The Bird and The Dirt, Inc.

Abstract

In the tradition of Artaud's commitment to a theatre “whose only value is in its excruciating, magical relation to reality and danger,” and in the tradition, too, of his complaint that “no matter how loudly we clamor for magic in our lives, we are really afraid of pursuing an existence entirely under its influence and sign,” thrives an arts collaborative whose works of “performance art” cross industrial castoffs of urban technology (such as tin can poptops, recycled Yellow Pages, vinyl, spark plugs, and barbed wire) with ceremonies and icons now lost to secular culture (images drawn from Indian, African, and Catholic rituals, including body paint, masks, feathers, animal sacrifices, skeletal relics, and crucifixes). The group's purpose is articulated time and again by its members as an attempt to create, in the words of Mary Klaus, its newest member, “a magic moment.”