staley welcomed the seasonal change with a ritualistic performance of Celebration in the City, a poem by child psychologist Mandy Fessenden Brauer about her city, “old lady” Cairo.

Encouraged by Egyptian Firefly Artist Marwa Benhalim (who knows the poet personally), Staley (an environmental activist himself) took the poem and created an intimate performance piece he calls Old Lady Leaf which asks audience members to acknowledge ecological hazards that Pittsburgh & Cairo both share.  As the Autumn-focused sun highlighted bright, sculpted shades of leaves framed by crisp air, one could not help but visualize the perspective of this preservation performance.

While soft city noises flow through dim-lighted streets 
and the Nile continues its steady passage to the sea 
I sit quietly, reflecting…

My city, I tell myself, my beloved city, that old lady 
unable to breathe, unable to cleanse herself, 
trash blowing under cars, hanging onto fences, 
collecting like grimy islets in the majestic river. 

Staley set the scene for his performance with an elegant reading of the poem.  The rippling water and rubble from Winifred Lutz's permanent installation in the museum's garden cradled Staley's poetic words with a layered sound of stone and organic design.

As the performance transformed from formalization to a heedful & cherished movement piece, audience members began to hold their breath, afraid to make a sound that might disturb the sacred emergence of Old Lady Leaf.  With great care, Staley raised her from beneath an assortment of human and natural debris, like the mix of leaves and Starbucks Coffee cups.   Moving with the gentle beat of Munir Bashir's Arabic drums, which echoed off of the garden walls, Staley gracefully slid from caretaker of Old Lady Leaf to playing Old Lady Leaf herself.  

The audience, some still holding their breath, watched as the sacred grandmother managed to delicately pull a beautifully blooming flower from her chest.  Gesturing a wordless plea, the audience understood.   With great regard, She gives her heart; the harvested flower was passed to one of the younger audience members.  As Staley morphed gracefully back from puppeteer to Old Lady Leaf’s caregiver, he laid her down to rest in a bed of mulch, mindfully removing cigarette wrappers and fast-food rubbish to build a bed of litter free compost.

Speaking of harvest, professor Holly Thuma gathered a fruitful crop of students from her fall course "Voice and Speech" at The University of Pittsburgh.  In her workshop performance One Hand; On Voice, Thuma directed her students in a courageous site-specific garden performance.  

With the help of fellow Firefly artist Mark Bellaire on drums, the group dramatically took over the Private Prairie level of the garden using the ever-famous “chair” from Winifred Lutz’s permanent installation.  The class shifted gears after Staley’s quiet meditation to a partisan political performance- producing publicly charged speeches taken from various artists, activists and politicians.

With firecracker discharge and the help of Bellaire’s rhythmical beats, the class embodied the entire space with the pride of accomplishment.  By using words from political speeches and movements through use of Thuma’s guidance, the performance demanded full focus from the audience.

It is important to note that none of the student performers are theatre majors!  The passion which rose out of them was easy to source as Thuma, who visited Egypt during the revolution, introduced the workshop performance.

Reflecting on the hopeful nature of these multicultural speeches/performances, "Alhamdulillah" (or Hallelujah)- a term used to praise god in Islamic, Christian and Jewish traditions-  comes to mind.

"Can you believe all of this extra security??" was one of the many initial reactions to the opening of Sites of Passage last Friday, Sept. 9, 2011. What many visitors did not realize (until later), was that the "security" was really made up of American artists posing as officers in collaboration with Sudanese artist Amado al Fadni's installation "Passport Agency".

The idea was to subject Americans to the absurdity of bureaucratic processing which is often the norm for citizens in the Middle East when trying to come to America. In the run-around, unknowing participants in this act filled out a questionnaire in order to obtain a faux passport, and then were quizzed by artist officers, like Larry Bogad, about their hopes, dreams, and fears in order to obtain an entry visa to the show. Depending on the answers, some passed through freely, while others were sent on to more stamping scrutiny.

"How long have you lived here?" asked artist officer Mark Staley.

