WeftWorks returned to the Philadelphia Fringe Festival with Before/After, a brand new show featuring costumes, props, and puppet creatures made out of discarded objects and repurposed packaging materials. A transplant from the Boston area and now residing in Philadelphia, WeftWorks is the project of multi-disciplinary artist Sarah Carr.
The production is divided into two parts. The first, Before/, explores how our hyper-connected, on-demand culture impacts our relationship to self, others, and nature. While, /After, imagines the resurgence of nature in a post-human world given the environmentally destructive path we seem to be set on.
The cast featured dancers Caitlin Green, Shizu Homma, Olivia Wood, and Neimyiah Whittley-Jones as well as theater artist Rebecca Love. Videos were created by filmmaker Chris Hallock. Artistic Director, Sarah Carr designed the production and created the costumes, set, and props using bubble wrap, cardboard boxes, discarded water bottles, and repurposed textiles – all recycled!
This was the first time I have seen this group perform. The visuals and imagery are quite striking while delivering a very poignant and needed message about the environment. I would have like to have seen this on a more expansive stage, but as Ms. Carr indicated, between moving to Philadelphia and getting ready for Fringe, time and budget were a major factor. A number of the segments were encapsulated, given the limited time to rehearse, and could easily be developed into full length works. I look forward to seeing more work from this group!