Title: Into the Wind
Note about the title: At the Muskegon, MI premiere in August 2014, I invited Shawn Bible to contribute an opening work to the program. The entire performance was called “Into the Wind.” Bible’s work was entitled “H.A.W.K.” and was presented indoors at the Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center (MAREC). My site dance on the program followed and took place on the outdoor grounds of MAREC—34 acres— and was entitled “Circlings.” At the subsequent Power Center performances, I titled my work “Into The Wind.”
Premiere: Presented in previews by Ann Arbor Dance Works, Betty Pease Studio Theater, Ann Arbor, MI, June 11 & 12, 2014. Premiered Muskegon, Michigan on the grounds of the Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center, August 22 & 23, 2014. Subsequently presented by the University Dance Company in a revised version for the Power Center lobby and stage, Ann Arbor, MI, February 5-8, 2015. The Power Center performance included an extended improvisational installation that took place in the Power Center lobby as the audience entered the theater. In the lobby the performers were surrounded by window length banners constructed by Kasia Mrozewska hanging from the windows and by large informational photos and panels about the Muskegon project. The lobby installation was immediately followed by a 15-minute proscenium stage version of the dance.
Duration: 45 minutes at Muskegon premiere, August 2014. Power Center lobby installation improvisation February 2015: 25 minutes. Power Center proscenium stage version February 2015: 15 min.
Composers: David Biedenbender and Robert Alexander
Poetry: Keith Taylor
Scenic Design: Kasia Mrozewska
Costumes: at AADW preview and Muskegon premiere: Patty Branam
Dancers: at AADW preview and Muskegon premiere: Alayna Baron, Chloe Gonzalez, Amy Guilmette, Maddy Rager, Nola Smith, Patty Solorzano, Robin Wilson
Flute Improvisation: Ashley Stanley
Percussion/Improvisation: Chris Sies
Collaborators: Sara Adlerstein (artist and aquatic ecologist University of Michigan), Robert Alexander (wind sonifications, University of Michigan),
David Biedenbender (composer), Nate Bliton (sound engineer), Arn Boezaart (Director of MAREC), Erik Nordman (Biologist, Grand Valley State University), Sarah Mills (Public Policy, Univ. of Michigan), Keith Taylor (poet, University of Michigan)
Community Partners Judith Hayner (Muskegon Museum of Art), Dan Henrickson (property owner), Eric Justian, Amanda Shunta (Say Yes to Michigan Wind Power)
Production Manager: Amanda Grace Ewing
Program, Ann Arbor preview, June 2014
Program, Muskegon premiere, August 2014
Program, Power Center performances, February 2015
Description: Into the Wind was a cross-regional project created during my sabbatical, and was a large-scale interdisciplinary collaborative enterprise. It was produced in several versions. Initially it was presented in informal preview performances in June 2014 in the Betty Pease Studio Theater, in Ann Arbor. It was subsequently premiered in August 2014 on the grounds of the Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center in Muskegon, MI along Muskegon Lake. Finally, it was presented both as a lobby installation and a proscenium theater presentation at Power Center in Ann Arbor in February 2015.
I described the project in a talk entitled “Into the Wind: Imagining Landscapes of Renewal” presented in Athens, Greece in June 2015 at the Congress for Research in Dance-Society of Dance History Scholars “Cut and Paste: Dance Advocacy in the Age of Austerity” conference; the larger paper, which describes some of the creative process, is linked below. Here is an excerpt: “Inspired by the potential for harnessing offshore wind energy in the Great Lakes region, Into the Wind was a large-scale site-specific interdisciplinary performance for which I served as artistic director and choreographer. The project was guided by these questions: What is the impact of attending a performance within a blighted landscape and collectively imagining its transformation? How can dance artists help communities to connect more deeply with their environment and imagine economic revival? The idea of this performance project was to see if dance performance, poetry, music and art might act as different kinds of catalysts for dialogues about wind energy. It is one thing to go to a town hall meeting or a website to look at visual simulations of offshore wind turbines. It is quite another to imagine the transformation of the landscape through a performance.
Into the Wind premiered in Muskegon, MI in August 2014 on the grounds of the Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center (MAREC.) [Note: MAREC was renamed the “Muskegon Innovation Center” in 2016.] During the evening-length event, the performers and audience members traveled through a 34-acre site to see a performance that blended dance, music, text and poetry. The performance concluded with a dialogue with audience members. The discussions focused upon the community’s potential for economic revival and sustainable development by incorporating renewable energy technologies. The city of Muskegon was once a vital manufacturing center but has long been in economic decline, and is struggling to revive its economy. With city, state and federal support, Muskegon has invested heavily in researching offshore wind energy as one potential source of economic renewal. MAREC has been a prominent site for offshore wind energy research in the Great Lakes region. Into the Wind brought together a cross-regional team of dancers, musicians, designers, an urban planner, scientists, and a visual artist from the University of Michigan and Grand Valley State University. We were all interested in the ways the arts can bring attention to environmental issues. We joined with several community partners from the city of Muskegon, including the West Michigan Jobs Group and the Muskegon Museum of Art.
