A Lucent Book of Stories...
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A Lucent Book of Stories
Written, edited and compiled by Roger Fojas
With additional stories by Dream Rockwell, Paul Newman, and Ceci Castelblanco
I am an artist who lives my art. Creativity and expression bring forth the essence of why I live. I find that exploring, learning, and sharing with others can make a positive impact into the world. One of the ways I do this is through my love as a performer with Lucent Dossier. Translated to mean 'a gathering of light', Lucent Dossier is part of an expressive, powerful family that organically makes this difference through the collective magic of theater and interactive art and performance.
I have seen how people's hearts lighten when they experience what we do. I have connected with another's soul just by glancing into their eyes. People have told me how what we do inspires them to create their own magic... This in turn puts more inspiration in me.... And together with all this positive, heightened love and inspiration, we can bring out the absolute best from this community... in this lifetime... and on this planet.
To understand the magic that makes up the heart of Lucent Dossier is to be a kid again reading your favorite book of stories. When people experience Lucent Dossier for the first time, they fall in love with the magic of the moment. Whether it be an honest interaction from performer to person or the detailed visual dynamics of an inspired production as a whole, or even from within the cast, a first time rehearsal or performance can be quite the soul opening experience. Throughout the years I have reflected on both personal experiences I've had as well as the experiences told by others within my Lucent family. This is a collection I've compiled of some of those stories…
Before I get into the intimate tales from Lucent members, it is probably best to start off with the history of this journey together…
The History
The Lucent Dossier Experience started four years ago from an idea that was developed between artistic director Dream Rockwell and performer/artist Shrine. They had asked each other what they'd like to create and both got excited about the idea of their own circus. Dream then took this idea and invited a varied number of friends to get together for a prestigious New Years Eve performance in Los Angeles. Many of these individuals didn't have any background in dance or performance, but they had the passion and desire to make magic happen. Most thought it was going to be a one time experience at a New Years party, but our cast got along so well, and the audience enjoyed it so much that we were asked to perform the production again at different venues around town. This newfound attention further evolved as Lucent was asked to appear in a music video for a then relatively unknown rock band named 'Panic! at the Disco''. The video was for their 1st single, 'I Write Sins Not Tragedies'.
The band also asked Lucent Dossier to tour with them for their 1st headlining tour (which traveled throughout the US and Canada), creating an innovative circus experience for their concert audience. Later, the video went on to win 'best music video' for the 2006 Video Music Awards as Lucent Dossier began also traveling separately with their own productions through a varied steady stream of music & arts festivals around the world such as Lollapalooza & the Coachella Music and Arts Festival (USA), The Electric Picnic (Ireland), Optimus Alive (Portugal), Summer Sonic (Japan) and many others. Other prestigious projects opened up new doors for us as well. We were invited to be the official hosts for the 2007 Elevate Film Festival, and we also enchanted guests all night at the official 2008 & 2009 GRAMMY's after party. We have appeared internationally for fashion/celebrity photographer Steven Meisel's fashion spread in Vogue (Italia). And as part of Lucent's own personal project, 'Cuddle the World', We have played with the spirit of the children at hospitals, orphanages and youth centers to bring light to disadvantaged kids around the planet…. Currently our troupe can be seen performing weekly at our ongoing artist's residency at The Edison Downtown (in Los Angeles).
~~~
In life there is a yin and a yan… a good and a bad… and sometimes Lucent Dossier likes to create from within the balance of the two…. Occasionally exploring aspects of the dark to find its light. I found this out right from the beginnings of my involvement with the company. Here is my experience…
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A Matter of Death and Life
Before I had been a strong part of Lucent Dossier my best friend David was killed from a robbery at his family business. David chased the thieves out of the store and while trying to escape the scene they actually ran him over outside in the parking lot and drove away. The concussion put him into a coma and he died two days later. For me this was one of the single most painful moments in time I ever had to endure. He died the year Lucent was formed so my journey toward healing happened throughout that year. I went into a lot of inward soul searching, but what really saved me in that grieving period was the interaction of community. Luckily I found a new strong family through Lucent... not necessarily directly dealing with my grief... but in finding strength though the creativity and friendships in my life. Opening up and letting myself play with my fellow performers brought something whole back into me. They didn't know what had happened, nor did they need to know. I found that allowing myself to be taken into this other world with others of that world, it brought in the knowledge that we often do really need people to help find our light. Especially as a man in today's society, I feel that we do not often allow ourselves the freedom to express ourselves in play and be present to be supported by each other. I am so very honored to be alive and connected by such a family of eclectic lovers.
