You Are My Zooplankton — Come Closer

I created You Are My Zooplankton—Come Closer, for Burning Man. It somehow blended Edo period Japanese decadence, cabaret, children’s theater, and drag shows. I collaborated with Steve Miller, Douglas Ridings, DK Pan, The Infernal Noise Brigade, Steven Stone, Andi Piel, Ashok Mudholkar, a cast of twenty-five, and many unsung helpers.

During the day, the three seventeen-foot-diameter jellyfish, made of muslin, resin, fabric, and lights, generated a continually changing hum of found and self-made sounds mixed with a tri-tone produced by the wind blowing through perforations in the tubular plastic tentacles that hung from each fish.

Each evening, the fish transformed into a cabaret-style dinner theater where 50 lucky diners were subjected to a Butoh Titanic zombie wait staff serving a five-course sushi dinner, cunnilingus-seeking octopus, a kabuki pirate marching band, on-land synchronized swimming, and a fashion show called Big Poppa’s Muddy Hole (which precedes the serving of a chocolaty dessert).

YAMZ-CC was essentially a self-funded, Fitzcaraldo-level event, made primarily to provide an extraordinary experience – to interact with viewers/participants at such a highly unusual level that it chipped away at preconceived notions of what it is precisely that we do, where reality and dreams blur. Not in a silly on-screen way, but IRL and in a powerfully unscripted way. A way that might allow the viewer/participants to begin to see themselves as equally profoundly unique.