Performance Art

June 1, 2008, 12 Jiujiang University art students, under Rose's direction and with the assistance of Zhang Chunzi, her translator and colleague, presented Cocoon. Exploring the questions, "Where will I go after I graduate?" "What kind of a job will I have?" "Who will I become?" the students wove a compelling visual narrative using fiber, sewing, movement, text and sound.

Performers were Shi Xiaoshan, Chen Jing, Liu Yaqian, Dang Xiaojie, Yang Zhen, Wu Dan, Ma Jie, Yu Zhiqun, Han Xiaowei, Li Chenlong, Ye Zhengyu and Hao Zhisheng.

Special thanks goes to Mr. Gong, Dean of the Art School, Liu Ya Li , Head Art teacher, Samuel Shuai, the Director of the Chinese Language Education Centre and Overseas Chinese Affairs, Shi Yuhan, English teacher and poet, Jesse Pritchett, English language teacher and this project's facilitator, Jiujiang University, Peoples Republic of China, and Columbia College Chicago, U.S.A. for sponsoring this project.

Rose and Claudia Bucher created and performed four different pieces based on their relationship entitled Will It Make A Difference? The work deals with the complexity of being an artist, wife and mother from their different perspectives. Rose is an American, married with two grown children and at the apex of her career while Claudia is Swiss, single and in the earlier stages of hers. They worked with these questions. How do we look at our work and our lives? What will we learn from each other? What will happen as a result of our friendship?

The text started January 2007, via e-mails, while parts of the installation were constructed in their respective studios. In Switzerland, they completed the piece and collaborated with musicians Christian Bucher and Thomas JK Meyer who were part of the performances. Will It Make A Difference? was installed June 1, 2007 at Gallerie (sic!), Lucerne, Switzerland and performed three times throughout the month.

Rose and Claudia Bucher created Will It Make A Difference? Part Two for Waldkirch Theater, Waldkirch, Germany. It was performed there June 9, 2007. Christian Bucher, percussionist, performed with them. Photographs are by Rob Nienburg.

Rose received a six-week artist residency in Lucerne, Switzerland to create work and perform with Claudia. The residency was sponsored in part by The Lucerne Sister Cities Committee (Chicago), The Lucerne Sister Cities Committee (Lucerne), Columbia College Chicago, Arts, Entertainment & Media Management Department and Columbia College Chicago Part-Time Faculty Professional Development Grant.

The Sewing Room is the tale of a woman who spends her days dealing with the complexity of culture, tradition and self-definition. In a 20-foot-by-23-foot room delineated by a 3-foot-deep wall of 800 strings weighted to the floor by washers, the seamstress performs her sewing activities. The interior of the room changes with each day's work.

Source material stems from Rose's five-year stay in Saudi Arabia where, after time, cultural lines began to blur. The exotic became ordinary and the familiar foreign. To understand this she found herself extending her view beyond her cultural orientation: a Catholic-raised woman reared in a democratic society, revitalized through feminist theory. Additional sources include the women within her family who immigrated to the United States from Italy during the 1920s and took work as seamstresses.

The Sewing Room was performed in 2003 at The Book & Paper Center at Columbia College Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, and was funded in part by the Albert Weisman Scholarship and the Ragdale Foundation.

Within Reach is the story of a woman dealing with change, adapting to it and creating it, making a route, and measuring time and events. These are all part of the journey. Questions arise: Can I plan my future? When will I die? Where will I go next? How do I know if I have failed or succeeded? Will I return?

Within Reach was performed in 2004 at Art on Armitage Window Gallery in Chicago, Illinois, and was funded in part by the Ragdale Foundation.

Within Reach Expanded takes the journey further with mapping and the participation of audience members who make their own voyage.

Within Reach Expanded was performed in 2006 as part of the Reshaping of the Given Form exhibition at the IUN Gallery for Contemporary Art at Indiana University Northwest in Gary, Indiana.

A Bee Draweth Not Honey is based on the life of Esther Ingles, a 16th-century book artist. This was performed in 2001 at The Book & Paper Center at Columbia College Chicago in Chicago, Illinois.

Measuring Up, Measuring Against tells the stories of women separated by at least a generation exploring life decisions. The architectural space of strings and washers is 20 feet deep, 20 feet wide and 8 feet high. This was performed at the International Tic Toc Festival at Columbia College Chicago in 2002. It was funded in part by the Ragdale Foundation.

But can you get there from here? is an interactive performance and installation framed by the notion that life is a journey. It is a timeless story of search, want and hope told with text, spoken word, sound and objects of various kinds and sizes. Rose and her collaborator, Thomas Plum, map out their trip. Where are they going? Is their journey a quest or a destination? Is it an internal or external voyage? Is it fueled by passions of the heart?

This was performed at Art on Armitage Window Gallery in 2006 as part of Chicago Artist Month.