Visual Description

Environment and Installation

A square, slightly recessed nook holds two dove grey seats which sweep dramatically into pale peaks. Welcoming and calm, the seats are backed by the right wall and tipped slightly towards each other, inviting entry from your left. A projector sits against the left hand wall and projects onto the top of the seats and the wall behind. The projections slip from wall to seat, creating visual access to the vibrations which animate the seats.

Installation Projection Video Description

Throughout, the video appears behind each chair, mirrored images of Andromeda from slightly different angles slipping from wall to the peak of each seat.
A purple-dark night. Top to bottom, the back wall filled with millions of miles of stars. Atop a gray peak, a figure with brown skin is folded forward, head down. In the sky, a sculpture drawn in light appears in the same folded position. The figure, Andromeda, twitches, shivers, pulses against the peak as her skyward counterpart flickers. Now, light shines onto her face. She buries it. For a moment, the light sculpture is merged to Andromeda, their curves filling the screen. Rounding her shoulders, a rhythmic pulsation through her body that gains momentum…then settles. She shakes. Now, her neck sways, burgundy curls drifting in and out of the small pool of light. As she begins to turn to face the sky, water fills the screen. A single drop falls in, sending ripples of circles outward.

Andromeda, outstretched, grasps the tip of the peak, hoists her legs under her. A ball, shaking, pulsing. She settles, then carefully inches and slips her way across the edge of the peak, out of the pool of light. Shadows across her face. Her hands rush to inch her back up. She scoots her body, landing at the corner, arched, a frantic bounce...then pulls herself straight, head tilted back, her body the crest of an ocean wave as the light sculpture returns and dissolves. With her hands, turns to face down the peak. Legs open to a wide V, weight on her belly and fingertips, climbs backward up to the peak, her legs jutting out into space as her fingertips explore the surface, push her bit by bit upward until she sits at the very tip: feet, hands, body aligned to the highest point.

The pool of white-yellow light grows. Andromeda grasps the edge with fingers and toes, and with head down, undulates against a stark, craggy gray cliff behind her. Now perched on the highest point, a bouquet of gold leaves on her shoulder shimmering, with gold painted across her cheek. A cautious exploration of the view around her. Suddenly upright, alert. The cliffs gone, stars multiply and cover her world. Her legs still as she rolls her torso and head in urgent circles.

She tumbles down, curls her body to hide within her arms. Waves, green, teal, roiling, she propels her body back up the peak, rolling, then pulls herself back to the tip, sits, eyes wide and alert. As she surveys the space, the light brightens. She slides down the back edge of the peak, one leg outstretched. Her arms reach over the leg, fingertips taut. Resting on one curled leg, she folds her arms, sweeps them in soft circles, arcs her body with hands clasping opposite elbows. Then! Two hands grab her outstretched calf from deep within the water, behind the peak. Bright white light against pale hands. Andromeda rushes off. The fingers descend back into the waters.

Andromeda waits against the backdrop of the mountains, then slips down into the water in front of the peak, searching. Light wavers and ripples from above through the water. Andromeda on fingertips and knees, swivels in circles. Extends her arm, sweeps to reach down and retrieve the other figure from the depths behind her peak. She steps over Venus as Venus, short green hair, lies on her belly. Andromeda grasps Venus’s arms, leans back, and Venus’s head and chest rise. Andromeda rushes away in a fast crawl to the tip of the peak and pitches over the edge. Venus grabs her ankle, retrieves her. Andromeda tightens, lengthens, then sits atop the tip of the peak. They gaze at one another, desirous.

The full space swirls with rippling water. Venus’s partner light sculpture flows in and out of view in the starry sky. The two lean and bob toward each other. Water rises. Venus slips under and out of view. Andromeda ponders the sky before letting go, sliding down the peak, to rest on her back along the slope. Twists, turns, back on hands and knees, tracing a spinning, searching circle. Along the back edge, she rises, flexes, and extends a leg into the air. Seeking Venus, she tumbles up and away.

DESCENT background informational description

These three paragraphs offer visual context from the performed work DESCENT, which we glimpse in this installation through the video lightly projected on and behind the sculptural ramp-seats. DESCENT is a dance piece performed by Alice Sheppard as Andromeda and Laurel Lawson as Venus. Their costumes are dark gray and skin tight. They use manual wheelchairs for portions of the dance, and at other times the chairs may be integrated into the set or out of view. At times, the costumes shimmer under bright lighting. When dancing in the darkened space, their bodies appear to move more like smoke or water, swirling into the scenery and the dance surface. Behind them, scenery and landscapes are projected floor to ceiling, creating an immersive experience. The live dance space scenery consists of a dance surface, lights, and projected images of stars, mountains, and hills. Additional elements of nature in the edited film version—rippling water, ocean waves, a grove of trees—are overlaid on the all or parts of the screen, with the dance still visible beneath the nature imagery.

Along both the backdrop behind the dance area, and as lights projected onto it, are fetches or spirit guides that are outlines drawn in light. They are interpreted from Rodin sculptures. The floor is a large gray wooden space comprised mostly of slopes with four distinct sections. At the upper left, a small platform. The platform opens to a narrow ramp along the full length of the back of the dance area. There is an open space beneath the platform and ramp used many times throughout the dance. Back atop the ramp, when dancers reach the end, they can go forward a short way to a sharp, pointed peak or turn right and find a very broad, softly sloping surface referred in this Audio Description to as the “broad base.” When dancers go under the ramp and platform or emerge from there, they do so from the back edge of the broad base. Once on the broad base, the space slopes downward to the front.

Unlike in most non-disabled dance where the floor is described as a partner, in Descent, the floor is a partner that generates and receives movement. The dancers can yield to the slopes, allowing forces of acceleration to take over their wheels, sending them in various directions regardless of exertion. They can allow momentum to give them lift and leverage they would not otherwise have had to generate new moves. They can fight the ramp, insisting on using techniques from everyday pedestrian slopes, or they can learn what it teaches to blend with and emerge from its surface. In this dance and film, surface and body combine to make movement.