2018 Ko Festival of Performance presents LIKE A MOTHER BEAR

Description

LIKE A MOTHER BEAR Fri. & Sat. July 27-28 at 8pm, Sunday July 29 at 4pm BLACK SWAN ARTS & MEDIA Writer/Performer: HELEN STOLTZFUS Director/Dramaturg: ALBERT GREENBERG Original Director/Dramaturg Martha Boesing Lighting Design: SABRINA HAMILTON What happens when the last grizzly bear dies? What happens to a sleep that is no longer slept by a bear? LIKE A MOTHER BEAR follows one woman’s extraordinary journey to healing in which she encounters the Great Bear Mother of the imagination and the very real endangered bear of the wilderness. Based on the playwright’s personal story, this life-changing experience propels her on an odyssey that moves from the bear den of dreams to the office of an Elvis-impersonating acupuncturist to the Mongolian desert, where the last Gobi bears teeter on the brink of extinction. She relives her past illness and infertility, grappling with the “womb-knowledge” that insists that life continue even in the face of environmental devastation. In the wilds she comes to understand the connection between her own endangered health and that of the threatened grizzly bear – as well as the painful and exhilarating secret of what it means to become like a mother bear. In this groundbreaking call to action, personal healing and the welfare of future generations are inextricably entwined with the survival of the natural world.