Visit the online platform and watch the trailer for the films-in-progress.

On March 6, 2021, The Chocolate Factory celebrated the occasion of Daria Faïn’s 25th anniversary as an NYC based artist with a preview of the patch the sky with 5 colored stones interactive digital platform – inviting the spectator to join in the effort to conjure an experience of human intimacy using tools of disconnection. Featuring a preview of the films produced at The Chocolate Factory’s current and future spaces in August / September 2020, archival materials chronicling the project’s creation, and responsive works generated by participating artists, this event culminated in an informal discussion between Faïn, Tuomas Laitinen (artistic collaborator), Kerstin Schroth (Artistic Director, Moving in November Festival, Helsinki), Brian Rogers (Artistic Director, The Chocolate Factory Theater) and members of the collaborative team.

Originally conceived as a solo performance with special appearances by Faïn’s long time collaborators (intended to premiere at The Chocolate Factory Theater in September 2020) celebrating her 60th birthday and the culmination of 40 years of research into the body/mind embodiment within architecture, language, spirituality and communal action (drawn from Daria’s ongoing work with poet/architect Robert Kocik in the Commons Choir), patch the sky with 5 colored stones will now unfold in two separate but deeply related strands.

The first, a series of original short films adapted from Daria’s solo work and collaborative duets with choreographers/performers Melanie Maar and David Thomson – informed by her decades-long investigation into the divine feminine – were produced at The Chocolate Factory’s current and future spaces in August/September 2020 and will be released in late 2021.

Embracing the uncertainty and dislocation of the global lockdown, in March 2020 Daria and her collaborators – an international group of performers, composers, designers, poets, architects and filmmakers – began to gather weekly for durational rehearsals via Zoom. Originally intended to facilitate remote collaboration with the project’s European participants, these meetings gradually became less functional and more experiential as new pathways to collaboration, and a new understanding of the “real”, unfolded via the disconnected tools of the internet, at an unprecedented historical moment, while confined to domestic spaces across different cities and time zones – the sensations of “rehearsing” during lockdown becoming the experience of the work itself. The culmination of this months-long exercise in remote collaboration, this 24-hour online gathering will speak to the boundless and all encompassing spaces that can manifest between human beings in the virtual realm.

With imagery, action-based score, sound, language, color, and time, the online iteration of patch the sky with 5 colored stones will dive simultaneously into the respective skills of each participant, freely associating within the specific approach of Chinese 5 Element Theory (and the correspondences between our organs, colors, sound, speech, time of day, emotions and direction in space) to open up a multi-layered contemplation on our collective states of being – which has been the basis of Faïn’s work for more than 35 years.

Instigated by Daria Faïn in collaboration with Anaïs Maviel, vocalist/instrumentalist/composer (France / USA), Athena Kokoronis, artist (USA), Christian Konrad Schröder, composer/musician (Austria), David Thomson, performer (USA), Melanie Maar, performer (Austria / USA), Robert Kocik, poet/architect (USA), Saúl Ulerio, performer and performance consultant (USA), Tuçe Yasak, lighting designer (Turkey / USA), Tuomas Laitinen, director/performer (Finland), Alex Romania, director of photography (USA), Alexis Convento, project manager (Germany / USA), Annie Wang, web developer (USA), LD DeArmon, technical director (USA), nb zhong, creative editor (USA), and Shana Crawford, assistant (USA).

patch the sky with 5 colored stones is commissioned and presented by The Chocolate Factory Theater with support from a 2019 Movement Research Residency funded by the Scherman Foundation’s Katharine S. and Axel G. Rosin Fund, Austrian Cultural Forum NYC, Brooklyn Studios for Dance, Kone Foundation, and New York State Council on the Arts.

Balloons proudly donated by BalloonsDirect.com.