HEEL: Solo monologue written and performed by Jeff McMahon. Premiered Institute for Studies in the Arts, Arizona State University April 2002.
In August 2001, Jeff McMahon left New York City to become a resident artist at the Institute for Studies in the Arts at ASU’s Herberger College of Fine Arts. Just weeks later, the city he had called home for 22 years was struck. In response, McMahon created HEEL, a solo, multimedia performance piece designed for the ISA’s Intelligent Stage. With fast-paced shifting of emotions, characters and images, McMahon probes the emotional and political wounds left by the attacks with a mix of wry humor, skepticism, and painful honesty.
“Using
text, movement and imagery, HEEL marches through the
collateral damage, letting out the leash on powerful emotions through
metaphor,” he explains. “It’s a counterattack on the
culture of closure and forgetting.”
As in much of McMahon’s work, HEEL focuses on
the nature of experimental narrative in a multimedia theatrical environment.
The uniqueness of the Intelligent Stage deepens the experience, with
digital audio and video tracks bringing multiple references to the artist’s
solo performance. Excerpts from newspaper reports of the attacks, films,
and novels, including George Orwell’s 1984, are incorporated
in the piece.
HEEL previewed in December ’01 at Reflect, React Remember: Artists Respond to 9-11, a free performance event for the community sponsored by the Herberger College of Fine Arts and one of a series of arts events, 911: Calling the Creative Community, coordinated by McMahon and sponsored by the ISA dealing with the September attacks on New York and the continuing worldwide repercussions. A low-tech version of HEEL was performed as part of the web event memoria/memoire in Fall of '02.