Residents & Partners

RESIDENTS & PARTNERS in shared mission. Video generously underwritten by the Corsicana Visitors’ Bureau, in recognition of this residency’s commitment to Downtown Corsicana and partnerships beyond, to elevate the next art and literature by an international community of artists and writers. Composed and edited by Documentarian and former resident Trey Burns, fall 2022.

Founding 100 West

THE 100 WEST PROJECT 10 YEARS ON.

What began, among a group of artist friends in a huge three story former Odd Fellows Hall in Corsicana, Texas, as a sort of open question - What are we, as artists, doing here? - became, with only the faintest understanding as to how such things are done, an international invitation to that question.  And right off the bat, 100 applicants from everywhere - Australia, Iceland, Germany.  And then three times that number.  Full-blown Residency.  Yet keeping - somehow, in those airy, somewhat ghostly spaces occupied by no more than two artists and one writer at a time - that essential openness, that question and what some have termed a sense of ghostly freedom to pursue it, even out into the general community, whose history and whose history’s preservation has become a central concern and an extension of the 100W project.

What have we got here? is another question asked from time to time as things expand - a bookstore, gallery and new residential space.  Kyle Hobratschk, founder and prime mover, seems pretty happy not to have to pin it down.  But clearly more than just a residency.  And still presenting that same open question with that open invitation to address it among friends in a little town out on the endless Texas openness where questions such as this, we feel, can gain a certain clarity.

David Searcy May, 2022

Video features founders and director Kyle Hobratschk, Travis LaMothe, Adrienne Lichliter-Hines, David Searcy, Nancy Rebal, and Corsicana Residency nonprofit board members Joe B. Brooks and Sally Warren. Composed and edited by former resident Trey Burns. Video funding support from the Corsicana Visitors' Bureau.

Zora Howard

ZORA HOWARD
Harlem, New York, 100 West Writing Studio, Nov - Dec 2021
Zora Howard’s work as a playwright, performer, and director is rooted in the iterative processes of witnessing and telling. Her work centers around themes of diaspora, Black cultural traditions, and relational intimacy. Often with strong and insightful narrative voice, Zora commits to rendering lived truths not only legible, but tangible on the stage. Her play STEW was a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in drama. While in residence, Zora worked on a new play set in South Africa in an alternative history where the Cape Town water crisis never ended.

More Videos in the Archive

Tricia Park 'A Sonic Arc'

‘A SONIC ARC’ by Tricia Park composed during her residency, performed here in the wood shop. Theory and anagram illuminated :

 

This is a piece for solo violin that is, as the title hints, an arc in and of itself. There are several metaphoric delights embedded in this piece, not the least of which is the title. As a musician who plays with words and a writer who plays with sound, I was charmed one day to discover that A SONIC ARC is an anagram for CORSICANA. And much like the triumphant Scrabble player discovers a way to use all their tiles, this serendipity led me to compose the piece with joyous speed. Haunted and haunting, the shape of the piece is also a metaphor for my creative process. I am a relatively new composer and am now inspired to write a collection of short pieces like this for solo violin, which could then be compiled into an album, commemorating this time in my life and marking the creative evolution that began in Corsicana.

 

Following an ABA, ternary form, the piece begins rather hesitantly, as if searching for its footing. The A section’s main motive is a falling third, between c-sharp and a-sharp, and explores a single line, falling and rising as it turns on itself, finding direction. As this first section arrives at a kind of cadence point, it enters into new territory: the propulsive B section, with continuous arpeggios that are energetic, rhythmic and offer harmonic progression and tension. After a point of climax, the A section returns, but is subtly transformed, with a falling third that is a half-step lower: now, a c natural and an a natural. Throughout, I utilize a variety of other violinistic techniques, like left-hand pizzicato and harmonics, to add texture and layers. The piece ends in a sigh: with the falling third, but this time, repeated three times, as it ascends higher and higher octaves, evaporating into nothing.

Korean-American writer and classical violinist Tricia Park lifts the veil of cultural universalism that classical music hides behind. In an effort to confront the harmful anti-Asian stereotypes and model minority myths she encounters in her career as a professional classical musician, Tricia’s writing  probes Western imperialism’s effects on East Asian communities both at home and in diaspora. Below the exquisite melodies of Bach, a culture war persists that affects our notions of class, beauty, and what constitutes real music and by extension real people.  Tricia addresses these complexities with clarity of voice and sight in her essays on her podcast, Is it Recess Yet: Confessions of a Former Child Prodigy. Her commentary speaks across U.S. and Korean cultural contexts to reveal excruciatingly accurate insights.

Residency Focus: In keeping with the intersectional focus of her work, Tricia spends time at the residency experimenting with ways to fuse her writing and musicianship. Tricia is working on her longform project, a blurred hybridization of fiction and memoir, while also completing an original solo violin composition inspired by her experiences in Corsicana. 

Rehab El Sadek

Theodora Allen