a tour through some projects with the most current ones on top
An immersive experience with the philosopher Hannah Arendt at 5 different ages. Commissioned by The Goethe Institut and created by Natsu Onoda Power with Fatima Dyfan, Melissa Carter, Dana Andersen Schreiner, and myself. Costumes by Dorothy Barnes Driggers and extra scenic support by Ben Sullivan and David Higgins. April 2022
For this iteration of director Jill Greenhalgh’s performance Daughter, participants brought in objects and artifacts from their lives that related to their mother or their daughter, actual or chosen. This is a draft of my performance table on Day 1, complete with almost every object that I brought.
Urged by Greenhalgh to edit mercilessly, here is my final performance table, where each object would unlock a specific story, told to one person seated across from me at the small table. My mother, Karen Gilbert, either made or gifted me each object on the table, except for the lamp.
Amrita Ramanan pictured here performing in Daughter in the RITES-40 years of Double Edge Magdalena Festival in Ashfield MA in April 2022. Photo credit: Double Edge Theatre
Blood from a Turnip is a salon for short form puppet shows geared toward adults. The event got its start in 1997 out of Perishable Theatre in Providence RI, closed down in 2013, re-merged in DC in 2020 and now has a home out of Firehouse Theatre in Richmond VA.
Read an article printed in Puppetry International Magazine 40 about the origins of the event- SLAM: The New Avant-Garde Puppetry
HOST was an installation in the window of the Dirt Palace in Providence RI. On view February 15-March 14, 2018.
I became very curious about the transformation of caterpillar to butterfly or moth and learned about the existence of Imaginal Cells. For a deeper description of the project, read my blog POST.
For additional photos, check out the Dirt Palace window SITE.
We Made This is a study created by myself, David Higgins, and Ronald Kevin Lewis that was awarded the prize in the inaugural RI Devised Theatre Festival, produced by First Day Productions at Mixed Magic Theatre in October 2017.
photo credit: Taylor Corbett Photography
photo credit: David Higgins
I worked with Diversity Fellows! (Marc Boucai & Reya Seghal) on the newest iteration of their piece Training Day, a live art diversity workshop, exploring the languages and performances of diversity and multiculturalism in American institutional spaces. I collaborated as a director and dramaturge, with a keen eye on the ludic journey of this very participatory piece.
The showing over two nights in April 2017 won the
2017 Motif Magazine Award for Best Practical Theatre.
More about Diversity Fellows! at their website HERE
The piece found audience participants progressing through 10 stations of different kinds of diversity training activities. Here a group attempts to unknot themselves without dropping contact while Trainer Ziyi Yang looks on.
This slide sports the lyrics of the final number of Training Day by Diversity Fellows! Sung to the tune of YMCA, this language gives a taste of the overall message of the piece.
a low-res document from the position of power point person of Reya Seghal and Marc Boucai as corporate diversity trainers in Diversity Fellows! project Training Day at the Rhode Island School of Design, April 2017
In February 2017, cultural producer/social practice theatre artist Arielle Julia Brown and I created a response to Marita Bonner's 1927 play The Purple Flower as a part of the bigger event Explosions from the Other Canon.
Our piece, There Need Be No More Blood, took up the theme of conjuring from Bonner's original, and, in deep belief that enough blood of young POC had been spilled by the police, took the form of a collective action intended to happen external to the performance space. Arielle and I cut and sewed 100 muslin conjure bags and filled them with blood & bone meal, sunflower seeds, pennies that had been ritually cleansed in salt water. The bags were tied shut with a red cord with a short piece of paper attached reading:
open and activate. March 1, 2017 at sunrise-6:20amEST
In performance, we gave a short description of Bonner's play and then asked people to do something for us- to plant their conjure bags at sunrise on Ash Wednesday, March 1, 2017. As audience members left the performance space, Arielle and I sang to them and handed them each a bag. A group of us gathered at sunrise at the old bus turnaround on Camp Street in Providence to plant our bags.
