WARD OF THE FERAL HORSES
(2014-2017) HD video projection, RT: 19’24” Ed. 5
Commissioned by: Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) RPI, Troy, NY

Set in a 19th century horse stable, WARD OF THE FERAL HORSES unfolds a cyborg’s schizophrenic upheaval. Distraught and failing to communicate with his pre-oedipal being, his mind cracks and unleashes an emancipatory carnivalesque dance troupe—Jinn—who emerge from his room’s furnishings.

He begins to practice THE REGIME OF CONSONANTS—a lipogram omitting the letter E, and later I and A. Confused and failing to communicate, his mind cracks to reveal his inner psyche Jinn, as they emerge from his room’s furnishings.

The action in the film is propelled by quotes from Gertrude Stein. Recited almost 100 years later, the quotes are surprisingly timely and hint at repetition: our cyclical failing. Background: Preoccupied with a familial folkloric tradition involving Moroccan Jinn, and a subjectivity which contradicts the monotheistic belief, I have been searching for ideas in this historic evidence of fluidity between Judaism and Islam. Born of smokeless fire, Jinn are first mentioned in the Koran. The incorporation of Jinn into Jewish Moroccan traditions is a symbol for flexibility and tolerance, which are desperately lacking in the Middle East today.

In WARD, the original suppression of urges we practice to become normalized participants in society is further exacerbated by accelerated technological shifts and our ever-beaming, status-obsessed personas. This double act of sublimation pushes the protagonist to crack and erupt, embracing his Jinn, the senses, and fluidity of gender, in a festive Solarpunk reclamation of the present.

Credits:
Written and Directed by: Orit Ben-Shitrit
Director of Photography: Chapin Hall
Sound Design: Timothy Korn
Editor: Jeremy C. Hansen
Preliminary Editor: Anne-Laure D’hooghe
Choreographer: Kate Corby
Actors: L: Doug Barron, R.: Maxwell Cosmo Cramer
Dancers/Creators: Brittany Engel-Adams, Joanna Kotze, Cara Angela Liguori, Or Reitman, Pascale Seigneurie
Camera 1: Chapin Hall
Camera 2: Eric Brucker
Camera 3: Ryan Thomas Jenkins
Color Correction: Tristan Kneschke
Art Director: Orit Ben-Shitrit
Assistant director: James Francis Cerretani
Music composition: Skip La Plante
Rerecording Mixer: Timothy Korn
Foley artist: Jesse Flower-Ambroch, Steve Robbins, Orit Ben-Shitrit, Timothy Korn
Dialogue Editor: Steve Robbins
Location Sound/Boom: Steve McLaughlin
Boom Operator: Dave De La Rosa
Instruments by: Skip La Plante
Vocals: Cara Angela Liguori, Or Reitman, Pascale Seigneurie, Timothy Korn, Orit Ben-Shitrit, Max Cosmo Cramer, Doug Barron
Hair and Makeup: Manami Ishikawa
Hair and Makeup Assistant: Amy Yarsevich
Costume Design: Diego Montoya
Seamstress: Natalie Minevich
Set Design: Orit Ben-Shitrit
Set Assistants: James Francis Cerretani, Diego Montoya
Technical Director: Geoff Abbas
Assistant Technical Director: Eric Lin
Master Carpenter / Rigger: William E. Fritz
Carpenters: Mike Wells + Carl Lewandowski
Master Electrician / Lighting Supervisor: Daniel Anthony Swalec
Script: Orit Ben-Shitrit with quotes by Gertrude Stein
Stills Photography: Mick Bello, India Bello, Orit Ben-Shitrit
Log and Capture: Mick Bello
Clapper/Production Assistant: Zhenelle Maree Falk
Project Manager: Ian A. Hamelin
Artist Services: Kathrin Anne Hammon

Special thanks: The EMPAC team and Ash Bulayev, Gregory Minevich, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Kate Corby, Chapin Hall, Timothy Korn and Dungeon Beach, Skip La Plante, Dottie Dack, Karen Levitt, India Bello, Sally Haftel-Nave, Cristina Mirage Dodd, Will Znidaric, the Ostrovsky Family Fund, Vivian Ostrovsky, Tal Yahas.