• Performing Quarantined Isolation in the Spring of 2020
• Dani Snyder-Young (bio)

In this edition of Theatre Journal, I examine two digital performances commissioned and premiering within the context of quarantined isolation in April and May 2020: Mike Sears and Lisa Berger's Ancient, which kicked off the La Jolla Playhouse's Digital WOW Festival,¹ and Emily Mast and Yehuda Duenyas' How Are We, which was commissioned and presented as part of the Onassis Foundation's ENTER project.² Andy Horowitz (2020) identifies how How Are We "stands as evidence of an inflection point, the moment just before everything changed once again"; the same is true of Ancient.³ These performances are, in the words of Ann Cvetkovich, "repositories of feelings and emotions"—an archive of affects produced by the onset of social distancing to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the spring of 2020.⁴

Ancient focuses on a diverse ensemble of people performing repetitive everyday tasks such as shucking peas (1:25), washing dishes (3:10), and folding laundry (3:53).⁵ Its central argument is that humans have been doing such activities for thousands of years, and this pandemic is not the first through which humans have cooked, cleaned, taken care of children, grown things, exercised, meditated, and played music (fig. 1).

The early pandemic experience was quiet, lingering, and internalized, marked by an unfamiliar sense of powerlessness and fear. Ancient captures the uncanny affect of temporal dislocation, of the feeling that time had stopped. Jennifer Chang rocks a small child with a look of dead-eyed exhaustion on her face. She sits in a room in a middle-class-looking home with a framed newspaper cover on the wall trumpeting the election of Barack Obama. In the window behind her, the sun either rises or sets (2:02). Is it dawn or dusk? It does not really matter; she is so very tired. As Jaclyn Pryor puts it, "the temporality of capital idealizes certain modes of being in time (productive, [End Page E-1]

Moving left to right across the rows, beginning with top left: Caitie Grady, Bhavna Mehta, Bibi Mama, Mike Sears, Daniel Yin, Shawn Rohlf, Temi Hason, Joey Prete, and Jennifer Chang in Ancient. (Photo: Courtesy of La Jolla Playhouse.

efficient, and punctual)."⁶ Those modes of being were materially disrupted by stay-at-home orders. Ancient reflects the affects produced by this disruption and tries to soothe within the throes of the trauma. It argues for a practice to manage grief through participation in an imagined collective. However, (as I argue in the essay this supplement accompanies), Ancient's portrait of collective coping flattens differences across the lived experiences of people who are positioned differently in relationship to structural systems of power.⁷ In so doing, it mourns the trauma of the pandemic's onset in ways that do not recognize the ongoing traumas of racial injustice and the victims of capitalism's cruelty.

This stands in contrast with the more polyvocal approach How Are We takes to representing the experience of quarantined isolation. How Are We is a twenty-five-minute-long digital film featuring ninety-second, movement-based works by Barnett Cohen, Constance Hockaday and Faye Driscoll, Darrian O'Reilly, David Adrian Freeland Jr., Dorothy Dubrule, Emily Mast and Yehuda Duenyas, Hana van der Kolk, Heyward Bracey Jay Carlon, Jessica Emmanuel, Jennie MaryTai Liu, Mireya Lucio, Shannon Hafez, Stacy Dawson Stearns, and Terrence Luke Johnson. A young nonbinary person (Shannon Hafez) playing in their yard with their dog (0:49), is not the same as a woman (Jennie MaryTai Liu) who cannot get out of bed to attend to a house full of small children (5:45), is not the same as a Black man (David Adrian Freeland Jr) bottling rage and fear to put on a composed and pleasant face (15:28). Each separately authored piece reflects a distinct experience and understanding of quarantined isolation. In its poly-vocality, [End Page E-2] How Are We is a more complex work than Ancient, representing a wider range of feelings and experiences, and one that was created using a more...

