the Commons • October 2009 thE aRts 1716 the Commons • October 2009

the arts

By Nell CurleyThe Commons

NEWFANE—It’s been 20 years and 22 books, and Archer Mayor is still going strong with the release of The Price of Malice Sept. 29, the lat-est in the series of mystery novels set in and around Brattleboro and Windham County.

“[Writing is like] playing a piano,” says Mayor, who describes himself as “self-taught.”

“At first it’s just plonks and noise, but if you keep at it, something comes out which is music,” Mayor says. “If you hold yourself to a high standard, you’ll want to get better and better. Writing is symphonic — there are moments of excitement and passivity, fast followed by slow parts.”

For an author who has spent so much time writing mystery novels, Mayor candidly admits that he’s not a big fan of the mystery genre itself. He even admits that “nothing and no-body” played a role in his inspiration to become a mystery writer.

“[My interests are] social conflict, anthropology, and people in crisis. I write mystery primarily for the mar-ket and to make a living. There’s very little money, but the rational-ization is that we [in the real world] are surrounded by topics treated in books. My mysteries become social commentary.”

Mayor doesn’t care much for classic mystery styles like those of Sherlock Holmes, but he appreciates that of Agatha Christie, and admires the characterization and social com-mentary of such writers as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Ross MacDonald.

When it comes to his own charac-ters, he divides them into “two catego-ries — the ‘tried and true’ and those that appear as I need them. [The first] are a cast of characters who have ac-companied me for 20 years, whose

Printing of this page underwritten by Connie Evans

By Nell CurleyThe Commons

B R A T T L E B O R O — F o r t h e Brattleboro Literary Festival, “We aim for quality; that’s our only require-ment,” says poet and former Marlboro College writing teacher Wyn Cooper, a member of the committee that orga-nizes the annual festival.

“There are no eligibility require-ments. We’ve had authors with only one published book, and authors with over 50 books,” said Cooper, of Halifax, who will also participate. “We look for authors who have new books coming out, but above all we look for authors whose writing excites us.”

As in past years, speakers at the festival, which begins Friday, Oct. 2 and runs through Sunday, Oct. 4, will range from authors and illustrators of children’s books to local poets and au-thors of adult novels.

“We also focus on writers who are known for being good readers — sometimes the best writers are hor-rible readers, and we shy away from those.”

Author dream team“Those of us on the author commit-

tee make a ‘dream list’ of authors each fall, and start sending out invitations around November,” Cooper says.

“The speakers [this year] are all new, obviously,” Cooper adds. “We have only very rarely invited someone twice. We have expanded the event descriptions in our program, so that festival-goers can read not only author biographies, but specific descriptions of each event.”

Cooper continues: “Also, many of our authors have moved beyond just reading from their work. For exam-ple, science writers Irene Pepperberg

and Hannah Holmes are planning to interview each other. Some authors do PowerPoint presentations, and all authors engage in audience Q-and-A.”

Author Committee Co-chair Sandy Rouse describes the process of select-ing and inviting the authors. Once the authors have agreed to appear, she then “coordinates everything to do with their time in Brattleboro, includ-ing private events,” she says.

“I also work on the development committee to write grants; the public-ity committee, where I do the press re-leases for print media and Web sites; and hospitality, which, again, deals with the authors,” Rouse says.

“During the festival I will make sure all of the venues are unlocked and that the sound company has what they need,” Rouse adds. “I will also be at each event featuring one of my authors (I have ten this year) and making sure they have what they need. Each author committee person is responsible for the venue during their event.”

The committee members are the most thrilled about this year’s special guests, among which they have sev-eral personal favorites.

“I’m excited to see some of the poets I already know, like Katharine Coles, Dzvinia Orlowsky, and Michael Collier, and also excited to finally meet Phil Levine and poet Janice Harrington,” Cooper reports.

“I recently read David Ebershoff’s novel The 19th Wife, and I can’t wait to meet him and tell him what a fine book it is,” Cooper continues.

“I’m also very anxious to meet Jody Redhage, a cellist from New York [who will] premiere a new work based on two of my poems.”

Cooper was pleasantly surprised when poet Philip Levine agreed to come to the festival. Levine, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and “pretty much every other poetry prize,” met Marlboro College math professor (and former Festival participant) Joe Mazur at a retreat in Italy.

