2013
When I Left The House It Was Still Dark
Between the months of July and September 2013, Odyssey Works created a performance for Rick Moody, an author living in New York City. It began one evening when Rick's priest gave him a children’s book titled "The Secret Room," to read to his daughter. This book, which appeared to have been written in the fifties, was actually a creation by Odyssey Works.
Shortly after this, Rick was given an invitation to visit Sid’s, a vacant hardware store in downtown Brooklyn. The store became his own secret room, and he continued to visit it weekly for the rest of the summer. In the space, he encountered a variety of objects foreshadowing moments to come in his Odyssey. Among these was a notebook detailing the story of a man searching for a cellist whose music deeply moved him, a recording of string music, and a photograph of a prairie. One day after visiting Sid’s, Rick was brought to the airport and given a plane ticket to Saskatchewan, Canada. When he arrived, he was driven to the prairie in the picture where he found the cellist from the story performing a variation of the music he had been listening to for weeks.
After this, other aspects of the performance began to manifest in Rick’s everyday life. Dancers in red appeared in the streets, on the subways, on the Brooklyn Bridge. A review of the story about the cellist appeared on NYTimesBooks.com. When meeting new people, it became increasingly hard for Rick to distinguish whether they were performers or just people. The border between the quotidian and the performative became inapparent. Rick found his life completely overtaken by Odyssey Works' actors, dancers, musicians, and set designers.In the culminating days of the performance, actors guided Rick between locations in Brooklyn, an experience that allowed him to meditate on the symbology of home. On the final day of his Odyssey, he awoke in New Jersey and a chain of his family and friends led him back to Brooklyn.
Read more about Rick's Odyssey on Vulture, Urban Omnibus, or the Marina Abramovic Institute's Immaterial.
LOCATIONS
Saskatchewan, Canada: Straw Bale Observatory (created by Dennis Evans), Regina; New Jersey: Sandy Hook; New York City: Sid's Hardware, Brooklyn Bridge, a string of stops along NJ transit, and various private homes in Brooklyn. Public Scene: Metrotech Plaza, Brooklyn.
CREDITS
Director: Abraham Burickson
Formal Structure Team: Abraham Burickson; Ayden LeRoux, Jen Harmon, Ariel Abrahams
Director of Acting: Jen Harmon
Site Manager, Volunteer Coordinator: Ariel Abrahams
Director of Documentation: Ayden LeRoux
Production Assistants: Xandra Clark, Jessica Ferris
Field Operations: Nell Waters
Composition: Travis Weller
Designers: Danielle Baskin, Sasha Wizansky
Head of Musicians: Laurie Ewer
Web Designer: Carl Collins
Marketing: David Wishart
Actors: Neil Donohue, Xandra Clark, Mateo Pendergrast, Mike Sadler
Wood Props: Charles Cali
Musicians: Hannah Marcus, Travis Weller, Leanne Zacharias, Erich Schoen-Rene, Xandra Clark, Jonathan Chang
Choreographer: Jen Harmon
Dancers: Maya Orchin, Kristin Swiat, Jessica Myers, Lydia Chrisman, Annie Saeugling, Giovanna Gamna
Production Crew: Charlie Maciejewski, Eulani Labay, Kelly Tierney
Bridge Actors: Jonathan Tarleton, Laurie Ewer, Eulani Labay, Kelley Tierney
Dream Analysis: Irving Slesar
Written Material: Abraham Burickson, Amy Hempel, Ayden LeRoux
Food: Laura Miller, Neil Donohue
Special thanks to Stephen Shelley and the BEAT Festival
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.
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.
