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SIP/watershed SIP/watershed is an investigation into the NYC Regional watershed viewed as a meta- choreography of the historical, geological, and cultural layers of the interaction of built and natural phenomena of water in the region. Lead artists - Choreographer Jennifer Monson, Sound Artist, Chris Cogburn, Costume Designer Katrin Schnabl plus architect Kate Cahill and 4 NYC based dancers and musicians will create a collaborative process that interweaves their forms through listening, framing, embodying, moving, transfiguring and transforming. In this project we will deliberately foreground the creative process through various activities and research that are immersive and intensive. These shared experiences include walking through the first several miles of the Hudson River starting at its headwaters; walking/dancing/sounding along the rim of Manhattan, experiencing tidal and current shifts, sewage out puts, rainwater culverts, marine life and littoral biodiversity, and other human activities such as fishing, making-out and boating; and visiting sites of the natural gas drilling proposed by thee Dept of Env. Conservation of the Marcellus Shale that threatens to contaminate NY state’s water supply. We will share our individual practices and develop new ones out of our interactions with the places and systems we encounter. There is a performative and public aspect implicit to our research process that permeates the public sphere, facilitating awareness of how everyday activities connect to and effect the larger systems we are a part of. The performance activities include two weeks of live outdoor performances at Collect Pond Park (TBD), (one of the earliest areas of settlement on the island of Manhattan due to the fresh water of the pond); an exhibit of video images and animations of the movements of the watershed created by the Advanced Visualization Laboratory of the National Center for Super Computing Applications at the Univ. of Illinois, as well as videos and other web based media resulting from our research process. The performances will take place at the liminal times of the day (2 hours after sunrise and before sunset). The performance site will be framed through a material intervention designed by K. Cahill. This structure will house the video and provide information about the watershed. After each performance we will have informal picnics to talk with the public and share experiences and stories about how we use water. |