From destruction comes renewal, and from devastation, inspiration. With the communally collaborative Out of the Mud & Ashes, which takes place Saturday, October 6, at the Lobero Theatre, more than a dozen artists and performers from the Santa Barbara and Ventura regions will reflect on the Thomas Fire and mudslides through cathartic works of dance, poetry, visual art, and more.
“These pieces all could be transformational,” said artistic director John Lengsfelder of the “very powerful mix” of performers, photographers, videographers, and storytellers slated for the event. “I want to take people on a journey about the mud and ashes, about what’s happened to our psyche — if the majority of people come out feeling just a little bit better, we’ve been successful. I want people to feel a sense of healing, or that they can connect with the experience in a different way. I think we need it.”
The first showcase of its kind, the evening bloomed from the 2018 New Mythos Artist Grants of Pacifica Graduate Institute’s Opus Archives. Inspired by the archives’ vast Joseph Campbell collection, the research-based grants for depth psychology and mythological studies took on a new purpose following the traumatic disasters of this past winter. The creators of Mud & Ashes, according to Lengsfelder, confront our locality’s tragedies on a more global scale. “Campbell had said that when there’s a new myth, it’s going to be about the planet, not a particular culture. It feels like what we’re experiencing is planetary,” he said.