“He’s one of the greatest living American poets, and we are thrilled that he’s coming,” Cooper says.

Rouse says that she looks for-ward to meeting certain authors, too, including Tom Perrotta, whom Festival volunteers have sought for a few years, and children’s author Ashley Bryan.

“Jamie Ford, whose book I loved, is coming all the way from Montana. And Philip Kunhardt [is] a well-re-spected presidential scholar. Benoit Denizet-Lewis wrote a wonderful book about addicts. Actually, there isn’t any author I am not excited about!” Rouse says.

Rouse, who most looks forward to “watching people listen,” is “always amazed how quiet it gets when the author is speaking,” she says.

“I love watching the kids’ faces at

the children’s events,” she says. “And I love listening to people’s questions and comments.”

Cooper says that he most enjoys working with his fellow festival com-mittee members.

“This is my eighth year working for the festival, and I wouldn’t have done it for so long if it weren’t for the dedication of my colleagues,” he says. “And, obviously, it’s great to be in contact with writers from across the country, and even better to have them come to the festival and see them hav-ing a good time.”

For more information, visit the Brattleboro Literary Festival’s Web site at www.brattleboroliteraryfestival.org.

Authors to converge on Brattleboro for festivalOrganizers say literary festival celebrates quality above everything

Poet Wyn Cooper of Halifax helps organize the Brattleboro Literar y Festival and will participate as well.

DAVID SHAW/THE COMMONS

While the literary festival draws authors and poets from all over the nation, it also attracts local talent like Peter Gould, a novelist and teacher from Brattleboro.

language I know.”The second, he says, “are con-

structed from my emotional needs, [and] come popping into my head when I’ve decided to write a scene as I need it, when it’s not pre-planned.”

Resolutions and a new murder

Mayor admits that the story of The Price of Malice surprised him during the writing process, as do many of his stories.

“I write without plot or outline, and so I’d better be comfortable with surprises. It adds a lot of energy [to the process.] I know more than the reader, and the more I know what needs to be delivered, the more the book becomes solid as it progresses,” he says.

Mayor describes the book as “a story in two parts — in Maine, there is the resolution of the problem [in Catch]. Lynn needs to find out the fate of her family. And in Brattleboro, there’s an old-fashioned murder mys-tery [in which] there is the discovery of a body, and a search to find out who

New Mayor novel picks up plotit is and who killed him or her.”

“The conclusion of The Catch was unusual, since most [endings] are stand-alone,” Mayor says, describ-ing The Catch as “an emotional cliff-hanger” for series protagonist Joe Gunther and his girlfriend, Lynn. “The Price of Malice had an assignment to tell the end of that story.”

By way of contrast, Mayor says Gunther in The Price of Malice “stays the same. He becomes softer and more sensitive by increments. Joe is designed to represent normalcy and steadiness. His role is to be the keel of the ship, which allows others to be more inconsistent. Evolution occurs around Joe, but he doesn’t change much.”

When asked if Joe Gunther is based on Mayor himself or anyone he knows, Mayor answers straight-forwardly: No.

“I empathize with him, but I’m not him,” he says.

“He’s a nice, considerate man, very loyal and decent fellow. I designed him as the type of personality we all would like to be. He exists in reaction to the world around him, although he always makes mistakes and is quite error-prone in Malice, but he atones well [for them].”

Mayor added that he is more sat-isfied with how The Price of Malice turned out than he was with The Catch.

“Any writer reflecting on his own work does so from the creative side. The Catch was less of a pleasure than The Price of Malice, [which] was a joy to write. Catch merely met my expectations.”

As to what Mayor’s plans are for Joe Gunther at the end of the series, “I have none,” the author says.

“I don’t even anticipate an ending for the series,” he says. “I’ll probably leave Joe in mid-stride, which is how I discovered him. I’ll wish him a good day when all is said and done.”

DAVID SHAW/THE COMMONS

Author Archer Mayor.

Printing of this page underwritten by Elayne Clift

By Olga PetersThe Commons

MARLBORO—A movie, play, or concert usually carries on while the audience observes wrapped in a dark-ened cocoon.

But in early September, Society of Spectacle turned the audience/per-former relationship on its head.