A work for a human, a microwave oven, pumpkin marshmallow peeps, a pumpkin, and a sledgehammer. This piece is a re-working of a piece made in September 2013 by Vanessa Gilbert, Teerapat Parnmongkol, and Jason Schuler. Performed at AS220's Luna Loba on 10/16/2016.
The performance score for this work involves a human setting a mound of pumpkin-flavored marshmallow peeps in a microwave oven and heating them for a duration of no less than 5 minutes while holding a sledgehammer over their head in readiness. When the microwave signals cooking completion, the human smashes the pumpkin with the sledgehammer.
This site-specific piece shadow puppety work was created for the culture*park 13th Short Plays Marathon in November 2015. The creative team was David Higgins, story, shadow puppetry; Vanessa Gilbert, story, vocals; and Jeremy Fortier, musical direction and viola. photo credit: Vana Dougias
Additional photos are from the performance in the FringePVD festival on July 29, 2016 at Fringe Central (i.e. Big Nazo Lab.) Same company augmented by Stuart Window. Thanks to Elizabeth Keiser for sharing these photos.
From an installation/photo booth made for the Diversity Fellows! 9-11 show in September 2015, the 9/11 Memory Generator allowed participants to digitally insert themselves into one of a series of iconic photos from Lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001, and take a commemorative photo. Clicking on the laptop to take the photo triggered a camera switch and what was actually recorded was a security camera photo of the participants.
a screenshot of what a participant in the 9-11 Memory Generator would see in the installation. Through use of a Max Patch, the person in the photo booth is inserted into an iconic photo from 9-11.
a second example of what a photo booth participant might see on the computer screen in the installation.
Participants of the 9/11 Memory Generator, thinking that they will receive a commemorative photo of themselves inserted into a background of their own choosing are instead captured on a security camera. The image was then printed in the style of a commemorative beach photo or roller coaster photo with the banner image below vvvvvv
Created in collaboration with Justine Williams and Eva Peskin, There's Nothing to See Here is an ongoing civic performance project, convening groups for building and assembly in sites throughout NYC and beyond.
Past performances: May 14 & 15, 2015 at Gallim Dance Space, Church of Sts. Luke and Matthew, Clinton Avenue Brooklyn
Upcoming: Rockaway Artist Alliance, Fort Tilden
Performance site:
Read about the piece in culturebot HERE
a time-lapse video of the Friday May 15 performance of There's Nothing to See Here. Shot by Dennis Shafer on an iPhone 6.
A performative augmented-reality tour and "artist hack" of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, created in collaboration with artists over 60 from the Westbeth Artist Residency in NYC and in-residence with The Met's Digital MediaLab. Conceived and developed by Justine Williams, Jason Schuler, Vanessa Gilbert and Patricia Faolli . May 2014 and installed in the Westbeth Gallery December 5, 2014.
Read the Met's Media Lab blogpost HERE.
photo credits: Jason Schuler, David Higgins, Justine Williams
Hosted by the last living WWI veteran, Over the Top presents a garden party whose guests, personifications of the nation states involved in World War I, play out their changing relationships and allegiances. After Austria-Hungary throws the first lawn dart, the audience become mobilized as participants so they too can play War. Our host leads the audience Over the Top, at once releasing himself from his memories and charging us to remember.
Developed with David Higgins from his play of the same name. Over the Top has received development support from Joseph Megel and the Process Series at UNC.
For more information, visit the show's site HERE.
In fall 2021, The College of William & Mary hired me to direct Moliére’s final play, The Imaginary Invalid. Never having directed Moliére, I drafted M.B.Boucai, a wonderful director/movement consultant, to work with me on the production, which took to the Kimball Theatre in Downtown Colonial Williamsburg from November 18-21.
to see all photos by : Jamie Holt Photography
Read the Flat Hat News Review HERE
by Sarah Ruhl, directed by Vanessa Gilbert
produced by Second Story Theatre, May 2011
in photo: Gabby Sherba and Rae Mancini
Photo Credit: Rich Dionne
for full slideshow click HERE
by Christine Evans
directed by Vanessa Gilbert
produced by Perishable Theatre, 2009
in photo: Matt Bauman
photo credit: Mark Turek Photography
for more images, click HERE