~~~
Though Lucent does incorporate the varied professions of cirque style talent (arial, acrobatic, stilt walking, fire performing, clowning, belly dance and more), what makes Lucent special is that we break through the audiences' 4th wall… often bringing the audience into the performance by making them a part of Lucent's world. It's interactive, blurring the lines between the performer and patron creating for some what might be called a mystical experience. Here's an encounter I had in a story of one of my early experiences with the troupe…
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Eye Gazing
One of the best moments I've had was through our production of "The Forbidden Om" at Coachella, but it wasn't any intense choreography or eclectic circus act that made it the best. My favorite moment involved simply looking at a person in the audience.
In the beginning of that show we lay across various parts of the grounds amongst a floor-seated audience. Live music begins and we slowly awake from our positions... dejected, confused. It's as if we've crashed from wherever we came from into this jungle-location, in a dome, amongst all these creatures who sit here with us (aka the audience). It is here that I awaken suddenly only to see the faces of the people before me. When I close in at specific faces, I reach out to touch the nose or cheek in front of me. That's what was the best moment for me.
Why would something so simple as that make my favorite moment?
It's because when I look into most of them with my face in awe and wonder, I look directly into their eyes, and most of the time they look directly back into mine. And even though I'm a character in a production and I am no one that they know or may ever meet again, when our eyes meet, we see each other. I can feel them seeing me and I can feel their response from my gaze. Often it is of excitement or wonder... and sometimes.... sometimes they look and react as if someone has seen them for the first time ever. It's like... amongst all these people....the crowds, the neighborhoods, the countries, the world... at this one moment someone has taken the time to look at them. That's what it feels like. For just a few seconds, someone has taken the time to really see who they are. I felt in those eyes their hearts open and their spirits shine and it reminds me of how important it is to see each other... and how important it is for someone to see me... and not just as an eclectic character I play in a performance, but as the spirit and life of the person seen deep within my eyes. Yes... it's true... Most of us want to be seen for the people we really are. And in that little bit of eye contact there is a clarity that acknowledges the fact that the beauty that makes us who we are really does exist.
~~~
Now Dream (our director) also had felt the beauty of a Lucent experience at Coachella (which, since the festival happens at the beginning of the summer, is often where our large productions premiere for the 1st time) Here's her experience at the festival (2 years later from the experience previously mentioned)….
Coachella 2008
I am back from one of the most incredible weekends of my life! Extraordinary madness! We were invited back to Coachella Music and Art Festival for the 4th year in a row and this year was so spectacular for us. Saturday night we played (between Portishead and Prince) on our amazing water stage built by The DoLab and decked out by our very own Shrine and a team of fierce art, water, and construction warriors. We had a magical wonderland of pods and misters, water toys, sprinklers, a human size fish tank and all the fixin's for a real live Jules Verne novel. We sang, danced, stomped, contorted, hung from high places, moved the story of our lives and rolled around in love puddles with all that graced us with their shining faces... all while dripping wet as water pumped and mist filled the air!
On Sunday night Coachella asked us to turn off our sound system during Roger Waters/Pink Floyd set... at first we were dismayed, all our hard work we wanted to play all night... but as life is so perfect just as it is, turning off our stage for that moment in time gave us the freedom to take in Roger Water's set that was beyond epic, life altering really. It made me see even deeper how every step we make needs to be with great compassion and intention.
If we are to see a change in the world we live in we must live the change we want to see in our own lives today. Our lives are like those tiny glass ball microcosms that have the water, a little tree, the dirt, and organisms all self sustaining in perfect harmony and balance as a small representation of the larger eco system that is Earth. What we do in every moment matters, because it affects everyone we come in contact with. We can each single handedly effect great change in the world we live in.
-Dream Rockwell
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And just what is it like to be a performer in Lucent's world? Can we really feel the difference? Performer Paul Newman discovered that answer when performing as his lovable clown character 'BeepBeep' at event at the Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art…
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Street Circus
I officially found my street performing rhythm: I wandered the party with my ukulele, juggling pins, little green suitcase, and unicycle in hand. The band had stopped. With only the roar of echoed chatter, I found myself alone in the crowd. Someone stopped me "Can you really ride that?" YES!! OKAY!! I proceeded to make a huge fuss about how I was going to get on my unicycle. By the time I actually started my one wheel dance the circle around me had grown from shoulder to shoulder to a 17 foot stage in the round. The more people backed up, the bigger I got. The bigger I got, the more people joined the circle. These folks allowed so much time to pass before I even did anything! The stage was set, I was primed, and I can only remember as a dream the rest. ~ I let go in the flow of an intuitive show~ I have reached this state in front of an audience before but always with the duration of time and the stage set. Creating a buzz, a crowd, a stage, and a lengthy show, alone and out of a question from a stranger is the confidence boost that has inspired me to say I am officially a street performer!! It only takes one person willing to stop and receive a show to get a whole crowd of people to feed it. Once it is being fed I don't need to think about it anymore. The crowd will use me to give them the show they want to see. I am the willing giver!!"
