+

^{miranda j friedman}

Sago, single-channel video with found and recorded sound, flora, paper, colored pencil, performance in a garden, 2017.

Sago

A three-part performance series, Sago Plastico was performed at historic, Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice, CA, in both its Poet’s Garden and its Community Garden.

This bleak comedy uses video projection, sound art and live sound scoring, movement and audience interviews to translate a novella written by four plants. They’ve outgrown their plastic pots and the gardener’s sophomoric authority. It’s uncomfortable but there’s something comfortable about the attachment. In order to ditch the gardener, the plants recognize their complacency and uplift one another.

Excerpt:

“We envied the lawn grass. No not the LONG grass, the grass on the lawn in the gardener's front yard. All it knew was two inches. Everything it needed, everything it was, everything it wanted, which was respectfully based on every blade around it—all of that—was two inches. The minute one blade peeked atop the crew cut of its obedient green fellows, the gardener and his mower brought it back down to the level of the others. And the blade and the gardener lived satisfied with its humility via uniformity.”

PERFORMERS (video)
Jazmine Bailey
Iris Alden
miranda j friedman
Kadesha Goins
Esa Lewis
Stephanie Montero
Yasmin Onbirback
Annie Pho
Diandra Torres

VIDEOGRAPHY (film)
Trenton Foon
miranda j friedman

SOUND DESIGN
Roy Sugihara

STYLING + MAKE UP + HAIR
Adeel Khan
Annie Pho

ILLUSTRATIONS
Iris Alden

STORY + SCREENPLAY
+ DIRECTION + SET
miranda j friedman

PERFORMERS (Sago i)
Jazmine Bailey
Annie Pho
Savannah Washington

PERFORMERS (Sago ii)
Rachel Celotto
Neda Yazdani
Negin Yazdani
miranda j friedman (Sago i - iii)

CHOREOGRAPHY
Jazmine Bailey
Annie Pho
miranda j friedman

PLANT VOICES
Jazmine Bailey
miranda j friedman
Annie Pho

GARDENER VOICES
Conrad Cunningham
Vince Roush

MOTHER NATURE VOICE
Sylvie Targhetta

VFX (film)
Dante Graves

LIVE SCORE
Myra Hasson (Sago i)
Dillon Cahill (BANJO) (Sago ii)
Emma Diamond (BASS + SYNTH)(Sago iii)

VIDEOGRAPHY (performance footage)
Shira Shane (Sago i-ii)
Dante Graves (Sago iii)