Sha Sha Higby’s
IN FOLDS OF GOLD
” Evolving canvasses to animate stories of life, death, and rebirth.” SF Bay Guardian
“Borrows from the past, and creates something wholly unique!...always
mesmerizing performance art.” SF Chronicle
Nights of performance and workshop of Sha Sha Higby’s world premiere of IN FOLDS OF GOLD, her latest work.
The show explores a whimsical journey of life, death, and rebirth through ephemeral images that evoke the passage of time and day, or the shifting of the seasons. Using the manipulation of hand crafted materials, textures and exotic sculptural costume interwoven with puppetry, dance and intricate props, her work creates a journey in which movement and stillness meet. Shreds of memory lace into a drama of a thousand intricate pieces, slowly moving toward a sense of patience and timelessness.
The NOHSpace, 2840 Mariposa at Florida Streets in San Francisco. For tickets, the public may call Brown Paper Tickets at 800-838-3006 or visit www.shashahigby.com. For further info 415-868-2409. Also Sha Sha will give a workshop Saturday,December 11th at NOHSpace from 1:30-4:30pm.
Higby uses sculpture as a body costume that can be integrated with theater and dance to create its own poetic plot in solo performance. Internationally renowned for her evocative and haunting performances, she is influenced by her studies in Asia, Noh Theater, Butoh and shadow puppets. It takes Higby two years to make and develop a new costume sculpture that slowly "grows into the performance” – at each of which she adds a new prop to play with to transform herself and the audience together into one.
Sha Sha Higby received a BS in art from Skidmore College and spent five years in Indonesia under a Fulbright Scholarship. She also studied for a year in Japan, and six months in India under an Indo-American Fellowship. She has received numerous awards and grants, including a NEA Fellowship in solo theater and grants from the Zellerbach Family Fund and from The Japan Foundation for collaborative artistic work.
She has performed internationally at the Festival Internazional delle Marionnnette; Divaldo Korzo in Slovakia; the Festival of Sydney in Australia; Singapore Festival of the Arts; Hong Kong Fringe Festival; Tokyo National College Of Art; the Tokyo Textile Institute: Puppet Theater Festival; and the Stara Zagora in Bulgaria. In addition; she has exhibited her work at the Portland Art Museum; Arizona State University; San Francisco Folk and Craft Art Museum in San Francisco; Honolulu Academy of Arts; University of Massachusetts at Amherst; Columbia College Inter-Arts Program in New York; San Francisco Asian Art Museum; The Glass Museum in Tacoma, Washington; and Baltimore College of Art.
FOR CALENDAR EDITORS
WHAT:Sha Sha Higby’s IN FOLDS OF GOLD
WHEN:
WHERE:The NOHSpace
2840 Mariposa at Florida in San Francisco.
Street Parking is available
TICKETS:$20 advance - $25 at the door $12 children $2 discount at door for Theatre Bay Area Members.
For tickets, call 800-838-3006 or visit www.shashahigby.com.
For more information, visit Sha Sha Higby’s website at www.shashahigby.com.
For a photo, visit www.shashahigby.com or email shasha@shashahigby.com. and click on ‘schedule or press in the very bottom of the page or request one of the photos
review of “The Glass Jungle”
“When Sha Sha Higby was a child, she once sewed a dress with 25 petticoats of different colors, so she could lift each skirt and become something else.
Today, the theme of transformation-and the concept of being hidden under
massive quantities of material-remains prevalent in her work, though she's
upgraded the media. Wood, leaves, paper, silk, lacquer, ceramics and gold
leaf form her fantastical costumes, while Noh theatre, Butoh and shadow
puppetry inform her performances, which could be labeled as "sculptural
costume in motion." In fact, Higby's performances are so ethereal that she
sometimes can't find the words to describe them: "The theme is that there's
something beyond our own world."
Her latest transformation is The Glass Jungle, inspired by a Buddha with
glass eyes she saw on a trip to Burma. "The eyes were blown at a factory in
the jungle," she explains. "There was glass everywhere. The title just
popped into my head." Evoking the desert atmosphere of glass and the
different seasons, the piece combines her White Ash on Water (2004) costume
and her new Glass Jungle costume, a skeletal design comprised of fine metal,
bamboo and felt, among other things. Like the petticoats, she will shed the
first to reveal the second. "Then another masked head will float down from
the ceiling to top it off like a flower emerging, blooming, fading,
dissolving, returning. I want my audience to feel all these emotions.
