Blog: Reflection

Here is a conversation about art as experience and as a form of thinking predicated on the agency of those who touch it.

Elegy for the Anthropocene

August 15, 2018

This article about The Quiet Circus appears in the January 2018 issue of PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art. Writing is dramaturg and director Jessica Rizzo who attended many of the weekly performances, River Charrettes and Reflection Events that comprise The Quiet Circus.

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Reflection As Structure

August 9, 2018

  Reflection as Structure – The Wisdom of Mary Jane Jacob We spent a lot of time in Dunkin’ Donuts. It was the nearest bathroom and there was coffee and sugar. After the Saturday performances we invited the audience and participants to meet up at the Double D to share experiences and I always loved…

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Experience and Reflection Video

July 31, 2018

  I am excited to share Experience and Reflection, a video about The Quiet Circus. It is the closest thing to a bird’s eye view of this project with its multiple layers, phases, and programs. My hope is that, together with the River Charrettes video posted a few months ago, this video will communicate the values and proposals…

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Audience and Performer are Not One and Not Two

February 26, 2018

  The Quiet Circus River Charrette #3 took place at the Andalusia estate along the Delaware River— a strikingly bucolic contrast to the previous River Charrette, which took place a short distance downstream at an industrial recycling operation. Andalusia was built in response to the 1793 Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia, in which 10% of the…

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Kay Larson Reflects on The Quiet Circus

October 17, 2017

  I was beside myself when Mary Jane Jacob invited Kay Larson to The Quiet Circus to present at one of our Reflection Events. Kay wrote Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism and the Inner Life of Artists, a moving and beautiful book in its intricate eloquence about struggle, transformation, and the deep coherence of…

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Reflection Event #3: Kay Larson at the James Turrell Skyspace

September 26, 2017

Sunrise Light Show and Lecture by Kay Larson Join The Quiet Circus for our final Reflection Event, held at dawn in the James Turrell-designed Skyspace in Chestnut Hill. After watching the sun rise through Turrell’s open roof light show, we will hear a presentation by Kay Larson, author of Where the Heart Beats: John Cage,…

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