What is Odyssey Works?

Since 2001, Odyssey Works has been reinventing performance in search of a way to make art of the highest quality with the deepest impact. It's been working - we've changed lives. Our performances focus on a single person - the participant - and we spend months studying them and engaging their family and friends in developing and executing a 24hr-long experience. Our projects energize the entire community, and allow artists to work in a new way - one in which success is not measured in ticket sales and applause but in the depth of the impact on all involved.

Have you seen the Michael Douglass Movie The Game? It's a bit like that, but instead of using intrigue and scare tactics we use artistic experience. Maybe you've read the John Fowles novel The Magus? That's a little closer, but this doesn't take place on a Greek island. 

And this work is a gift - completely free for all involved. That's why, along with applying for grants, we're launching this campaign.

We're also looking for applicants. Would you like to have a performance made for you? Consider applying if you live in SF, NYC, or Austin, TX, and you'll be available during the performance dates, tentatively scheduled for:

June 23, 2012 - NYC

August 25, 2012 - SF

December 31, 2012 - Austin, TX

To apply to have a piece made for you, click on APPLY at www.odysseyworks.org!

Our Most Ambitious Year Ever

After an incredibly successful performance in New York last year (it was 36 hours long! We wrote a novel, commissioned a reimagining of Debussy's Clair de Lune, organized flash mobs for the Vermillion Man March and the Sad Sad Subway Sad crowd on a subway platform) we are looking to take the Odyssey Works to the next level. Working in three different cities will allow us to engage the local networks of artists we have already begun to collaborate with, and to make work that is particular to each city.  

On the day of the performance, the participant will awaken to find that his ordinary world has subtly changed. Perhaps the lighting in his apartment is different. Maybe a friend arrives with a package of seemingly ordinary items that serve as vital talismans and tools over the course of his day. Perhaps the morning paper is already on the breakfast table, the lead article coincidentally related to a conversation he'd had last week with a good friend. Then, maybe, her mother will call, or the clock radio will turn on and the DJ will address her by name, saying please head downstairs now; were waiting for you. As the day continues, a narrative will develop which draws its symbols and themes, its color schemes and tonal arcs, from the information provided on his questionnaire and in his interview. He will leave the house and find himself guided through scenes that take place in the streets, in performance spaces, in the park, on the phone. Some scenes will be quiet, intimate affairs with a friend or a partner, while others will involve the public, trained that day to be extras in a crowded street scene or to arrive at a private art show with him, trying to see the work through his eyes. He will encounter musical compositions in unexpected placesperhaps a cellist following him in the back of a van, performing the song thats been stuck in his head for the past month, or an a-cappella group that happens to be passing each time he heads out a doorand find that they make seamless the connection between the world of the performance and the world at large. The sound of passing cars will become part of the music, as will the birds, as will the sound of the elevator, the door closing, the refrigerator hum. And when he returns home at the end of the performance he will, as T.S. Eliot says, arrive where [he] started/and know the place for the first time.

What We Need

The money you donate will go toward our production and development costs. For each performance our directorial team spends 1-2 weeks in retreat, and several weeks in the locale site scouting and workshopping with local artists. We need to rent space for all this, and to house and transport out-of-town artists. This is about half our costs - the other half is production - costumes, materials, printing, space rental, an those unknown little things, like speakers that fit surreptitiously into the palm of your hand, or playing cards we print with mysterious symbols on them. $5,000 is a barebones budget for each one of these. This campaign, along with grant money we've applied for, will get us there.

Do you need your donation to be tax deductible? Contact Odyssey Works Artistic Director Abraham Burickson at Director@odysseyworks.org for more info.

Other Ways You Can Help

Firstly, if you can't donate, please  spread the word! We will be having kickoff parties in New York on December 2nd, in Austin on November 21, and in San Francisco on November 19th. Please come! We'll post updates with info as we know more.

Secondly, in order to make these pieces happen, we rely on in-kind donations to keep costs down. We need performance and rehearsal space in all three cities. Do you run a bar or a cafe? A gallery or a bookstore? Any of these could become performance spaces for a scene or two. We are also in need of retreat space - housing for seven artists to work for 1-2 weeks in or near one of these cities. If you have frequent flyer miles consider donating travel within the United States. Have extra food? Know how to cook? We need food not only to survive but as a part of the art of the production. Have a car? Feel like being a driver during the piece? Let us know. Have something to donate that we might not have thought of - a boat or a ship, a big yellow schoolbus, a private airplane, a radio transmitter, a recording studio, video equipment or editing skills - let us know! The performance is only a single weekend, so you won't be without your yacht for too long.

Thirdly, apply to have the piece made for you! Or encourage a friend to apply. 

Finally, consider being an extra in one of our pieces. Each one has public portions built in. Drop us an email at extras@odysseyworks.org with your contact info to be on the list.

Want to Know More?

check out the website - www.odysseyworks.org.