" She adds, "My work is never linear. It's very open, so people can interpret it
differently." See if you can find the words to describe it.”
-Karen McKevitt courtesy of www.theatrebayarea.org
visit www.shashahigby.com.
Reviewer: Been there...
5 Stars
“If Sha Sha Higby were in Japan she would be designated as a national treasure. Having said that , this show will not work for everybody. There is no discernible plot or agreement at the end as to "what it was about". It is a slow unfolding of almost primordial , dreamlike , other worldly images and sounds. The ability to bring a meditative state of mind to this performance is a definite plus. If you can slow down internally for the 60 minutes the show runs ,and allow it to just pass over/through you it can be a deeply moving , almost to the point of tears , experience. There is no explanation. A rare opportunity to see her perform close up.”
Press Contact: Sha Sha Higby(415)868-2409
cell: 415-860-6648
shasha@shashahigby.com
http://www.shashahigby.com
Evocative sculptural costume and puppetry
Sha Sha Higby."A Cloud of Glass"
WHAT: Legendary international performance artist, Sha Sha Higby,
whirls within a dense, lacey thicket of her own design "In a Cloud of Glass", premier of exotic sculptural costume & puppetry dance, in a delicate drama of memory and timelessness. Internationally renowned for her evocative and haunting performances, Higby is influenced by her studies in Asia, Noh Theater, Butoh, shadow puppets, and textiles "...her monumental props and costumes are...strung together with silk, wood, leaves and lace slither leisurely across you imagination." Hiya Swanhuyser, SF Weekly
WHEN: Friday, & Saturday, July 11,12,18,19 8 p.m.
WHERE: presented at NOHSpace
2840 Mariposa, at Florida, San Francisco, 94110
HOW MUCH: $18 adv/$22 door (Fri & Sat), $10 children
TICKETS & INFO:
(415) 868-2409, http://www.shashahigby.com
Also available at BrownPaperTickets.com
(also Performance in San Jose August 24th,San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles BrownPaperTickets.com), & Tickets (415) 868-2409. These performances coincide with two exhibitions of Sha Sha's costumes June-August at the Bolinas Museum (www.bolinasmuseum.org) and the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles.(www.sjquiltmuseum.org/calendar) Workshops in Bolinas Aug 2 &16
:
For Immediate Release August 1-24
August 24, 2008
6pm
Higby brings one of her popular performances to San Jose for the first time with a showing of her new production, In a Cloud of Glass. Bringing together sculptural costume, dance, and puppetry, In a Cloud of Glass explores the atmospheric world within the magical borders between death and life, and reflects Higby’s recent travels to Myanmar and Thailand. The evening performance opens with the San Francisco Indonesian Dance Company Harsanari presenting traditional Indonesian dance. The performance includes a processional gamelan and accompaniment to Higby’s performance by the award-winning Balinese orchestra Gamelan Anak Swarasanti. In a Cloud of Glass will be performed on Sunday, August 24 at 6pm next door to the Museum at 510 South First Street in downtown San Jose. Tickets are on sale now at http://sjquiltmuseum.org/calendar_august.html or by phone at 408.971.0323 x21 or by phone at 415.868.2409. Tickets are: $20 in advance with a $5 rebate at the door for members with membership card; $10 children; $25 at the door (if available).
In Javanese Moonlight is co-presented by the Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia in
San Francisco, Indoarts and Harsanari, the San Francisco Indonesian Dance Company. ” said
Museum Curator Deborah Corsini. “Like batik artists, whose work is deliberate and slow—not
infrequently taking months or even years to produce one stunning length of cloth—Higby mines the
spiritual meaning in the physical discipline required to devote up to two years developing a complex
sculptural form. As stationary art objects and as moving sculpture in her performances, these forms are an
invitation to a meditative space, where time slows down and we find ourselves quietly contemplating
life’s mysteries.”
