Katorga Retraction Holiday
January 24, 2025
9am to 9pm
Location
James Chapel at Union Theoloigical Seminary
New York, New York
Summary
After a five and a half year hiatus, OZET reemerges with Katorga Retraction Holiday, a 12-hour performance. First presented in 2012, KRH is a contemplative exploration of solitude and community, freedom and confinement, stasis and activity.
Materials
Audience Guide
Hymnal
About Katorga Retraction Holiday
The performance evokes a moment of life on the OZET: a semi-autonomous, off-earth settlement created by the Eurasian Confederated Socialist States (ECSS) as a home for enemies of the people. KHR is set in the turgid, early days of the fifteenth generation, 300 years into OZET’s journey toward the Oort Cloud and beyond earth’s solar system.
For most of the year, OZET’s prison colony (or katorga) safely trails 6895 km behind the home comet. Annually, for twelve days, life comes to a halt as a winch deep inside OZET draws the katorga back in. The farming villages are somber and still. People eat simple meals together, sing traditional songs, and engage in quiet, solitary pursuits. Some prisoners return home, carrying the year’s mushroom harvest to their grateful villages, and newly sentenced prisoners go aboard. On the twelfth day, the katorga departs, and life resumes.
During Katorga Retraction Holiday, the noise of OZET’s internal machinery fills the air. An hour represents each day. The performers occupy shared and private areas within the larger space, passing time there in their own way. At the top of each hour, they gather to prepare and partake of a different nourishment, like boiled buckwheat groats, ham spread, potatoes, and rye whiskey. As the hour closes, they play and sing variations of the Katorga Holiday Hymn.
Performers
Scott Blumenthal
John Hastings
Aaron Meicht