X - THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE
Artistic Director
Cheryl Flaharty
Dancer
Geneva Rivera
Production Assistant
Brian Gustaveson
Creative Assistant
Dack Quigley
Costume and Set Design
Cheryl Flaharty
Lighting
Janine Myers
Video Editing
Neal Izumi
Creative Team
Rey Lopez, Karen Kiefer, Mo, Dee Laris, Carlyn Wolfe, Mike Pryor, Amanda Sims, April Mae Bartelme, Rose Wolfe, Ginger Royal, Trish Brubaker, Chris Barreto, Aaron Lowe, The Dancers.
Supported by the Hawai`i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, through appropriations from the Legislature of the State of Hawai`i or grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Cades Foundation, and Jean Rolles.
Photos: Darren Miller, Bryan Gustaveson, Mike Pryor, and Sergio Goes.
ABOUT THE SHOW
Originally created and performed in 2007, ‘The Living Tarot’ was the fourth interactive production of IONA’s diverse Salon Series which offered audiences a once in a lifetime provocative interpretation of eleven of the Major Arcana Tarot cards. The show took place in a century-old house located on Oahu's Pali Highway (dubbed, 'The House of the Living Tarot'), in which the living installations became personal encounters as audience-members roamed from room to room to experience the cards they were dealt as they walked in the door. The audience experienced each of the 5-minute tarot card performances in their own unique order. The dancers performed their pieces ten times each evening - a total of 60 times through the run of the show.
ABOUT THE TAROT
One of the most ancient studies of enlightenment and discovery of the authentic "Self”, Tarot images– linked to ancient beliefs, mythologies, and religious systems– form the seeds of fundamental psychological and spiritual experiences. Often associated with magic and the occult, the deck is the precursor to our well known playing cards.
ABOUT THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE
The Wheel of Fortune is the tenth Major Arcana card in the Tarot Deck and one of the few cards that does not have a human figure as it’s focal point. Its wheel of time is above the realm of humanity - where destinies are woven together in the great tapestry of life.
Governing the Wheel is a female sphinx, immortalized in the Oedipus myth where she waylays its hero, demanding solutions to her riddles before allowing him to proceed. Her very presence warns us of the fate that awaits all who try to elevate themselves above earthly creatureliness and escape the round of human fate. But the intellect is to no avail in confronting the sphinx on the Wheel. We cannot free our creative energies with mental gymnastics nor outwit our human fate by clever answers.
Only by letting our imagination spin with the sphinx’s Wheel can we avoid getting caught in her web of circular thinking and free our energies, so that we can reach behind the questions she poses to the hidden meanings she guards.
IONA’s Wheel of Fortune awaits it’s audience in the corner bedroom on the second floor of “The House of the Living Tarot”. Rather than the traditional animals going round the wheel, captive barbie and ken dolls represent the ego and our mortal desires. The red and yellow striped walls remind us of a circus tent - perhaps the circus of life.
BRING THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE
INTO YOUR LIFE
The Wheel of Fortune always reminds us that "this too shall pass" - both good times and bad. If a crisis seems inevitable, recall that in every challenge, there lies an opportunity. If suddenly you find yourself sitting on top of the world, keep your perspective, as that too, like everything else, changes. Live in the now and count your blessings. If we cannot rise above our fate, we must find some other way to deal with the sphinx and her Wheel.
