There Are Mountains Beneath Us
When she applied to receive an Odyssey, Tiu de Haan had already lived many lives. While currently, she was a ritual designer and creative coach, Tiu had been dreaming of establishing a residency for experiential-focused works. She embodied the essence of “pronoia” –the sense that the universe was conspiring to do good things for her–and even though she didn’t have a romantic or business partner, living parents or children, she was surrounded by incredibly rich friendships.
One month before her Odyssey, she was set to turn 50 and surpass the age her mother was when she died of cardiac arrest. Her Odyssey centered around the question of how we could help her begin to picture her life when she no longer had templates of what it might look like from within her own family. How could we help her plant the seeds of the legacy she had been dreaming of for years, and find a balance of her intuition and will to make it happen?
As a counterpoint to her pronoia, her Odyssey began with a series of ridiculous failures. A sculpture of toilet paper that spelled TIU. A shitty picnic (or the “shit-nic”) with squished strawberries and pre-packaged croissants. As the chaos faded, Tiu was spoiled like a Queen and given her dream breakfast in a charming waffle kitchen in the back of a camper van. There she was invited to tend to the vision of her residency and clarify her role. From there, she was brought to an arboretum where she learned about the vision of the two proprietors who had been slowly tending to their vision over many decades. Through a series of challenges, she was sent on a quest to fortify her persistence, before she planted a tree of her own in the arboretum.
In the final scene of Tiu’s Odyssey, she arrived at the residency she had dreamed of, celebrating its 20th anniversary. Tiu would be 75. The dinner was honoring Tiu’s legacy and had an eerily real feeling. It did not feel like an exercise in imagining the future, or a game of pretend. There was truth in this future: the team who made her Odyssey had become a community of artists and collaborators in their week together, bound by that place and by Tiu. Her legacy was already unfolding and had been her whole life in the way she affected people.
LOCATIONS
Locations: Le Jardin Anglais, Chapelle Notre Dame de la Motte, La Cude Arboretum, Château Gressoux.
CREDITS
Directed by Ayden LeRoux, Sophie Larsmon. Creative Development Team: Ayden LeRoux, Sophie Larsmon, Abraham Burickson, and Alex Todaro. Master Class Fellows: Maggi Asbjørnsen, Mira Azram, Sarah Brown, Christopher Daniel, Abbygäelle Devriese, Lina Edris, James Lopez, Anna Nalpantidis, Brian Rush, Amy Segreti, Casey Selden, Alexander Todaro, and Kristen Witte.
Pilgrimage
From Brooklyn to a sacred park in Virginia, Ayden’s Odyssey unfolded as a transformative pilgrimage—woven with choreography, talismans, and the power of personal rebirth.
The Narrative Spiral
Through sound, story, and strangers, Laura’s Odyssey spiraled inward—until all that remained was resonance. What followed was a return to self, forever changed by what she heard.
The Map Is Not The Territory
What began with a Borges book and a man in a goat mask became a wild hunt across New York—and a fiery, joyful rite of passage that pulled Carl from his mind into his body, and into a new life.
When I Left The House It Was Still Dark
A mysterious children’s book. A secret room. A flight to the Canadian prairie. Rick Moody’s summer was overtaken by art, blurring life and performance until the line disappeared completely.
The Dariad
From farmers market to museum, Dare’s Odyssey unfolded through fire, faces, and frames—transforming the familiar into the surreal, and turning quiet attentiveness into a powerful act of connection.
The Woven Life
In the mango groves of Baja, Suldano wove yarn, memories, and dreams into a new vision of self—blurring the real and the possible in a fabric of transformation.
The First Chapter
In a world where stories were currency, Josh journeyed through waterfalls, farm stands, and a writers’ commune—rediscovering creativity, community, and his own long-lost First Chapter.
The Book of Separation
A remote, poetic journey for two—The Book of Separation invites you and a loved one into a custom-built story of connection, distance, and what it takes to find your way back to each other.
The Road to Taz
In Lisbon and beyond, Jude followed signs only the searching can see—tattoos, songs, strangers, and stories—on a quest for TAZ, a fleeting world where chosen identity and imagined community come to life.
