We had the good fortune of connecting with Jay Ruby/Helen Goodrum Jay Ruby/Helen Goodrum and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jay Ruby/Helen Goodrum, how do you think about risk?
As an acrobatic stiltwalker risk is at the heart of our work. The Carpetbag Brigade uses risk as a point of attraction in our spectacle-based drama performances. In order for our ensemble to take the risks of lifting, falling and flying on stilts with one another we need to build trust. Our training asks us to share body weight in extreme spaces in which the possibility of physical harm exists. It is this danger which increases our awareness and care for one another. Audiences marvel at our physical feats and ‘death-defying’ acts but what I think really attracts them and engages them is the trust and love between us as we perform those feats and acts. So for The Carpetbag Brigade and its members risk is the opportunity to exercise love and trust.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
The Carpetbag Brigade specializes and evolves the art of acrobatic stilt dancing. Through the combination of acrostilts with butoh dance and contact improvisation The Carpetbag Brigade developed a unique theatrical language in the delicate overlap of theater, dance and circus. As performance pioneers their unique aesthetic approach and corresponding technique created 11 original performances plus tours to Europe, Latin America, Canada and the U.S.

What sets us apart from typical stiltwalking act is our commitment to ensemble theater practice and developing new material through theatrical research. We take time to build performances and experiment with movement possibilities inspired and informed by Release Technique, Axis-Syllabus and Somatic experiencing. Our interest is in using the field of performance to create social rituals in open public spaces that invoke narrative, history, and imagination through spectacle. Our work is community medicine that brings people together in a common experience of beauty.

We have had to build a web of relationships in order to support our work. Unlike Europe or Canada or even Mexico the USA does not have a solid support system for the creation of outdoor performance. We had to build our own network of festivals and convince producers and curators to take a chance on our art. We had to write grants and justify our existence. We had to renovate barns and floor sand them so we would have a space to rehearse. We had to perform in parking lots, basketball courts, ballfields, indoor malls, swimming pools, and urban intersections to share our work with people. To function with this level of flexibility and uncertainty required a deep commitment of faith to the process and to one another. Again it is the trust and care for one another that is the glue to get us through.

We learned that our activity engages communities and helps them tell their stories. This created the series of Open Society Projects we presented in different residency locations.

We learned that our vocabulary transcends language and has an ability to create dialogue in cross-cultural containers. This opened up cross-cultural collaborations in Mexico, Colombia and Quebec.

Carpetbag Brigade’s work rises with beauty, falls with grace and conjures ephemeral magic with the movement and action of bodies powerfully inhabiting space. Balancing intensely raw and precarious physical expression with sublime dramatic imagery, a Carpetbag Brigade performance fosters a sense of psychic intimacy, poetic dialogue, and mythic imagery indoors or outdoors and excels in a full spectrum of venues. It is social medicine, it is ritual for the 21st century.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Welcome to Northern Arizona!

Let’s start with a hike around the Bradshaws and dinner at BiGa restaurant on Miller Valley Road.
Next day go shopping at Van Gogh’s Ear Gallery – the best gallery in Prescott with lots of fresh interesting visual arts work then have a fantastic salmon lunch at Eurasia Restaurant. Take an evening stroll at Watson Lake and see the magnificent Granite Dells and maybe catch a TBD show at the Raven Cafe.
Get a taste of dharma at Skull Valley Lavender farm and maybe do a little work trade for dinner at the farm.
Then take a visit to Jerome and Cottonwood to get a taste of Verde Valley wine culture.
Take a wellness day with a visit to Artful Healthcare to get your body in shape.
Wake up the next day and have breakfast at the Local, and then come to the Prescott Courthouse Plaza for a Carpetbag Brigade performance and finish off the evening with tapas at El Gato Azul restaurant.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Theater is like a flower that blossoms from the efforts of community. Carpetbag Brigade’s success is the result of multi-layered support through time. Roberta Carreri from the Odin Teatret in Denmark taught founder Jay Ruby the ethics and discipline of theatrical practice. David Clarkson from Australia’s Stalker Theatre shared the seeds of acrobatic stilt practice. John Tannous helped Jay Ruby build the Tsunami on the Square festival in Prescott, Arizona which networked the Carpetbag Brigade throughout the region. The Network of Ensemble Theaters helped build relations through the United States and Mario Matellana and Jorge Vargas of Teatro Taller de Colombia helped build the company’s presence in Latin America. All of these connections helped build the work of The Carpetbag Brigade but it is the ongoing and enduring work of the company’s different members who gave time of their bodies and souls to build beauty who deserve the deepest credit for the blossoming of our acrobatic stilt work into the street theater festivals of the world.

Website: www.Carpetbagbrigade.com

Instagram: @CarpetbagBrigade

Twitter: @CarpetbagBrig

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarpetbagBrigade

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Carpetbagbrigade

Other: Venmo: https://vimeo.com/user365610

Image Credits
Light View Photo (Photo with stilters in black and one person in white)

Nominate Someone: ShoutoutArizona is built on recommendations and shoutouts from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.