ALTARCATION I is a work of performance art and experimental theater inspired by the Ghanaian philosophy of Sankofa.  Meaning roughly, "it is not taboo to go back for what is lost" Sankofa is often interpreted as the interlocking duties of the past, present, and future: to know where one comes from in order to know where one is going. 

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Creating an embodied timeline, Neal runs on a commercial grade treadmill facing his own mother who joins him on stage in this performance. Neal simultaneously approaches the past by running toward the origin of his mother, and the future as the act of running takes his body deeper through time. As Jax and his mother share personal stories about motherhood, love, and the assembly of a life, Neal's treadmill increases in speed. 

 

At the finale of the piece Neal is tasked with running at the treadmill's top speed of 13 miles an hour for two minutes straight. This task is performed for the first time in front of a live audience in order to meaningfully test the will of the artist; Neal had never run at that speed for that amount of time until the night.