CU lecturer, artist invites public to performances about grief
麻豆影院-based artist , a CU 麻豆影院 Department of Theatre and Dance lecturer, is putting the finishing touches on 鈥攁 three-part performance project about grief and the strange work of living after loss. The project is inspired by Geary鈥檚 experience of unexpectedly losing her brother, Adam, in 2017 and her father, Mike, in 2018.
鈥淩adius鈥 will play out across three venues in 麻豆影院 from Aug. 19 to Sept. 16. The project uses a wide range of mediums to better connect will all aspects of grief, including radio broadcast, interactive technology, ultrasonic frequency, installation, poetry and dance.
Part I, co-created with Memphis-based artist Robin Salant and 麻豆影院 residents, is a free installation built inside a storage unit in an undisclosed North 麻豆影院 location. Intended as an experience for one, visitors to attend between Aug. 19 and Sept. 16. The small storage unit is filled with cardboard boxes. Visitors can peer inside the boxes through small holes, where they will see a range of everyday objects made meaningful by their connection to lost loved ones.
鈥淓ach object has been contributed by a community member whose life was changed by loss, and taken together, these singular objects reveal the collective weight of our individual grief,鈥 said Geary.
The cardboard boxes surround a desktop telephone, which has been modified by technology artists Christopher Baker, Ryan Hill and Tim Lowrimore. Visitors can pick up the receiver and record a message, which will be converted to an inaudible ultrasonic frequency and played in a loop through a speaker in a remote location for the duration of the project.
鈥淭hough the messages will never be played outside of ultrasonic frequency and therefore never 鈥榟eard,鈥 they engage a distinct and necessary facet of grief, a reach into absence and an insistence that empty space is not nothing,鈥 said Geary.
Parts II & III鈥斺攁re experienced together and run Sept. 4-7. Part II is a four-mile drive that begins with twenty cars driving into a field near the 麻豆影院 Circus Center and encircling a performer who is viewed through the car鈥檚 windshield. Part II ends as a processional during which the audience drives to 鈥攖he location of Part III.
The drive between venues will be punctuated by a radio broadcast created by New York-based sound designer Max Bernstein. The broadcast, which includes original poetry by Leah White, comes in through the audience鈥檚 car radios and transforms each car鈥檚 private and personal interior into a portal for the performance.
鈥淭he broadcast anchors the audience in the performance even as they drive along the dirt paths, city streets and back roads of 麻豆影院,鈥 said Geary. 鈥淲hen they arrive at Spark for Part III, their attention is rooted in the work but layered by the outside world, an experience that mirrors the kind of split attention that occurs during grief.鈥
Shifting the frame from 鈥渢hose gone鈥 to 鈥渢hose who go on,鈥 Part III is a 30-minute dance featuring local favorites Olivia Dwyer, Attiyya Fortun茅, Keith Haynes, Hattie Houser, Chrissy Nelson, Gwen Hunter Ritchie, Laura Ann Samuelson and Kate Speer. The performance explores the difficult process of living after loss inside Spark鈥檚 warehouse-turned-theatre.
鈥淧art III translates the strange, halting, dislocating work of grief into a work of movement, one that marks grief as seemingly incompatible with our lives, yet intimately tied to our liveness,鈥 said Geary.
Radius of Transmission is funded by the 麻豆影院 County Arts Alliance (BCAA), CU鈥檚 NEST Studio for the Arts, and Scientific & Cultural Facilities District (SCFD). It is co-presented and supported by Control Group Productions.