Track 2

M: If you could briefly describe the characters in the movie. But also, I liked when you described the narrative… There are four brothers.

K: Right. The main, overarching project has four identical –– what I call brothers –– but they are just identical characters who are representative of four parts of one self.

M: Like a Jungian kind of thing. It is in a way. You have the anima, the animus, the shadow, the persona, you have the woman side… Anyway, go ahead.

K: What’s happened is that one of the four characters has gone missing. On the thirty-third anniversary of his disappearance, the other three characters get together and decide to go on an expedition to retrieve their missing counterpart. The story is about this expedition, and the problems they encounter along the way.

M: This is just your loose umbrella kind of narrative. But you came up with that organically, right?

K: Well, back to the influence of Peru. When I was working with this curandera in the Amazon, a lot of very peculiar things happened. One of which was, at some point during the ceremony she separated my body, or being, into four parts, and displayed them for me. She told me that one of the parts was going to remain in the jungle with her.

M: Oh cool.

K: And then put the remaining three parts back together and I came back to New York… And, my curandera died a few months after my return.

M: Your other part was released, maybe.

K: Or, is lost in the jungle on his own.

M: Awesome. I didn’t know this.

K: That’s the general description of how these characters and narrative came to be.

M: I have a question about make-up and stuff like that. I wanted you to describe physically what the four characters look like. Just so people understand – you write, direct, act, you play all the characters. Not every character, but you play the four main characters, because they are four parts of your personality, your being, or whatever. So, if you could describe those four characters.

K: Sure. As I said they are identical, so in appearance they all look the same. They are each wearing a two-piece white suit – which is somewhere between a minister’s garment, and a wizard. And somewhat colonial, sort of a Fitzcarraldo look. The characters are barefoot. They wear a jeweled cross that hangs from their neck. And they are wearing five-foot long, silvery-white Lady Godiva wigs.

M: From my point of view, there is the character that wears the long white wig, who also wears a cross… But then there is a blackface character or the make up character – can you describe that character?

K: That character is part of another project. It’s a little confusing, because I have two videos going that are interrelated, but one is an isolated narrative – a spin-off from the main project. In this piece there are two characters who further down the narrative actually combine to make the four brothers character…

M: Right, so you are playing a black man, a white woman, a white man… So my question was, I mean I guess it seems ridiculous to go back to what my questions are because we are having a good conversation… But I’m curious if your use of make-up has more to do with otherness, or more about the mask, like is it for me. I feel like, when I do performance, I like the mask, because I want to hide, I feel embarrassed, or I need that extra prop to get me out there. Yours is a film, so I guess it’s different, but is it about otherness? Like in the blackface? Or is it about a mask. Is the make-up more mask or more about otherness?

K: Otherness, for sure. And just to clarify, what I’m attempting to do with the make-up is play a character who is based on a real person. I haven’t set out to do “blackface,” as in the racist tradition –– but I do realize that it’s delicate territory.

M: OK.

K: Just to touch on the “otherness” briefly…. I believe that part of pursuing and engaging spirituality, or higher realms, is a process of othering yourself. It’s a practice of stepping outside conscious reality, and observing yourself and the world from a far.