-Beep Beep (aka Paul Newman)
~~~
There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes to make a production shine. This can easily be discovered when going overseas to create the magic outside of our familiar hometown. Here is a my personal take on 'behind-the-scenes' from our 1st full length show that I got to experience it's journey at Theatro Circo, an ornately beautiful theater in Braga, Portugal…
Adventures in Portugal
It was our first full length show in an incredible new country (for us) and we wanted to make the best impression we could, so the few days before performance night we rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed, adjusting and tweaking aspects of choreography, spacing and costuming so that it looked its' best in the environment we were performing.... and that isn't always easy. Lucent likes to mold our shows to fit the performance environment, so taking a piece we've done a million times in a million different places, like... let's say, "The Forbidden Om", which premiered several years ago, doesn't mean we can just jump on stage and 'Om' perfectly. The Forbidden Om is a show designed to be interactive with the audience, but at Coachella the audience was all around us as we performed inside a dome, on several platforms and in the center of a grassy area, whereas at the theater in Braga, we were set apart from our audience on a big stage overseeing what looked like a theater ballroom from Moulin Rogue, complete with high balconies and a decadent awe inspired ceiling. The audience perspective of this show is completely different every time depending on where it is performed and how it is lit (daytime, or with theatrical lights, etc.) so to make our show come together with perfect Lucent performance mayhem (yes, we even plan our chaotic improv moments onstage) we worked our butts off to get it to the right levels (with artistic director Dream Rockwell's impeccable vision and input, of course).
Another aspect of our Portugal journey--- making a set completely from scratch, being that sets are expensive to transport from country to country (Shrine was incredible designing our Portugal set from whatever he found hidden in the theater basement . With a bit of paint for the Elf Show set (wood cut into a mushroom home and trees) and tasteful positioning of old broken, decadently trimmed theater archways and rusted stairwell candelabra lamplights (hung upside down for effect)... Viola! Amazing and luscious Lucent sets are born...
~~~
In our most recent journeys, Lucent has explored further into interactions with people who happen to haphazardly walk into our world. Though we do some of this within acrobatic and choreographed numbers, we've started to bring in deeper experiences from characters set within specific locations that actually interplay one on one with people in varied creative directions. Characters do elaborate sketches for individuals who pose for them, or they offer to wash their feet for a relaxing massage experience, or they even find lost letters that are cosmically meant for that one individual. Here is a first hand experience from Ceci Castelblanco as Temperance where she had a soul inspired moment with a patron at the Edison Downtown Los Angeles.
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Book of Dreams & Visions
Hello! My name is Temperance... every now and then you find me at the Edison on wednesday nights where you can create your visions and all together we create a beautiful story called The Book of Dreams & Visions....! ...we are all creators, it is our very fabric, each one of us is a unique expression and has the power to create our lives... each mark we make is spellbinding, and with our high intention our unique marks are the art from which our dreams come true...
I welcome you to hear a beautiful story...
On a December evening a young man approaches the Creation Station with much caution... his mate has just left his side and he says to me, "I came here earlier and then turned around only to return again... it is very hard for me to be here and yet I feel I must... my girlfriend is very unhappy in this moment and is somewhere, but I know I need to be here... I have been watching what is going on here and I think it is truly marvelous... I used to create, I used to paint, but it has been quite a long time now." The young man uses a cane with his left hand, and as he gestures with his right I notice that his right hand is somewhat in a cramped position. "I have been through war and... so much you could never know... I can't paint anymore," he then asks, "will you create something for me?" Of course my heart wants to jump right into his hand! I pause and then say, "You know, I usually create with my right hand... but I can create with my left hand too." As I open up the watercolors I continue, "I can hold a brush in any way I want to... or not use a brush at all... whatever mark I make, however I make it, is my own unique and beautiful expression." In an instant the young man lifts his right hand and puts three fingers in the watercolors and then presses them down on the paper leaving three fingerprints of orange, blue, and purple. 