The dance project-in-process by French choreographers Martin Chaput and Martial Chazallon be-gins with a heavy curtain between audience and performers — like most performances. The audience, as usual, waits for the cue: the cur-tain opens, the house lights dim, the performance begins.

Except in Society of Spectacle, the audience hears sounds like running feet, and dialogue like “My arm is 27-inches long” or “I have red hair.”

Performers planted in the audience join in. The curtain drops. Audience members are invited to join the per-formance. Lines between audience and performers blur.

Engaging in communitySociety of Spectacle marks the fifth

creative residency hosted by Guilford-based Vermont Performance Lab and Marlboro College.

Seventeen performers, dancers and non-dancers, from the area par-ticipated in a two-week workshop that culminated in two sold-out per-formances at the college.

The college served as the site for the performance’s first stop on its way to the 2010 Biennale de la Dance in Lyon, France.

Sara Coffey, director of Vermont Performance Lab and a Marlboro College graduate, met Chaput and Chazallon in Lyon, September 2008.

Coffey watched and participated in Chaput and Chazallon’s Tu Vois ce que Je Veux Dire? (English trans-lation: See what I mean?) Tu Vois led audience members on a blindfolded tour of Lyon.

Ear ly in 2009, Chaput and

Chazallon proposed the Vermont res-idency to Coffey. The trio submitted grant proposals. They were granted funding in the spring. Invited to join was composer Jason Treuting of So Percussion based in Brooklyn, N.Y. — a first for Vermont Performance Lab, which had never participated in a cho-reographer/composer collaboration.

“[We saw] this project as an op-portunity to engage with the com-munity,” Coffey said, adding that the engagement took place “not only with a larger audience, but happened in smaller groups with the performers, with the workshops in Brattleboro and Marlboro and new college stu-dents and over dinner and outside the studio.”

At rehearsals , Chaput and Chazallon set performers exercises exploring the theme of “the body politic”: how we behave physically within society and the labels we give ourselves.

Performers chose words to de-scribe themselves and stuck the la-bels on their chests. They spent time moving en masse to experience the dynamic of belonging to this group.

‘Transforming themselves’Chaput and Chazallon’s collabo-

ration began in 2000 with Du Haut. Working with multiple cultures in France, Canada, South Africa, Mozambique, and the U.S. sparked Society of Spectacle.

“We are looking for creating per-formances, which allow people to transform themselves and give them the largest space to relate to the work of art,” Chaput and Chazallon com-mented via e-mail.

Working in rural Vermont was a first for the team. They were surprised both by the number of volunteers au-ditioning and the sense of community.

And, they said, by “how people from very dif ferent backgrounds and ages could so easily be together and get to know each other. That was completely unexpected and their availability and confidence made the

creative process easier and full of play-ful moments.”

The process of Society of Spectacle was new to Treuting, but he is pleased with the experience. Treuting nor-mally performs in a quartet. Society of Spectacle demanded a mixture of music and sound installation, struc-ture and spontaneity.

Per former Rose Watson, who runs the After School Program at the Marlboro Elementary School, describes the experience as having a “wild but profound effect.”

Watson was struck by how, on the surface, the performance and music were simple. The experience ranged from anxiety-producing to transforming.

During rehearsals many of the per-formers were worried they weren’t “doing this right,” notes Watson.

Watson realized that many of the “rules” she was worried about break-ing in rehearsal were imaginary and constructed by society. She says she will take from this experience a little more courage and the sense that “I am not my label.”

Chaput and Chazallon are the ar tistic directors of Project In Situ. Their creative residency was funded by FUSED: French U.S. Exchange in Dance, a program of the National Dance Project/New England Foundation for the Arts and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and Vermont Performance Lab.

Cof fey adds that Marlboro College’s support is a crucial aspect to all of Vermont Performance Lab’s residencies.

“We think the work-in-progress made us feel more confident about the process we are entering,” Chaput and Chazallon added. “Interacting with au-dience members by inviting them on stage is a challenging process, and it was interesting to see people react-ing to the different ways we tried to invite them.”

Visiting dancers challenge their audience

The performance of Society of Spectacle — which performed in Marlboro en route to France — turned the traditional audience/performer relationship on its head.