FILM/MEDIA (SELECT)

ANGELBIRD is a short film that explores the roots and transformation of a woman dealing with the loss of her mother.  The film moves, dream-like, across the physical and emotional landscapes of her life, from the shores of Lake Michigan to the streets of Los Angeles. Using street performance as a vehicle for transformation, she breaks from the cage of grief to become the embodiment of freedom.

ANGELBIRD is based on the true story of Elizabeth Yochim, a multi-media performance artist, art historian, dancer, and filmmaker. She creates solo and group performance works internationally in the environment—be it the city or the natural world. She has shared performances of the Angelbird with audiences all over the world including nine countries and over 50 cities in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

ESSENCE is a filmed performance art piece of movement, song and poetry exploring the intersection of Stefano Panichi’s art and the architecture of the Fine Arts Building in downtown Los Angeles. The historic building, in its rapturous beauty, provides a unique, architectural environment for artists, creatives, and the people of Los Angeles. Essence explores the building from the inside out where the viewer of the film enters the building through a visual, sonic and poetic experience, feeling the rich tapestry of place that this iconic and historic building presents 100 years later.

Featuring the following artists: Jahna Perricone, Soprano; Kate McCallum, Soprano; Don Norman, Poet; and Elizabeth Yochim, Dancer. The live performance piece was directed and produced by Elizabeth Yochim. The film was directed and edited by Todd Felderstein. 

Essence was presented through a collaboration with Lisa Ames of Art Meets Architecture and Curator Anna Dusi.

TREE SONG

your finger falls

lightly upon my skin

so falls our illusions

like a leaf on a windless day

an unexpected, ponderous meander

brilliance fading to black soil

you think you stand alone; yet

our hands reach for the same light

our thirst is quenched by the same drink

we both suck sustenance from the same earth

made, as it is, from our bodies

and 

we have this way of kissing (you breathing in what i breathe out, i breathing in what you breathe out)

Fifty thousand aspen trees are one being

connected beneath the sight line

your roots and my roots stretch together into every beginning

entwined

whatever the distance between our attempts to taste the sky

What i require of you is what you require of me

to be here

breathe now,

drink now

expand now in the light

and in the dark now contract

sing our song, root, stem and leaf

and if there be storms

what is a storm but the passion of

dust and breath and fire

and if there be drought or pestilence

what is trouble, but the winnowing of chaff

to find the seed of the new morn

and if there be the morrow

what is the morrow

but another falling illusion 

Poem by Don Norman

Music by Andrew Bird

​

@don_nor_man (Instagram,Twitter)

Media (Select)

Power of Play by Elizabeth Yochim at TEDx USC

Interview of Elizabeth Yochim with Steve Dahlberg and Mary Alice Long on Participatory Play and Movement

stARTup Art Fair Los Angeles Program

Interview with Elizabeth Yochim and Anna Dusi

Le Petite Festival du Théâtre Dubrovnik, Croatia Program

Hollywood Fringe Los Angeles Program

Women's Salon LA: The Red Book

Newtopia Magazine: Participlay: Innovation in Interaction

Cultural Weekly: Tongva Park and the Angelbird