• 2020年春季实施隔离
• 丹尼·斯奈德-杨 (bio)

在本期《剧院杂志》中，我考察了 2020 年 4 月和 2020 年 5 月在隔离环境下委托和首映的两场数字表演：迈克·西尔斯和丽莎·伯杰的《古代》，拉霍亚剧院的数字 WOW 节拉开了序幕，¹和艾米丽·马斯特和Yehuda Duenyas 的《我们好吗》 ，作为奥纳西斯基金会的 ENTER 项目的一部分委托并呈现。²安迪·霍洛维茨 (Andy Horowitz)（2020 年）确定了我们如何“成为拐点的证据，就在一切再次改变之前的那一刻”；古人也是如此。³用 Ann Cvetkovich 的话来说，这些表演是“感受和情绪的储存库”——一个记录了 2020 年春季为遏制 COVID-19 传播而采取的社会疏离措施所产生的影响的档案^。4

Ancient专注于执行重复性日常任务的不同人群，例如剥豌豆 (1:25)、洗碗 (3:10) 和折叠衣物 (3:53)。⁵它的核心论点是人类几千年来一直在从事此类活动，而这种流行病并不是人类第一次做饭、打扫卫生、照顾孩子、种植东西、锻炼、冥想和演奏音乐（图 1）。 1）。

早期的大流行经历是平静的、挥之不去的、内化的，其特点是一种陌生的无力感和恐惧感。Ancient捕捉到时间错位的不可思议的影响，以及时间停止的感觉。詹妮弗·张（Jennifer Chang）一脸疲惫地摇晃着一个小孩子。她坐在中产阶级的房间里，在墙上有一个框架的报纸封面，这些报纸封面在墙上敲打巴拉克奥巴马的选举。在她身后的窗户里，太阳升起或落下（2:02）。是黎明还是黄昏？这真的不要紧; 她太累了。正如 Jaclyn Pryor 所说，“资本的时间性将特定的时间存在模式理想化（生产性的，[End Page E-1]

从左到右穿过各行，从左上角开始：Caitie Grady、Bhavna Mehta、Bibi Mama、Mike Sears、Daniel Yin、Shawn Rohlf、Temi Hason、Joey Prete 和 Jennifer Chang 在古代。（照片：由拉霍亚剧场提供。

⁶这些存在模式被居家令严重打乱。古代反映了这种破坏所产生的影响，并试图在创伤的阵痛中安抚。它主张一种管理悲伤的做法通过参与一个想象中的集体。然而，（正如我在这篇增刊所附的文章中所论证的那样），Ancient对集体应对的描绘使人们在与权力结构系统的关系中处于不同位置的人的生活经历中的差异变得扁平化^。7在这样做，它以不承认种族不公正和资本主义残酷受害者的持续创伤的方式哀悼大流行病爆发的创伤。

这与我们如何代表隔离隔离的经历所采取的更加多元的方法形成鲜明对比。我们怎么样是一部 25 分钟长的数字电影，收录了 Barnett Cohen、Constance Hockaday 和 Faye Driscoll、Darrian O'Reilly、David Adrian Freeland Jr.、Dorothy Dubrule、Emily Mast 和 Yehuda Duenyas 的 90 秒基于动作的作品， Hana van der Kolk、Heyward Bracey Jay Carlon、Jessica Emmanuel、Jennie MaryTai Liu、Mireya Lucio、Shannon Hafez、Stacy Dawson Stearns 和 Terrence Luke Johnson。一个年轻的非二进制人（Shannon Hafez）和他们的狗在他们的院子里玩耍（0:49），与一个不能起床照顾一个满是小孩的房子的女人（Jennie MaryTai Liu）不同（5 :45)，与一个黑人（小大卫·阿德里安·弗里兰）装瓶时的愤怒和恐惧不同，以摆出一张沉着而愉快的脸（15:28）。每一篇单独创作的文章都反映了对隔离的独特体验和理解。[End Page E-2] How Are We是一部比Ancient更复杂的作品，代表了更广泛的感受和经历，并且是使用更多...