Lecture on the History of Skywriting

“I am the sky” explains performer/creator Paul Lazar at the beginning of Anne Carson’s “Lecture on the History of Skywriting”. In a swirl of song, dance, video, lectures and phone calls, Paul relives the fantastical, imaginative, poignant, comic, riotous adventure of the life of the sky itself. From love before the Big Bang (“Most of my paramours were chunks of frozen rock – miniature suns, minor moons, dwarf planets…”) to being an accomplice in modern warfare (“delivering the hysterical valentines of your desire (bombs) through my beautiful blue air.”) Paul shares the stage with Mezzo Soprano Hai—Ting Chinn who sings music by composers John Cage and Michael Gordon, as Paul and Hai—Ting, plus some clouds dance the choreography of Annie-B Parson. The performance, written in its entirety by Anne Carson, begins as a lecture and evolves into an intergalactic joy ride.