Program Notes for WaxFactory: TRACES (after Sophie Calle)

Walker Art Center presents

WaxFactory
TRACES (after Sophie Calle)

October 28–November 11, 2024
Downtown Minneapolis

A performer wearing a shiny black jacket and dark sunglasses leans against a waterfront railing. She holds a cigarette in one hand and a red notebook in the other; behind her is the New York City skyline. The image is framed by tree branches and brush, as if taken by someone hiding and observing her from afar.

Walker Publishing

WaxFactory, TRACES (after Sophie Calle). Photo by Pascal Perich. Courtesy of the artist.

TRACES (after Sophie Calle)

Concept/Co-Creator/Director/Co-Producer
IVAN TALIJANČIĆ*

Co-Creator/Writer/Co-Producer
RACHEL JENDRZEJEWSKI

Sophie
ERIKA LATTA*, SHARON PICASSO, AMANDA BOEKELHEIDE, DOLO MCCOMB**

Martine
LISA CHANNER, MARCELA MICHELLE, MK TUOMANEN, IVAN TALIJANČIĆ**

Pagliero/Library Docent
A.P. LOOZE, FILSAN SAID, CHELSIE NEWHARD

Tom Szyndler
MATT REGAN, JEFFREY WELLS

Gonthier/Hewing Docent
MORGEN CHANG, MICHAEL TORSCH, SABRÍN DIEHL

Sophie Double
DOLO MCCOMB, HALIE BAHR, DOROTHY JOLLY, MORGEN CHANG, RACHEL JENDRZEJEWSKI

Truck Driver
KATIE BURGESS, DAN DUKICH

Monique/Emery Docent
GETHSEMANE HERRON, KATHLEEN WILLARD, DOROTHY JOLLY

Rahél (podcast)
IVAN TALIJANČIĆ (Inspired by end-of-life doula RACHEL FRIEDMAN)

Command Central
EMMA BUSCH, DANIEL GROVE, JARED ZIEGLER

Prop/Installation Design
ABBEE WARMBOE

Video Design
MADS GRANLUND

Video Documentation
CULLY GALLAGHER

Website Design
JAKE BUROKER, MICHAEL JANCIK-KITOWSKI, GAVIN POPKEN, STEVIE LINDSEY

Production Support
DANIEL GROVE, MATT REGAN, JEFFREY WELLS

Audience Communications
EMMA BUSCH

GoFundMe Campaign Organizer
ZOLA DEE

* = founders / artistic co-directors of WaxFactory
** = understudy

Production
WAXFACTORY

Partners
WALKER ART CENTER, PLAYWRIGHTS’ CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, HEWING HOTEL, HENNEPIN COUNTY LIBRARIES, HOTEL EMERY

WaxFactory, *TRACES (after Sophie Calle)*. Photo: Maria Baranova. Courtesy of the artist.

WaxFactory and the entire team of TRACES (after Sophie Calle) are deeply grateful to the many institutions and individuals who made this work possible, including:

The additional artists who contributed to this work’s early development, including Sydni Alise, Jay Owen Eisenberg, Clara Francesca, Theodor Gabriel, Alana Horton, Moti Margolin, Peter Morrow, Liv Rigdon, Madeleine Rowe, and Sara Ann Richardson.

The 75+ brave beta testers in Brooklyn and Minneapolis, who taught us so much about the dramaturgy, functionality, and heart of this work.

TRACES (after Sophie Calle) was developed, in part, with funding support from the Walker Art Center, National Endowment for the Arts, Villa Albertine and Albertine Foundation, Playwrights' Center, Network of Ensemble Theaters, University of Minnesota Imagine Fund, Brooklyn Arts Council, NYC Artists Corps, RESTART NY (a program of the New York State Council on the Arts), Carnegie Mellon University Frank-Ratchye Further Fund, Rose Bruford College, the Emily Harvey Foundation, Jon Neustadter, Lewis Baskerville, two anonymous donors, and 80+ generous GoFundMe supporters.

Additionally, this work would not have been possible without substantial in-kind support from Hewing Hotel, Hennepin County Libraries, Hotel Emery, Prime Digital Academy, Sam Johnson, Ergo Floral, Università Ca’ Foscari, BEAM Brooklyn, Tom Knabel and Kent Allin, Jeffrey Wells, matt regan, Alliance Française MSP, Elisabeth Johnson Holod, Kimerly Miller, Jay Owen Eisenberg, Fran and Barb Davis, Annie Schiferl, Miriam Must and Gary Johnson, José Luis, Sher Demeter, Lisa Channer, Samantha Johns, Valerie Oliveiro, Pramila Vasudevan, and Reddy Rents.

Additional special thanks to Philip Bither, Julie Voigt, Jesse Sawyer, Laura Sivert, Melissa Andrisani, Michelle Havens, Maddie Flom, Robert Chelimsky, Scotty Gunderson, Nicole Bloom, Jarek Pastor, Lynn Lukkas, Logan Morrow, and all of the many Walker Art Center staff members who contributed to the realization of this complex producing feat.

A Note From the Co-Creators

The initial concept for TRACES (after Sophie Calle) arose during a February 2021 residency Ivan had at the Emily Harvey Foundation in Venice, Italy. Having been invited to workshop a site-specific project, he had to quickly reframe his ideas as the iconic city plunged into another lockdown due to rising COVID-19 rates. Unable to work with large groups, Ivan was inspired to develop a pilot for a new immersive performance involving open-air, public spaces and a socially-distanced interactive journey designed for just one audience member at a time. This person was prompted to find and follow an elegant yet suspicious female figure inspired by the iconic conceptual artist Sophie Calle, who herself has performed several daring actions in Venice over the years. As the concept developed beyond the Venice residency, Ivan invited Rachel, herself a longtime admirer of Calle’s work, to collaborate on its realization.

