How I Learned to Breathe Through the Apocalypse is a serial play/web series written and performed by Desiree Hellegers, and directed and produced by Hellegers, along with Derya Ruggles and Melissa Salazar for air on Open Signalpdx. This black comedy is modeled on Hellegers' meditation-induced hallucinogenic internal monologue at a a 2005 Buddhist retreat in the era of Hurricane Katrina and the Abu Ghraib revelations. It mixes memory and hyperbole, pop culture and politics, and finds parallels between an authoritarian, privileged white Catholic upbringing and commodified white American Buddhism, and their shared complicity in accelerating American fascism and climate collapse.
The series will air on 4 Comcast stations serving 400,000 households in Portland Vancouver metro area, via Open Signal, and later be available to watch on YouTube, where an early episode is available. In this segment, Frann Michel talks with Desiree Hellegers about the project.
Image: screenshot from episode one, used with permission: Text: Thirty Days on a Silent Buddhist Retreat, or, How I Learned to Breathe Through the Apocalypse, written and performed by Desiree Hellegers. Images behind and beside the colorful text: earth from space, oil derrick, skull, Desiree Hellegers.
- KBOO