Tomorrow I meet Ben Kerrick at 210 Front Street to sign a contract and receive the key. 11am EST. Here’s another notch on the belt of those who believe that dreams do come true.

So tomorrow we clean the space. Stop by if you’re in the neighborhood. We’ll be there.

Phil Soltanoff would say, “We have already begun.”

What would John Cage say at this moment before we voyage into the Unknown? On the eve?

In his book Silence he wrote serveral things that indeed need to be quoted here and now.

“Thus it is economical for each one of us to be original. We get more done by not doing what someone else is doing. This way we speed up history – the one we’re making. No need for competition, even with oneself. After all, we’re all the same species and we live on the same planet. And I am not who I was. We were artisans; now we’re the observers of miracle”

Here are three more:

“To see one must go beyond the imagination and for that one must stand absolutely still as though in the center of a leap.”

“An error is simply a failure to adjust from a preconception to an actuality.”

“All that is necessary is an empty space of time and letting it act in its magnetic way.” Vardenafil Side Effects
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Without each beautiful soul pictured here or Flight would not have lifted off the ground. So much gratitude and love.

Dear Passengers,

Feel free to leave here all questions, comments, observations or snide remarks regarding the maiden voyage of FLIGHT 18. If you embarked on one of our twenty-nine flights, then please take a moment to share with us a memory or two.

Use the prompt, “I remember …” or you can do whatever you want.

With love and gratitude,

Captain Wally Bruce

Thank you Carl and the Tribeca Trib. It looks even better in print!

flight 18 program 04.01.10

Well, here’s our program. Thanks Tina.

Here’s a look at some of what is going on around here. Looking forward to having you on board. Peace.

Here it is:

Delfino found Trixie on our first voyage with paid passengers and all fell into place.

reeree and the gang in the cockpit rocked every takeoff, landing and all the moments in between most assuredly.

The Flight Crew is hot. The way they take care is how we all should be treated out there.

Beyond all that the cruise is mesmerizing as it transforms itself according to the combined energies on board. Here’s a shot of a palpably hallucinatory journey through a space tsunami.

Hi Everyone,

Some of you might already know that Eric has been working on a public art performance called Flight 18 in association with a grant he received from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. The show opens March 4th and will fly through April 4th (or 18 if there’s an extension). The show takes place in a space that is 6000 sq. ft (an old Liz Claiborne store) located at South Street Seaport. See website www.flight18.net for more information.

There is a large blank white wall wanting art work. So bring on the art! Work can be framed or unframed but must have hardware attached ready to hang. One piece per artist please. Children’s art welcome too! If work sells 100% goes to the artist. The work will be hung up throughout the run of Flight 18. The show opens this Thursday so we need the work this week.

Please drop off art work (2D only) at the space (see website for directions) either Sunday anytime after 3:00pm, Monday anytime before 5:00pm, Tuesday anytime after 4pm or Wednesday before 5:00pm.

Please email the assistant director Tina Piccari at tina.piccari@gmail.com
to let her know when you will be coming or to arrange another time if the above times don’t work.

Please email me Belinda Blum at ladyblum@yahoo.com if you have any questions.

Directions are on the website.

If you have friends who may be interested in contributing work than please feel free to forward.

FYI 18 means life in Hebrew. Flight 18 welcomes all to come and be a part of this journey off our planet.

with love and gratitude,

Belinda Blum
ladyblum@yahoo.com

Twelve days to go before the official launch. The spaceship is coming together nicely. The flight itself is becoming. I wrote a few test flights and the act of writing a “script” was very anti-climactic. FLIGHT 18 wants to be so much more than a theatre event or a play. We are playing; we are alive and ready to explore the great Unknown. I asked the company to stop trying to fill the void rather I’d prefer them to feel the void. It is through the emptiness that we will know the cosmos.

The further we move along the wider the horizon becomes. One flight at a time.

Artists are arriving and asking for space to create which is very good. So far we have welcomed on board James Daher.

FLIGHT 18, a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) Swing Space grantee, is seeking video submissions to be included in their PUBLIC ART SPECTACULAR conceived, directed, and piloted by theatre artist Eric Wallach. Taking place for over 30 flights in March and April within a 6,000 square foot former retail store in the South Street Seaport, FLIGHT 18 is an interactive performance that invites its passengers to board a spaceship voyaging into the outer limits of space.

The submissions should meet the following criteria:
* be 30 seconds to 2 minutes in length
* explore one of the following two thoughs:

- a PSA about “the Fully Experienced Life”
- a travel-log style destination video

Submit all video as link or attachment to:

18.flight@gmail.com

ALL SUBMISSIONS MUST BE RECEIVED BY FEBRUARY 26th. 
Winners will be notified by March 1st.  
Winners will receive credit and have their work shown at performances throughout March and April.  Great opportunity for exposure to your work.

FLIGHT 18 is an environmental entertainment experience and public forum where performers and audience can interact and freely express themselves.  Never the same flight twice!   Unfasten your seat belts and feel free to enjoy your trip.

Within our spaceship there are seven “Earth Simulators” meant to keep the passengers from getting homesick by letting them experience the parts of our world that they will miss the most. Weʼre looking for artists to help design and construct these simulators; basing the designs off whatever they themselves would most miss about our world. Each simulator will be constructed inside of a small room (former dressing rooms) made up of two walls, a door and a floor length mirror.

