All photos by Linsdsay Browning.
As I approached 5th and Huntingdon Streets, I was struck by the image of the lit domes and their eerie translucent glow. In the “village” I meandered from one community to another, stopping often to greet and talk to friends and fellow artists. The domes beckoned me and my stay was determined by the “warmth” that I felt and the urge to “move.” – Kariamu Welsh
So I am breathing and slowing down in my grey, cowled costume that makes me feel like a stylish monk. I creep forward, my toes cold but I won’t register that until after this final performance of SoMoS. I sink into the branch, playing with the pressure I apply, at times hanging fully from it, feeling it rooted into the earth, at others lightly sliding my fingers over the ridges and grooves, the remnants of bark. I feel the projections on my face, Lauren Mandilian’s layering of images: frozen parks spaces, barren trees, melting ice, metallic grey skies. I move my hand in the projectors’ light, knowing that my shadow is magnified on the back wall of the white tent, the 30×30 yurt-style tent that Merián deemed “winter.” I know that there are three other tents, three other fantastic, lit snow globes with branch dancing bodies swirling in and around them, and my awareness tugs to that macro-level understanding of SoMoS, so I actively re-connect to the micro, to the moment, to my branch, to the three other bodies sharing my “winter” landscape, to the audience members sitting a few feet away from me on the sides of the tent. I breathe and slow down and hope that everything around me follows, my awareness creating a ripple of charged energy moving outwards. – Beau Hancock
“How poetic,” I thought to myself, “that we are all in this duet with the cold.” Its presence encouraged me to concentrate, to slow down, and to listen. I felt strong. And when we ran through the parking lot at the end of the performance, I was ready to break out of the slowness and to get warm! By the end, spinning and spinning and spinning…the edges of the audience, along with my memory of what I had just performed, appeared very blurry. – Ellen Gerdes
It was operatic. I watched the ending from further away the second time and was enchanted by the whole village of it, zoomed out, with its glowing homes. Watching twice was also great because of how the mind shift that happened got deeper and deeper. Like the kids who got quiet and still and watched things for a long time, I sank into the state I have while watching a flickering fire. Just present. And warmed.- Lisa Kraus
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