tifprabap.org — 'The Institute for Potential Religious Artifacts, Beliefs and Procedures'

Claudia La Rocco, in an April 19, 2008 New York Times review, called it "... Michelle Ellsworth's completely, winningly ridiculous new solo," which she performed last week at Dance Theater Workshop in New York City.

Fortunately for you and me, it lives still at the tifprabap.org website.

There are about 140 short videos on the site, enough to keep you amused and distracted from what you're supposed to be doing for the rest of the day.

Her own website has 20 more.

Fair warning.

Here's the Times review.

Establishing Her Religion, Both Onstage and Online

It was a great pleasure to return home from Dance Theater Workshop on Wednesday and discover that Tifprabap.org exists online and not just as the title of Michelle Ellsworth’s completely, winningly ridiculous new solo. Naturally, the Web site immediately crashed my computer’s browser.

Tifprabap stands for the Institute for Potential Religious Artifacts, Beliefs and Procedures. The solo served as an introduction to Ms. Ellsworth’s religion for one, which is largely a vehicle for her many neuroses and a way of ordering and keeping at bay a world that has, it seems, inflicted much pain on her delicate psyche. Other religions solicit new members and encourage service to others. Tifprabap is a closed world, in which good deeds are done not to people, but to objects that have witnessed too much human dysfunction.

When not straddling a contraption resembling a stationary bike that served as a pew for one and a place to set her laptop, Ms. Ellsworth [top] occupied small, oval mats at center stage. Aided by video from her site, she (sometimes unsuccessfully) demonstrated rituals like dry baptism (salt is used in lieu of water); performed small, inscrutable dances; and sang sad little hymns. Her fierce yet vulnerable devotion to these tasks elevated the piece beyond manic antics. Of course Tifprabap.org exists; you say “religion,” she says “art.”