Bill Bowers: SILENCE
“I am fascinated with what we gain and lose from Silence. In my experience, asking an audience to receive information visually, without words, opens the heart and mind in unique ways.”
2022 Artist-in-Residence at Philipsburg, MT
View of Philipsburg from Bill’s residency housing
How was your experience as an Open AIR Artist-in-Residence?
I had such an extraordinary time as an Open Air Artist in Residence. I had initially applied for a site near my hometown of Missoula, but the dates didn’t work out, but then an offer came from Philipsburg, and this turned into the perfect fit for me.
Bill’s artist talk performance at the Philipsburg Theatre
What was your research process during this time?
My grandmother was born in Granite, MT, a ghost town located 3 miles from Philipsburg, in 1892. She then went all through school in Philipsburg and graduated as class Valedictorian. She then went on to college in Dillon and became a school teacher in communities across western Montana.
I didn’t know my grandmother very well (she died when I was six years old,) but she has always been an inspiration to me. I was the next person to go to college in my family after Grandma, and I, too, graduated as Valedictorian and became a teacher. Like her, what I really wanted to do was travel. I was much luckier than her.
I wanted to write about her life informed by my life. Luckily my Mother had done a great deal of family genealogy research, so I had lots to start with. I then made many visits to Granite and to Tower, another town outside of Philipsburg where my grandmother’s family had lived. I spent time at the library in the local history section and talked to anyone who would listen about my family’s connection to the area.
My grandmother was a talented writer and had begun to write her life story, though she only completed a few pages. I had those pages in her own handwriting (!), so I used her notes and the research my Mom had done and also convinced my Uncle Graham, my grandmother’s last living child, to come to Philipsburg so I could pick his brain. With all of this, mixed with a good portion of imagination, I wrote about Philipsburg through my grandmother’s eyes, even imagining her coming back to visit the area now as it goes through another “boom” time.
I came to Open Air intending to work on my memoir, which I have been plugging away at since Covid curtailed the possibility of performing. My time in Philipsburg let me peek through doors into my family history and widened the frame of what I want my memoir to be.
What are you up to now (post Open AIR)?
I am now back in NYC, where I have lived for 35 years and am back to teaching in acting programs at NYU, Stella Adler, and William Esper Studios. I have been offered a fellowship at Princeton next Fall and will use that time to continue writing.
Bill’s Open AIR residency workshop
How would you describe your work?
I am an actor and a mime, specializing in storytelling with and without words. Trained in classical pantomime with Marcel Marceau, I use his vocabulary to build physical imagery in combination with sound design, text, and projection/video design.
Bill’s Open AIR residency workshop
What keeps you returning to this subject, body of work?
I have always been interested in and informed by Silence. I am from Montana, a big quiet place. My mother’s family homesteaded in Montana, so I come from generations of big, quiet people. I am a gay man, so I grew up in the 1960s and 70s at a time when there was no conversation to be had about being LGBTQI. I wasn’t comfortable with silence, but I was familiar with it and good at keeping my mouth shut. When I discovered the art of mime at an early age, it seemed like the perfect language for me. I could express through my body rather than my voice. It became my voice.
All of my work as a writer and performer has been an investigation of the phenomenon of silence- personal, interpersonal, public, and political.
I am fascinated with what we gain and lose from Silence. In my experience, asking an audience to receive information visually, without words, opens the heart and mind in unique ways.
Bill posing with stage backdrop from the Philipsburg Theatre
Any new projects in the works?
I am ruminating on a new solo work about Memory. I am interested in what memories we choose to hold onto, and what memories choose us, hold on to us. What do we carry with us through life? Is memory based in Truth? What if we had made other choices? Where would our lives have gone? I am beginning to workshop ideas in December and hope to bring them to the stage in 2023.
Bill outside of the residency housing in Philipsburg
To learn more about Bill, visit his website www.bill-bowers.com Check him out on Instagram @1205idaho
