My Foucault Project

Writer Heather Dundas and visual artist Kevan Jenson are working on a California opera tentatively called My Foucault. They have been collaborating remotely since 2020 to develop text and images around a historical incident in 1975, when French philosopher Michel Foucault was taken on an LSD-fueled trip to Death Valley. Based in Pasadena, Dundas writes podcasts, fiction, and the odd music-theater collaboration. Her work revolves around themes of art, age, feminine monsters and the American west. Heather has been a playwright and participant in the Nautilus New Music Playwright-Composer Studio, and collaborated with composers at U.S.C.’s Thornton School of Music.

Jenson is a polymath working in a Venn diagram of art, film, theater and memoir. A graduate of UC Berkeley and former New York City cab driver, Jenson has collaborated with psychologist James Hillman and world renowned video artist Hito Steyerl. Jenson worked on features for Wim Wenders and David Lynch, and spent many seasons on TV sitcoms including Murphy Brown, Newsradio, The Ellen Show and Friends. He produced a pair of theater pieces for his wife, playwright Maria Jenson. Jenson lives in Berkeley.