INTERVIEW: Climate emergency leads to new dance piece ‘Interglacial’
Photo: Interglacial by Laura Peterson is inspired by the land art of the 1960s and 1970s. Photo courtesy of Laura Peterson Choreography / Provided by Michelle Tabnick PR with permission.
Laura Peterson, a New York City dance artist, has drawn inspiration from the global climate emergency for her new work, Interglacial, playing Dec. 8-11 at Dixon Place. When audience members enter the space, they will be met by startling images, both choreographic and visual in nature. Four dancers transform an icy landscape into 12-foot sculptures, meant to depict Arctic glaciers and their uncertain future, according to press notes.
The work — featuring performances by Peterson, Ching-I Chang, Jennifer Payán and Darrin Wright — also finds motivation from the Land Art era of the 1960s and 1970s. Time, for example, is an important part of the piece, with the dancers, and by extension the audience, considering the many thousands of years in a glacial period and the quick destruction of the environment that is occurring right now. Interglacial offers commentary on movements of the past and movements of the present, with an eye toward the future and how these movements may spell certain destruction.
Peterson has always coupled visual art with her choreography. In her biography, she highlights her large-scale paintings, paper sculptures and even 1,000 square feet of living lawn — all creations that speak to her studies of Land Art from 50 years ago. Her work has been seen at the Museum of Modern Art, Lincoln Center and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, among other venues.
Recently Peterson exchanged emails with Hollywood Soapbox about Interglacial. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
How long have you been working on Interglacial?
Interglacial has been in development since 2018 when I received an early commission and residency from Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning. It was shown in various workshop iterations in 2019 and early 2020, just before the world shut down. Interglacial’s world premiere has been commissioned by Dixon Place in NYC and runs December 8-11, 2021, at 7:30 p.m.
When I started the piece it was very different. There were intricately folded flat paper objects placed around the space that were gradually opened until paper covered the entire performance area. I realized that this created a landscape that looked [like] icy terrain, and we could transform the paper into dynamic shifting sculptures that look like glaciers. This changed everything. I saw new the content emerge from the material and began to research climate change in relation to deep time and the origins of the ocean and moon.
An interglacial is a period between ice ages characterized by warmer-than-average global temperatures. The current interglacial period has lasted over 11,000 years. Whether there will ever be another ice age on Earth is a topic of current scientific debate. Things that were once predictable, like rainfall patterns, are now on a roulette wheel. Interglacial explores how somewhere deep in our bones we may have an imprint of Earth’s geological slow dance, incremental shifts over eons, and now we are literally witness to a dizzying enactment of hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, species death, and rising sea levels via news media and lived experiences.
What can audiences expect from this art installation project? What’s the experience like?
When the audience enters the intimate theater they find themselves looking into a bright white paper world. Walls and floors feel like one environment, and the sounds are highly manipulated electronic and natural sounds composed by Omar Zubair. The dance begins very slowly. This work is not at the speed of digital media. The tempo expresses a sense of stretched-out eras, and there is time to reflect on what an eon, and epoch and the slow dance of the Earth and how all living things change every space. The stage is soon overwhelmed with paper sculptures, and very gradually the dance gains momentum until it is it frenzied and destructive.
The elegant white folded fabric costumes were created by fashion designer Charles Youssef, and the dance is performed by Ching-I Chang, Jennifer Payán, Darrin Wright and me. You have to come to a performance to see what happens in the end.
Did you have to conduct a lot of research on the Land Art of the 1960s and 1970s?
Land Art has been of interest to me for the last 10 years. I first fell in love with this kind of work when I was a resident artist at the HERE Arts Center and was doing research for my piece Wooden, which premiered in 2011. Artists using natural materials to create outdoor installation works sent my imagination in a new direction. I saw possibilities for movement in these landscapes. Artists who impacted the way I saw space and the relationship of the natural world to human-created landscapes include Maya Lin, Patrick Dougherty, Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, Andy Goldsworthy and many others. From then on it has been vital to me to use only natural and biodegradable materials for all of my subsequent work.
Do you choreograph first and then give the other dancers their movements, or are they part of the creation process as well?
I view dance as a collaborative form where all involved are contributing artists. When I start a new work I bring in my ideas and research. I almost create a presentation for the dancers. We talk about the concepts for a few hours before we begin to move. I show drawings and share articles. Most of my work is developed through very structured improvisation. I set parameters based on an idea, and we begin to experiment. I rarely bring in finished phrases because the dancers I work with bring incredibly interesting personal interpretations that become integrated into the choreography. My process includes long improvisations, which I video and watch over and over. I mine these improvisations for moments that directly express the concepts, and from there I develop the choreography. The dances would not exist without the dancers. They are true collaborators.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Interglacial by Laura Peterson plays Dec. 8-11 at Dixon Place in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
