Appalachian Springs Foundation Announces Virtual World Premiere Of THOREAU'S HENHAWK VISITS MEXICO

Appalachian Springs Foundation announces the virtual world premiere of Thoreau's Henhawk Visits Mexico on Sunday, July 11, 2021, at 7pm ET. Tickets to the video are $20 and can be purchased online at https://thoreausociety.networkforgood.com/events/30081-thoreau-s-henhawk-visits-mexico, with all proceeds benefiting The Thoreau Society. Filmmaker Clara Gibson Maxwell's dance work will be the conference finale of this year's Thoreau Society's Annual Gathering. The 80th Annual Gathering of the Thoreau Society will take place virtually from July 7-11, 2021, featuring keynote speaker Dr. Ibram X. Kendi. For more information and to register for the entirety of the five-day conference, visit thoreausociety.org.

Thoreau's Henhawk Visits Mexico is a new 39-minute choreographic/musical/video-projection/spoken-word creation by Appalachian Springs Foundation Artistic Director Clara Gibson Maxwell. The performance, filmed at a colloquium in Mexico City, revolved around an 1859 excerpt from Thoreau's journal: "What we call wildness is a civilization other than our own."

Henhawk's soaring perspective was inspired by Thoreau's saying, "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." Students wearing GoPro video cameras filmed the live performance from different angles and heights and this footage was incorporated into the initial edited version, which was projected the following evening at the venue and followed by a deliberate discussion with these students on what they had just seen and filmed. The Virtual World Premiere includes responses about Thoreau's interest in native culture and his act of civil disobedience, in protest against the Mexican American War, from an Indigenous Mexican student activist, present at the original performance, who is engaged in a native pirate-radio project in an area suffering from water-access issues.

The July 11 video premiere will be followed by a discussion with filmmaker Maxwell and Thoreau Society members about the contemporary relevance of Thoreau's views on art, nature, Native peoples, somatic practices like yoga, and social change.

The trailer for Henhawk is available at https://vimeo.com/kaloskaisophos/thoreau-henhawk-visits-mexico-trailer. For more information, visit: www.kaloskaisophos.org.

"Dancers nowadays process lots of questions and struggles. Movement, Martha Graham tells us, never lies; our bodies, I've found, tell us the truth, whether we like it or not," said Ms. Maxwell. "Dance is uniquely poised to catalyze conversations, so I'm thrilled that, for the first time, dance's struggles and questions will be made central to exploring Henry David Thoreau's inner life and public stances at this year's Thoreau Society Annual Gathering."

"Clara Gibson Maxwell's Thoreau's Henhawk Visits Mexico explores the intersection between modern dance and Thoreau's ecology and ethics," said Michael J. Frederick, Executive Director, The Thoreau Society. "We are so pleased that it is the featured film of this year's gathering, exploring biological and social diversity."