"My whole life," answered the unsuspecting visitor.

"Wow, here in this museum?" Mark reprised as he put on a second pair of glasses to inspect the documentation. Others in line chuckled.

"I just want to get in and see the show," another applicant complained while being shuffled between stations. "You should really talk to each other more so you can iron out all of these kinks," she advised. 

Besides the insidious greeting of "Passport Agency", one installation of high note became "Tahrir (squared)" by Emily Lychack. Featuring rocks from the actual square where the revolution took place, along with a full-round of blown up photos of protestors, the space took on the flavor of actually being in Tahrir as visitors crowded to merge into the scenery. It quickly transformed into a great place for visitors to share their memories of the not-so-distant media frenzy.

And this was the aim all along: to get people talking about global issues; sharing ideas about possibility; discussing the world we live in order to understand new vantage points.

"I am very pleased with how all of this turned out," noted Firefly Tunnels creator Tavia La Follette. "I mean, obviously there were some major issues with the Egyptians not being here right now, but look at how we managed!" she expressed, pointing to the slew of visitors publically engaged in internationally curated art.

Sites of Passage will run until January 8, 2012. For more information about upcoming programs and events, see our MAIN PAGE.

Firefly Tunnels partook in an eclectic mix of art display at Cairo's L'Atelier this past Sunday, March 13, 2011. The evening kicked off with a two hour opening showcasing a double-room variety of American and Egyptian cartoonists. A separate room held the fruit of Fayoum Art Center's six-week Winter Academy, presenting mostly mono-prints, a few paintings, and one sculpture. A TV screen was also set up to run a 104 picture slideshow of images taken by the different Artists during their time at the first annual Winter Academy.

Street performances planned for Saturday, March 12 and Sunday, March 13 were cancelled due to concerns over security after violence erupted in Cairo on Wednesday & Thurday.

Eye-witness accounts say that a gang of thugs crept up behind a group of demonstrators standing near tanks in Tahrir, then attacked. The military reacted, attempting to clear the space by firing tear gas and some live ammunition. Caught between the cross-fire, civilians misunderstood the shots as being aimed at them, and attacked the military, wreaking havoc throughout the square on Wednesday afternoon, March 9. Midan Tahrir was officially closed off to protestors the following day, March 10, so that no tents, signs, banners, or people remain. Some fear this will mean an end to the Egyptian people's voice.

Wednesday's incident occured less than 24 hours after a new Parlimentary law was passed to make inciting riots punishable by death. Demonstrations were being held for many reasons, including as response to the burning of a historic Church on Monday, which killed 13.

Given the order to avoid contentious politics, then, Firefly Artists opted out of the previous idea to dress their puppet up as a Revolutionary symbol of Martyrdom. There were many debates ending on the note that it would look bad, or might be misunderstood, if Americans were leading a "Unify Egypt" campaign throughout Cairo.

"It is better for us to focus on abstraction anyway," one Artist confirmed, "we can say more without being overtly political."
Artists took on the non-verbal challenge by conducting a very successful jam session at Windsor Hotel on Friday, then visiting the L'Atelier Gallery on Saturday to acquaint themselves with the performance space. After agreeing on the stage setting, a lovely nighttime boat ride down the Nile in a traditional Faluka helped clear everyone's head for Sunday's show. 

As interest in the Cartoon/Fayoum Art Center Exhibit died down, people began enjoying tea & coffee in L'Atelier's outdoor plaza. Director Tavia La Follette addressed the murmuring crowd with the quaint ring of a bell, and a one hour performance by Firefly Artists ensued. Dressing in all black to improve aesthetic appreciation for form, the Artists had agreed upon a whole series of rules earlier that day during rehearsal. These groundrules were focused on helping the audience understand performance & installation art as a process. 

Several bouts of applause throughout the hour-long performance calmed Artists' previous concerns that this kind of artwork would be non-translatable to a predominately traditional art scene in Egypt. 

"We have turned our work into a discipline," one Artist smiled, commenting on the achievement. "It will be interesting to see where it takes us next."