Artist tells stories through movement

Nell Weatherwax wears many different hats. She is an instructor, physical theater performer and artist. \nAs a physical theater performer, she incorporates movement into her shows. In her current show, “And I Am Not Making This Up,” Weatherwax discusses her life not just through her words, but also through her body language. She also works as an undergraduate adviser for the IU School of Fine Arts.\n Weatherwax’s day job works well with her passion for theater. She said this has been the perfect job for her because she enjoys counseling. This job also allows her the time she needs to pursue her art and various projects.\nHer background helped set the foundation from which Weatherwax has evolved. She worked with mime-clown performer Sigfrido Aguilar in Guanajuato, Mexico, for six months in the mid 1980s. \nAfter working with him, she became a part of his company temporarily. Following her time with Aguilar, she did mime as a performing artist and worked as an instructor through the Indiana Arts Commission.\nHer work took a new direction when she went to San Francisco and started studying autobiographical, improvisational monologues. She worked with movement theater artists Olivia Corson and Nina Wise.\n“They do a version of the kind of work I do, which is really tapping into your own personal memory and then physicalyzing it as you speak it,” Weatherwax said. “And that’s what I do in my hour-long show.”\nWeatherwax’s shows are entirely improvised. In her current show, “And I Am Not Making This Up,” the audience will get a different performance each time.\n“I begin by moving – I just move improvisationally,” Weatherwax said. “And through the movement images come up for me, images and memories from my past. And I basically dive into those images.\n“I just kind of run the movie in my mind and take you along for the ride.”\nFellow actress and independent theater producer Diane Kondrat said Weatherwax has a true gift.\n“The immediacy is sometimes shocking and more often than not a miraculous respite from run-of-the-mill theatrical entertainments,” she said.\nThe fact that each show is different is fun for Weatherwax.\n“Every show is completely different from the one before, and there’s no bigger fun to be had on stage as far as I’m concerned, because I’m with you,” she said. “I have a group here that’s actually riding the waves with me, and we’re creating it together.”\nBarry Callen is an improvisational comedy teacher and performer who has seen Weatherwax perform several times. He was stunned the first time he saw her perform. \n “Her willingness to share the authentic feeling and the poetic details was downright brave,” Callen said. “I remember her flying and landing on her first boyfriend’s huge stage-sized lips, and then admitting to the crowd that he liked to wear dresses and that they shared meals pulled out of dumpsters.”\nIn 1992, Weatherwax and Kondrat co-founded What If… InterAction Theater, an improv-based educational theater company that serves at-risk youth and adults in Indiana.\nThe company creates structured, improvisational scenes based on HIV/AIDS issues. The actors perform these scenes, and at some point they stop the action. At this point, the audience is asked to talk to the actors while they stay in character. \nThe Indianapolis-based company works during the summer orientation programs at IU to educate incoming freshmen about challenging social and health issues.\nWeatherwax will teach a class this spring semester and perform in the Indianapolis Theatre Fringe Festival next summer. The festival features 10 days of alternative theater and festivities along Massachusetts Avenue in Indianapolis.\nHer show will evolve, and she will continue to affect audiences. She’s had audience members approach her after shows, truly touched by her work.\n“They come up to me after the show or even come to my office days after the show and tell me ... that I touched them in some way,” she said. “And that’s amazing. Wonderful.”