Featuring:
Home But Not Home, a story told by Andre Heuer
Lesbian Erotica by Catherine Lundoff
Stand up Comedian Tom Steffen
Singer/Songwriter Raphael
Original spoken word poetry and music performed by Rush Merchang III
"She's Going to Heal: Mental Illness in an American Family" by Alison Bergblom Johnson
Home But Not Home is a story of the teller's two month journey working with the Center for Victims of Torture in Liberia and his return home. The story particularly explores the psychological experience of flashbacks and the slipping through time and space as the teller tries to adjust
to his life back in the states.
Andre Heuer has spent 30 years exploring the role of story in
performance, healing, and justice. He is the facilitator of the Center for Victims Story Project. He has performed at the Minnesota Fringe, the Spirit in the House, and venues across the country including Patrick's Cabaret.
Catherine Lundoff is an award winning Minneapolis-based author and editor whose stories have appeared in over 60 publications. She is the author of two collections of lesbian erotica: Crave: Tales of Lust, Love and Longing (Lethe Press, 2007) and Night's Kiss (Torquere Press, 2005) and editor of the fantasy and horror anthology Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades: Lesbian Ghost Stories (Lethe Press, 2008). She has read her work at such venues as the Happy Ending Lounge in NYC, Outwrite Bookstore and Cafe in Atlanta, and Sexy Spring V and the Smitten Kitten in Minneapolis. Website: .
Tom Steffen looks like a sane person, but don't judge a book by its cover. His off-kilter outlook on life keeps audiences laughing for more. After almost two decades as a successful radio personality and total theatre geek, Tom decided to plunge into a new area of show business and began his comedy career in 2002. He has performed in numerous clubs in the upper Midwest, was a semi-finalist in Acme Comedy Company's 2003 Funniest Person in the Twin Cities contest, and more recently, a 2007 regional contender in Comedy Central's Open Mic Fight Contest. On stage, Tom shares the goofy adventures he finds in everyday living, from toiling away in his cubicle at his "day job," to the absurd and bizarre things to be found in the seemingly ordinary art of conversation. All the while, Tom always manages to find a fresh take on the world around us that is sure to entertain any audience. http://www.funnyman-tomsteffen.com
Raphael is a Kuna/Rappahannock singer and songwriter who comes from a family of performing artists. He began to perform at Theatre for the New City and the American Indian Community House in New York. He's collaborated with Native woman's groups such as ULALI and the Turtle Gals. He's also appeared with Keith Secola and has shared billing with Charlie Hill, Floyd RedCrow Westerman, and John Trudell.
His struggle to live clean and sober brought him to Michigan where he would train as a substance abuse and mental health counselor in the Native Community and earn a Master's Degree in Social Work from Western Michigan University. A smart-ass with a guitar, Raphael's biting satirical lyrics reflect one Native man's experience and beliefs. Born in new york city, raphael's recording of half-breed blues and other songs reflect the craziness inherited from the legacy of genocide suffered by both sides (indian and jewish) of his family.
Rush Merchant III performs Original spoken word poetry and music inspired by the avant garde jazz aesthetic.
Rush is a fourth generation artist in his family tree. He is inspired daily by the souls of my ancestors past and present. He is a multidisciplinary artist because one discipline is not enough to tell my story.
Alison Bergblom Johnson performs a solo performance piece entitled, "She's Goingto Heal: Mental Illness in an American Family" exploring my relationship to my grandmother's aunt, Alma Bergblom. Considering that Alma first fell ill in 1919 and died in 1941 I have learned what I consider to be a stunning amount about her. In 1921, she was committed to St. Peter State Hospital after having attempted to kill herself. On the commitment form her father wrote that Alma "wanted to go home to God."
Alma was treated in a variety of institutions over the next twenty years. One such institution was Clear View Sanitarium in Iowa, which treated mental illness with chiropractic care. I have also discovered that while Alma was an artist in her youth, it was a passion she continued after she became ill, chronicling scenes of life in the institutions in which she lived.
My memoir, which I am currently at work on, She's Going to Heal: Mental Illness in an American Family, traces the facts and context of mental illness in my family as far back as the early 1900s, comparing the experience of other family members who encountered the mental health system to my experience.
This performance will include a reading from the Alma section of my memoir-in-progress. In this section I search for traces of Alma in the historical record, and find more evidence of her than I ever expected to find. I also find that there are echoes of my experience in hers and vice versa. During the performance slides of Alma's paintings and drawings will be shown in order to illustrate Alma's perspective of her time in institutions. Alma has a series of pieces all featuring nurses in various poses. Doing laundry. Looking stern. Smiling.
By combining my writing about Alma's experience with Alma's paintings and drawings I'm trying to give her voice a platform. It is one thing to write of Alma, and it is another for her to speak back. This performance builds on my spoken word experience and training. I studied with e.g. bailey at the Walker Art Center in 1999, and have performed at 7th Street Entry.
I have spent what is for my era considerable time in psychiatric hospitals. I'm not alone in this, neither in society nor in my family. In addition to Alma, my grandmother's aunt, two of her sisters also spent considerable time in the hospital for mental illnesses. Growing up, however I had no knowledge of these women's illnesses other than through the phrase "there was so much tragedy." Perhaps not surprisingly I believed one got sick and then died. Reality has turned out to be much more nuanced and complex, however, both for me and for these women, my relatives.
Alison Bergblom Johnson has read her work at a variety of venues including the Walker Art Center and 7th Street Entry. In March 2009 she will be a resident at the Vermont Studio Center in creative nonfiction. Her work has appeared in a Spout Press anthology, which the Star Tribune described as "some of Minnesota's best writers at their briefest." Also, she has taught workshops on the topic of writing about mental illness to people who have experienced mental illness.