Raïna von Waldenburg
Age: 51
Ethnicity: European
Occupation and/or Company: Founder and Artistic Director of Center for Embodied Performance
Years of experience: 30
Personal & professional philosophy:
For the past 30 years, as a performer, writer, director and teacher: my core philosophy has been to accept all of humanity is to accept all of oneself. I believe that we are much more than our perceived self, and that these “parts of ourselves” are often in conflict. When people openly express and engage these conflicting parts of themselves in a playful context, they extricate themselves from the “guilt/shame” cycle and allow themselves to become fully awake to the human experience. I believe that the way to heal global problems is to start with the individual. If we as individuals can become truly aware of our own pain and prejudice, we can then be accountable. And when we are accountable, we have the agency to make change and to recalibrate our systemic ways of thinking and behaving.
Upcoming performances/ project:
12 Minute Madness is a humorous, vulgar, and candid play by award winning NYC performer and teacher/director, Raïna von Waldenburg. After playing at the Fringe, 12 Minute Madness will return May at the 2018 rEvolver Festival. Based on true events, the play follows the story of Marlena von Twattenburger a young woman who recovers a repressed memory of having been sexually abused by her grandfather. It shows the first twelve minutes of madness as Marlena where her mind explodes into a myriad of inner characters that have been dormant for years.
What is the highlight of your work?
My cast of 12 female performers aim to expose the secrecy and shame of sexual abuse through comedy, and to empower those who have been disempowered by this kind of trauma. This multi-racial cast of emerging actors fully embody the material with arched backs, open hearts, and raunchy groins. The genre is buffon physical theatre based on the work of Jerzy Grotowski (a Polish director who revolutionized theatre). The audience is challenged to face the complexity of the human psyche.
Future goals:
To transcribe the original full-length script from which 12MM was excerpted, Das Kaspar, into a screenplay. I’d like Tom Waits to write the score for the movie and to play the character of “Musician”. I’d also like to study origin healing/family constellations work.