Generous university funding, awarded to interdisciplinary projects that addressed some of our region’s greatest challenges, supported the performances. In the United States, where government funding for the arts is minimal and intermittent, it is the universities that have long harbored and supported modern dance artists, and in turn, the universities’ missions, such as the promotion of interdisciplinary research and engaged pedagogy, affect the kind of art making generated within these institutions. Within the two universities involved in this project, I was able as project director to draw upon the expertise of many colleagues from the fields of natural resources and the environment, art, literature, public policy, and atmospheric science, to name a few. ”
On one of my early site visits to Muskegon, I went to the Muskegon Museum of Art, where I was drawn to the painting Aprés Midi by Hughie Lee-Smith. The solitary African American woman on an industrial waterfront is mysterious, and the setting is surreal and theatrical. The blue blanket and the streaming ribbons evoke the wind. The painting struck me as being remarkably similar to the Muskegon Lake site. Months before going to the museum, I had I taken a photo of the performance site on a sunny day in August. I sent these comparison photos to the director of the museum, and she shared my excitement in how strongly the painting evokes the site I had chosen. The museum eventually became one of the community partners involved in the project, sponsoring some of our activities. Working with the painting was another way to connect with the larger community. The painting provided a springboard for the opening solo of the dance, created for Professor Robin Wilson. I returned to Ann Arbor after that site visit, and told Robin, “I’ve got a solo for you.” In this opening solo, Robin becomes the figure in the painting. For me she also became the genius loci of the site-- a kind of guardian spirit of the shoreline who invokes the four winds. The manipulation of the blue blanket became another way of evoking qualities of wind. While this painting is likely not of Muskegon—Hughie Lee Smith was born in Ohio and worked in Detroit for several decades-- I learned that Muskegon has a large African American demographic since many African Americans came up from the south to work in factory jobs in the north. I also learned that very few African Americans were able to gain employment at Continental Motors, except for a handful of janitorial jobs. This was one of the hidden stories that I found within the site. In researching the site, I learned that another group who had stake in this site was a Native American tribe, the Grand River Band of Ottawa Indians, who wanted to develop a casino on the site. This was another debate within the community. Most members of the larger Muskegon community insisted that a casino would never be built there, and that the tribe would never receive official federal recognition as a tribe, which they would need in order to proceed with a casino. In developing the solo for Robin, I referenced the site’s deeper history as Native American territory, drawing upon Native American mythology about the four directions of the winds.
Script of text and poetry heard throughout the dance
Dance score for lobby installation February 5-8 2015 performances
“Circle in the Wind” by Keith Taylor
Flyer postcard preview performance June 2014
Flyer postcard for February 2015 Power Center performance
Costume design sketches by Suzanne Young for Power 2015 performances
Selected choreographic notes for February 2015 Power performances
Notice of Lecture Demonstration at Muskegon Museum of Art
PRESS:
“Performance Explores Alternative Energy Potential,” Miami Herald, August 15, 2014
MLive.com preview by Susan Nisbett, June 6, 2014
Video: Michigan World Class: Into the Wind
“Into the Wind: An Interview with Jessica Fogel,” by Elizabeth Schmuhl, Michigan Quarterly Review
WCBN Radio Show: It's Hot in Here
Kraus, Andrea, and Jennifer Johnson. "It's Hot in Here." WCBN Radio Show. Web. 7 February 2014.
The Republic: Arts Performance in Muskegon explores potential of alternative energy to bring change
The Republic. 15 August 2014.
Dance Studio Life: College Dancers Study Relation of Wind to Energy and Breath to
Dance in New Piece.Nisbett, Susan. June 8, 2014.
Below: Lobby poster of dancer Chloe Gonzales on view in the lobby performance installation, February 2015, Power Center, photo by Kirk Donaldson. Below the poster: Photos of dress rehearsal in Muskegon, MI, August 2014 by Kirk Donaldson
Photos below by Kirk Donaldson of August 2014 rehearsals in Studio A, Betty Pease Studio Theater. This is how the studio was set up for the June preview performances as well.
Below: Lobby Installation photos by Jessica Fogel, January 2015, Power Center
The photos below were taken at a dress rehearsal in Muskegon in August 2014 by Jeff Dykehouse. The photos of dancers in black and red costumes in an indoor setting in MAREC are of Shawn T. Bible’s dance H.A.W.K. The remaining photos are of Circlings, later titled Into the Wind.