Lysistrata & The Endless End

Performance of improvised expanded cinema and animation with shadow puppetry, lumia, dance, and music

Join the Saint Mary's College Museum of Art for a performance of improvised expanded cinema and animation with shadow puppetry and lumia! Facing West Shadows Artistic Director and Interdisciplinary artist Lydia Greer will present their work with shadows in cinematic sculptural installation, animation, film/video, expanded cinema performance, puppetry - Lysistrata and The Endless End. Lydia will be joined by Saint Mary's alumn - Sofia Mastroianni (lumia) Désiree Sturrock (cello and effects) Ada Ogu (guitar, voice, and effects) Reeya Dharmadhikari (voice), and dancers Erica Hardy and Gia Ottati.

This performance is free and open to all.

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Facing West Shadows: Lysistrata is exhibited as a multi-channel animated/cinematic frieze/mural sculptural audio visual installation created with projected hand-made animation, puppets, and cast shadows and is also performed as expanded cinema. It takes its title from the striking mental image of Lysistrata (411 BC), an Ancient Greek Theatre Tragi-Comedy by Aristophanes, which tells a tale of a group of women Led by Lysistrata, whose name means “Army Disbander,” who boldly leads the efforts of women to end the ongoing decades-long horrors of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta to create peace between endlessly warring factions. Their tactic is to withhold all sex from the continuously warring men, to occupy the treasury (and re-distribute the money) and government buildings (Parthenon, the seat of political power in Athens), and to develop alliances with the women of Sparta (by breaking them out of prison) to bring the war to a close. Themes of ancient Greek feminine pursuits of weaving and spinning, the use of everyday domestic items, and bawdy sexual euphemisms are sprinkled throughout the play. The play of gender and power in dance, ancient Comedy Masks, Karagiozi shadow puppetry, looping images and visual echos, euphemisms, analogies, taboos, visual symbols, and symbols of protest and resistance within the long tradition of art taking on the subject of war and resistance across cultures and time. (Lydia Greer (artistic director of Facing West Shadows) collaborated with the artist and shadow performer YaWen Chien on Facing West Shadows: Lysistrata (2024, which was created at MeMeraki Artist Residency, Limassol, Cyprus, Artwork by YaWen Chien and Lydia Greer, editing by Lydia Greer)

Facing West Shadows: The Endless End is a cinematic, sculptural installation and now a live expanded cinema performance that illuminates the perpetuation of extinction and survival. Through film, shadow puppetry, stop motion animation, and rich soundscapes, this immersive work addresses the endurance and demise of specific North American species and the interconnectedness of ecosystems. Using found historical footage, shadow puppetry, and early photographic studies, this work marks the passage of time and explores humanity’s complex role as prey, predator, caretaker, and destroyer.