With thanks to a grant from the Network of Ensemble Theaters and Playwrights’ Center, we began developing TRACES amidst the ongoing pandemic and, as we were planning our very first workshop, Rachel’s life-altering stage IV breast cancer diagnosis. Responding to these unprecedented realities, in part through the lens of Calle’s more recent oeuvre reckoning with her mother’s passing and her own impermanence, the project became an intensive exploration of observation, surveillance, misinformation, distrust, longing, connection, and mortality–workshopped in multiple cities and countries, ultimately grounded in the people and architecture of downtown Minneapolis.

– Ivan Talijančić and Rachel Jendrzejewski, co-creators of TRACES (after Sophie Calle)

SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCE + SPY ON OTHERS

Fragmented surveillance video from select performances of TRACES will be available for viewing at traces.website during the performance run through November 14. We also invite you to login and upload images, videos, notes, and other “evidence” collected during your experience, contributing to an accumulating archive that will be made public on the site after the performance run is over.

More Sophie Calle

TRACES (presented October 28–November 11) is a related event for the Walker exhibition Sophie Calle: Overshare (October 26, 2024–January 26, 2025).

Artist Bios

IVAN TALIJANČIĆ is a time-based artist working at the intersection of performance, installation/visual art, moving image and new media. His work has been presented internationally at many venues and festivals including at ICA (London), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Lincoln Center (New York), Zürcher Theaterspektakel (Switzerland,) Festival Internacional de Teatro (Caracas, Venezuela,) Sonár (Barcelona) and Adelaide Festival (Australia) among many others. Along with Erika Latta, he is an artistic co-director of WaxFactory (New York City), founder of Contemporary Performance Practices summer intensive in Croatia, and Programme Director for the MA/MFA Collaborative Theatre Making & MFA International Theatre Practice and Performance programs at Rose Bruford College (London, UK).

RACHEL JENDRZEJEWSKI is an experimental writer who works across the U.S. and internationally, frequently collaborating with choreographers, visual artists, musicians, and ensembles to explore wide-ranging performative vocabularies. Her projects have been presented by the Walker Art Center, Red Eye Theater, Hair+Nails, The Theatre at the Ace Hotel, Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater, and MASS MoCA, with support from the Playwrights’ Center, National Endowment for the Arts, and Foundation for Contemporary Arts, among others. Published works include MERONYMY (53rd State Press), IN WHICH _______ AND OTHERS DISCOVER THE END (a collaboration with SuperGroup; Plays Inverse Press), and ENCYCLOPEDIA (Spout Press). Rachel is a Playwrights’ Center Core Writer and co-Artistic Director of Red Eye Theater in Minneapolis. MFA Playwriting, Brown University.

WAXFACTORY is a NYC-based independent, nonprofit hybrid performance group co-founded by Ivan Talijančić and Erika Latta, dedicated to exploring a multiplicity of theatrical visions. Since its formation in 1998, WaxFactory has been one of the most internationally active multidisciplinary groups to emerge from the New York downtown scene, creating new performance, installation, film and video works featuring a highly innovative blend of physical performance, audio-visual, architectural and fashion design, and an integrated use of new media and technology.

Living Land Acknowledgment

The McGuire Theater and Walker Art Center are located on the contemporary, traditional, and ancestral homelands of the Dakota people. Situated near Bde Maka Ska and Wíta Tópa Bde, or Lake of the Isles, on what was once an expanse of marshland and meadow, this site holds meaning for Dakota, Ojibwe, and Indigenous people from other Native nations, who still live in the community today.

We acknowledge the discrimination and violence inflicted on Indigenous peoples in Minnesota and the Americas, including forced removal from ancestral lands, the deliberate destruction of communities and culture, deceptive treaties, war, and genocide. We recognize that, as a museum in the United States, we have a colonial history and are beneficiaries of this land and its resources. We acknowledge the history of Native displacement that allowed for the founding of the Walker. By remembering this dark past, we recognize its continuing harm in the present and resolve to work toward reconciliation, systemic change, and healing in support of Dakota people and the land itself.

We honor Native people and their relatives, past, present, and future. As a cultural organization, the Walker works toward building relationships with Native communities through artistic and educational programs, curatorial and community partnerships, and the presentation of new work.

Acknowledgments

Support for TRACES (after Sophie Calle) provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and by Villa Albertine and Albertine Foundation.

The Walker Art Center’s Performing Arts programs are made possible by generous support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation through the Doris Duke Performing Arts Fund, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Producers' Council

Performing Arts programs and commissions at the Walker are generously supported by members of the Producers’ Council: Christina Evans and Weston Hoard; Nor Hall and Roger Hale; Judith Brin Ingber and Jerome Ingber; Neal Jahren; King’s Fountain/Barbara Watson Pillsbury; Sarah Lutman and Rob Rudolph; Emily Maltz; Leni and David Moore, Jr./The David and Leni Moore Family Foundation; Therese Sexe and David Hage; and Mike and Elizabeth Sweeney.

About the Walker Art Center

Known for presenting today’s most compelling artists from close to home and around the world, the Walker Art Center features a broad array of contemporary visual arts, music, dance, theater, and moving image works. Ranging from concerts and films to exhibitions and workshops, Walker programs bring us together to examine the questions that shape and inspire us as individuals, cultures, and communities. The adjacent Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, one of the first urban sculpture parks of its kind in the United States, holds at its center the beloved Twin Cities landmark Spoonbridge and Cherry by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen as well as some 60 sculptures on the 19-acre Walker campus.