His unique mark indeed! He is quite taken back by the sight and steps back, his whole body is very tense. "Would you like to pull a stone for inspiration?" I ask him gently. He looks into my eyes inquisitively and nods. I reveal the oracle bag of stones and invite him to draw one. Carefully with his left hand he draws the stone of... Surrender. "this stone is inviting you to give space and acceptance to that in your life that is seemingly hard, intense, and even painful... when we can say yes to that which we would normally deny, to that which we wish would not be, then that very thing may not have to be, it can be something else, the situation now has allowance to dissipate into a new form or possibility... the path of least resistance is being called for here... you are invited to let go of your hurt and your fear and thus create the space for your goodness and possibility to flow in and through you... your creativity." The young man looks at me and then turns... he puts a finger in the yellow and then another in the blue and begins to paint, mixing the colors into greens, directly into The Book of Dreams & Visions! I paint with him, using my fingers as well. when he is finished I tell him that I have a gift for him and place in his left hand a small hand painted stone, "this is a magic vision stone... allow it to infuse your visions for the next 13 days... hold it and gaze upon it and allow your visions to be revealed to you... and then pass it and its light on to another." The young man searches deep into my eyes with breathless wonderment, "how many people do you help?" His gaze is steadfast. "this is the second time in 10 days that I have come to this place... what you are all doing is amazing." He grasps the stone tightly. "I must leave now back to my country... when I return... May I give this... to you?" "What ever inspires you most do that," I say. The young man embraces me, now peaceful, and departs.
It is a profound honor to share with you the magic of the heaven on earth we create together... you too are very beautiful... I hope you come and find me one night and we can play and create and share our dreams...
in love and gratitude,
temperance
~~~
To complete this collective view of storytelling I thought it appropriate to share one of my most treasured moments with Lucent Dossier, and that moment happened in a small orphanage in Guatemala. There is something about this family that brings forth a personal desire to reach further into the world and make a difference in ways I may never originally have imaged I could do. Here is a clear picture of that thought…
~~~
Cuddle the World
There are no words invented that can tell you how my experiences performing, creating, and sending love at a small orphanage in Santiago, Guatemala has affected my life, but I will try to express myself in the best way possible.
Our troupe got onto a bus and headed to a small town by the lake. We then took a boat ride to Santiago. We got onto a small street that went up a hill where we met a woman who was involved with the orphanage. She called a few kids to come down to see us. When they went down the road they clung to the adults and were very frightened, some even to tears, but we smiled and waved and said ´hola´ (hello) with genuine hearts and allowed them to feel safe, then we walked up to the activity room above.
The kids gathered around in seats outside and one by one we peeked out the doorway looking nervous and scared (of them!) with exaggerated body movements and funny expressions holding little suitcases until Shrine stepped forward and started to speak to the kids in his broken Spanish written from his little notebook. This starts our little show. I wont get into all the details of the actual show but I will get into what I saw in the kids.... at 1st unsure and afraid they then started to giggle and laugh... their eyes open wide with something they have never seen before in their young lives... the decorated faces, the costumes, the energy and life and positive light. When we started to invite the kids to take part they 1st were nervous but then got overwhelmed in happiness with the chance to play with us. Every moment in transitions from one scene to another was a new source of magic for them. They got to wear costumes, create a bubble orchestra, dance, sing, act like a family of dogs and be free in the most creative of ways. When our structured show was over we continued on with play and improv. Handing stuffed animals and blankets and toys for them to play with, the kids flocked to every experience, we took pictures and let them wear our costumes and play like us... and perform like us... and be us....
At one point the people at the orphanage gave us a plate of food for lunch as the children kept playing in laughter. At that point when I had the moment to relax from being the character I played, tears began to swell in my eyes. Everything I had experienced in my heart rose inside me and glistened in my eyes.
These children have been through so much. From families who were killed from a flood that destroyed their town a couple years back, to families that just didn´t want their children and abandoned them on the streets, to even worse scenarios like the three kids whose parents sold them to slavery (one less than 2 years old). Then they would kidnap them from their new homes and sell them again (who knows what abuse they received when they were sold), and then again, until the orphanage found them on the streets. A child who was locked in a room malnourished and dying... the stories continue on... and these stories are horrible experiences, almost too unbearable to hear.
So in these young lives they have suffered. So can a troupe of clowns offering laughter and light provide this ounce of joy for them to see a better future? It is within these thoughts that created such a swelling of tears in me... of being part of a few minutes of this history of positive light.... This is a bittersweet joy, but one worth every minute. The tears flowed lightly but they were definitely there. Before we left I made sure I hugged and touched as many of them as I could with love of positive energy and intent.
On the ride back to San Marcos I sat at the very tip of the boat as if I was leading us forward on a new journey. I hung on and let myself play as the boat sped forward. Our crew of Lucents laughed and smiled at me and took pictures and videotaped me being the nutty clown that I am. And at one moment when they didn´t notice I turned around and looked forward past the flowing water and I cried my eyes out.
And I loved every minute of it.
-Roger Fojas
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