Jessica Jobaris & General Magic Orphans, Thieves, and other Unlived Lives (2019)

Orphans, Thieves, and other Unlived Lives is sourced from our personal research into family dynamics, specifically the mysterious and complex role of Epigenetics in relationship to the origins of our fantasies and desires. The paradoxes inherent in our appetites and fears are revealed in asking: Why do we do what we do, and want what we want? How do the traumas our ancestors endured affect the choices we make? Do they bring us closer towards or further away from our resiliency or the lives we truly imagined we'd be living? What lives are experienced only inside our imaginations, and do we feel we are missing out by not living them...the risk untaken? This cast of 7 intergenerational/interdisciplinary performers have bravely & deeply researched into their own bloodline/"blood memory," their own forbidden desires and examining of their "unlived lives," to bring you a personal and revealing performance-offering that is as serious as it is funny, as chaste as it is hedonist, as boring as it is dynamic. It's just like a day in the life of any one of us. Except for maybe a little more eroticism, ritual and death.

Base: Experimental Arts + Space - Seattle WA - November 2019 10 Tiny Dances (excerpt) - On the Boards - Seattle WA - October 2019

Choreography/Direction: Jessica Jobaris

Performance: Leah Crosby, Carie Esquenazi, Jason Franklin, Hannah Rae, Melissa Sanderson, Maia Veague, Hendri Wa

Artistic Contribution: Danielle Doell, Kenneth Telesco, Rosa Vissers

Photos: Sarah D. King, Lance Mercer

SeattleDances review

“Frenzied performativity saturates both halves of the work, however even the most violently expressive moments have the efficiency of a well-rehearsed ballet. The cast shows their excruciating commitment to artistic and physical rigor in every scene. Jobaris’ creative choices, though they appear random, are crystal clear in intention.“ Full article

Lynn Tofil, November 2019