Please send design ideas to 18.flight@gmail.com with the subject line “Art Design Contest” by the 16th of February. The top 7 design entries will be selected to take part in our flight. The spaces to be designed can be seen below:

The three rooms downstairs measure approx. 5ʼ x 4ʼ6” x 9ʼ
The four rooms upstairs measure approx. 6ʼ x 4ʼ10” x 9ʼ

We are in a constant state of discovery. Everything that once was, is no more. What is Flight 18? It is what it is. My eight years of notes and ideas continue to fly out the window and I am left with the space and those who I welcome in.

The space is almost completely cleared out and the neon sign is up.

I tore down the black let’s-turn-this-space-into-a-theatre wall last night. And all of a sudden it’s a new space again. Her lungs are open now and we’ll be able to breathe much differently now. A whole wall of windows have been revealed.

The most important discovery of this week was that Flight 18 is very simple (at least for my needs). It goes like this: you check-in at the boarding lounge, go through security, up the jetway and on board the spaceship where we dance, something happens and then we dance out. That’s the show. Each flight’s journey is propelled by the total energy of those on board and that’s that.

Between Thursday night and Saturday at 6pm I flew eleven flights with varying amounts of passengers from 1 to 6. After the scheduled “audition” times, the last flight had one passenger, the final addition to the ensemble.

Each flight was fascinating, awkward, honest, transformative and fun, a veritable joy ride. Each passenger brought themselves to the experience which invigorated everyone. “Play time with strangers.” Yes, that’s it. “I’ve never been to an audition like that,” said one passenger. If only it could all be this good. It can.

This is Flight 18.

My job is to watch, enjoy and make sure everyone is safe. Right? Or will I push the envelope here or there? Dare to take a ride that can inspire and scare.

As for the Argonauts that are joining me:

The Ensemble
The Amazing Amy
Orikl As-Salaam
Ali Skye Bennet
Bernice
Michael Bradley Cohen
Jessica Delfino
Josh Diamond
Rachel Kann
Patrick McCartney
Lauren Oppelt
Weez Tomlinson

The Collaborative Crew
Serol Agazat
Emily Conrad
Joe Diebes
Jaque Fifield
Jeff Galusha
Becky Hubbert
Paul Johnson
Shelly Luan
Nancy Magarill
Steve McMullen
Tina Piccari
Jason Rogenes
Peter Smith

I feel honored and blessed to be working with each one of these angels above.

Tonight Belinda and I cook for the company.
The cleaning crew comes in tomorrow.
Wednesday we push off.

All for now.

The wonderful Shelly Luan (graphic design) and phenomenal Serol Agazat (all things tech) are on board. Both of them arrived to New York to create art twenty-five days ago. I am moved by the honesty, enthusiasm, skill and sweet sensibility that each of them brings.

The space is becoming. Slowly and surely, nice and easily the piece is asking for what it needs and I am no more than a servant to it. I am dropping a hundred old Ideas a day.

I feel light and filled with joy. Here’s a pic of a few things I found in the space. The bottle was found unopened. Lagavulin Single Malt Whiskey. It’s open now and delicious.

Auditions begin tonight.

For my birthday on the 12th, Belinda had this neon sign made by artist Matt Dilling of Lite Bright Neon

I received keys from Ben Kerrick of LMCC for 120 Front Street on January 11th at 11am. I left at 3am having cleaned the entire downstairs. It was wonderful experience. Met with Steve Zehentner who offered great advice. Also met with other potential collaborators. I still need many, many more hands on deck. Though I could do it all – the limit of 24 hours a day is not enough time for one man to get the job done.

Here we’ll keep the running list of those who have donated their time and to those have contributed money. Time is not money but we appreciate them both equally.

Time, Talent and stuff: David Beahm, Paul Johnson, Josh Koppel, Ben Kerrick, Sean Carrol, Belinda Blum, National Theatre of the United States of America, Materials for the Arts, …

Money: Rosalyn Baxandall, Joe Richman, Cal Pritner and Evamarii Johnson, Chris Rael, Jeanne Zacharias, Josh T. Ryan, Mel and Sue Raphael, Lyn and Ralph Haber, Angel, Mary Wallach and Diane Donile, Brian Burstin, Russel and Stefanie Wallach, Arlene Wisan, Keith and Nadia Geller, Max Shterngel, Becca Simons and Jonathan Fogel, Jody Berg, Gayle Becker, Stewart Streimer and Mary Linda Morgan, Deborah Wallach, Wendy Vanden Heuvel, Elliot Blum, Jeff Spector, Matt Stern …

FLIGHT 18 is hereby dedicated to the following individuals who have recently arrived to this world and to those who have recently departed. We will keep the running list here.

The departed: Helen Grunebaum and Anita Fried

The arrivals: Ruby Sunrise and Lou, Sasha Geller, Manhattan and Jazz Walter, James Spector, Blue Galusha (with #2 to come), Clementine Johnson, Eamon Kievman, Bailey Rogoff, Sabrina Gunsberg, Noah Stern (with #2 to come), Nathan and Lucy Blum and introducing Bruno DiFrancesco …