Gibney Presents World Premiere Of MOUNDSCAPES By Kathy Westwater
Performances run December 8 – 10, 2022.
Gibney, the New York City based dance and social justice organization, presents the world premiere of choreographer Kathy Westwater's Moundscapes December 8-10, 2022, commissioned by Eva Yaa Asantewaa as part of the 2022-2023 season at Gibney Center. The work is a new iteration of the artist's durational performance research project PARK, a nearly fifteen-year inquiry into the site of Fresh Kills Landfill that contends with themes of environmental trauma, grief, and complicity. Once the largest landfill in the world, Fresh Kills is being transformed into a public park set to open in 2023, a transition Westwater has witnessed through her dance, somatic, and material practices.
Moundscapes is conceived and directed by Westwater and choreographed by her and the work's cast of performers. It is performed by Marisa Clementi, Rakia Seaborn, Stacy Lynn Smith, Alexander Romania, Nathalia Trogdon, and Kathy Westwater. The work includes original music by Sean Meehan and Toshimaru Nakamura, lighting design by Roderick Murray, art direction by Seung Jae Lee, and dramaturgy by Clarinda Mac Low. Moundscapes is part of a series of events created by Westwater occurring from August to December in Manhattan and Staten Island. Related events include PARK: Ephemera, a retrospective exhibition at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art in Snug Harbor, and a participatory performance at Fresh Kills on November 5 presented by the New York City Parks Department.
Moundscapes reprises choreographic fragments from past iterations of PARK, remaking and repurposing them into a new work. The piece includes a duet performed atop "tree shoes," towering platform sandals fabricated from salvaged tree branches that reference 16th-century chopine sandals and an early era of excess consumption. The work also features a new extended solo performed by Westwater, that engages a mass of the artist's own discarded household textiles. The textile refuse was accumulated by the artist over ten-years and would have otherwise ended up in a landfill. With this moving mass of cloth, the artist considers her personal contributions to our built environment.
Gibney Presents is Gibney's premier presentation series, offering a rich blend of dance and performance in fully-produced, evening-length commissions. The 2022-2023 Season at Gibney Center was curated by Eva Yaa Asantewaa.
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