INTERVIEW: Experience Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery like you’ve never done before
Photo: Cairns is a soundscape experience written and narrated by Gelsey Bell. Photo courtesy of HERE / Provided by Everyman Agency with permission.
Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery is having something of a moment.
The beautiful and somber final resting place, located right in the heart of the borough, is one of the subjects in Jessica Ferri’s new book Silent Cities New York: Hidden Histories of the Region’s Cemeteries, and thanks to COVID-19, the curvy paths and atmospheric surroundings of the cemetery have become quite popular for New Yorkers unable to enjoy the inside comforts of a theater or restaurant. And who doesn’t love seeing the monk parakeets flying throughout the grounds.
Now visitors can elevate their visiting experience at Green-Wood thanks to a new musical-spoken word offering from the Obie-winning HERE Arts Center. The off-Broadway institution is currently presenting the new soundscape experience called Cairns by Gelsey Bell, which is a solo show that is delivered via an audio file.
Bell and composer Joseph White have created original music for this poetic walk through the cemetery, which affords also views of New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty. Several prominent gravesites are featured on the soundscape, and there are many moments of reflection on lesser-known stories and individuals. Bell, in addition to co-composing the music, is the narrator and writer of the piece.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Bell about Cairns. She is a singer, songwriter and scholar who is currently serving as a HARP artist for the HERE Arts Center. Some of her previous work includes Bathroom Songs, Scaling, Our Defensive Measurements and Prisoner’s Song. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
When did the idea for Cairns first come to you? Was the show inspired by the current pandemic?
The idea came to me in mid-May after Kristin Marting of HERE Arts Center asked all of HERE’s resident artists, of which I am one, for any ideas of pieces we would like to write that could be performed in a socially distanced way while theaters remained closed. I had been frequently going on walks at Green-Wood Cemetery in the prior two months after going into quarantine, and I could imagine nothing more appropriate for socially distancing than a solitary walk. I also felt that Green-Wood reflected the specter of mortality that was hanging over all New Yorkers. Without wanting to make a piece focused [on] death, the setting acknowledged its prevalence in our newfound daily lives. One of my all-time favorite site-specific works of art is Janet Cardiff’s sound-walk Her Long Black Hair (2004), which was made for Central Park, so that was also a big inspiration.
When did you first encounter the beauty and history of Green-Wood Cemetery?
Not long after I first moved to New York City 15 years ago. I have a very hazy memory of going to a dance performance there, but I can’t for the life of me remember who was dancing or exactly when.
How does this whole experience work for the listener?
So the listener just downloads the tracks from my bandcamp page and puts them on their mobile device. Then they should go to the Sunset Park Entrance (which is different from the main entrance) at Fourth Avenue and 35th Street, and press play on the first track sometime after they’ve gone past the gate. The audio then tells them exactly where to go. There is a map that comes with the audio tracks in case folks get turned around, and listeners should always feel free to pause the audio if they want to stay anywhere longer or check something out that the walk is not leading them to. The whole walk is over an hour, and you cover a bit of ground. So I always suggest good walking shoes and having some water and a snack. Of course, some folks have really enjoyed just listening at home or even going for a walk in a natural space elsewhere. In that way you can just treat it like a podcast, but whatever you do, you should listen with headphones to fully experience the binaural audio mix.
How did you select the particular spots in the cemetery to focus on?
A mix of instinct, research and attraction. I spent dozens of hours wandering around Green-Wood discovering natural features and grave-sites that spoke to me. I searched dozens of names in Google. You’d be surprised how many people buried in Green-Wood with unassuming monuments have Wikipedia pages! I also worked with historical consultant Linda M. Waggoner, and I would send her names, dates and pictures of gravestones I couldn’t find anything on after an initial search. She is a wiz at uncovering buried stories in the archive. There are also a few people and trees that I sought out after reading about them on Green-Wood’s map. But for the most part, a lot of where we end up going comes out of embodied discovery.
What was it like to compose music with Joseph White for the project?
It was wonderful! First of all, Joe and I are a couple that live together. This project would have been very difficult to do with someone who I needed to socially distance from. It’s also the first large-scale project we have collaborated on, so it was exciting to discover a new dimension to our relationship. Our musical styles are very different but complementary, and so having a mix of both of those styles throughout the walk I think has really filled-out and enriched it. I am also very grateful that he is so practiced at working with playwrights, directors and band mates in a supportive role. He would take ideas I had about how the music should function dramaturgically and bring them to life in a unique way that would never have occurred to me.
Do you feel that the worlds of music and theater will ever get back on track after the pandemic?
Oh yes of course! The worlds are still chugging along now — either in projects like Cairns, online or in the immense periods of writing, researching, resting and soul-searching that all artists are undertaking. Artists are not being inactive right now, even if theaters are dark. I also have optimism that the worlds of all the performing arts in the United States will be stronger after the pandemic than they were before because of the immense healing, education and discussion that is taking place around issues of race. For all the horror and tragedy of this pandemic, it has also created a clearing in time and energy for many long-overdo conversations — not only in the arts obviously — that I am immensely thankful for. Calcified methods of business as usual are being forced to give way to what I believe will be a stronger performance world by all accounts.
Do you feel that cemeteries have a lot to teach the world?
Cemeteries are full of history and stories, which always have the potential to teach and guide us. Green-Wood in particular holds many stories that are useful for us in this current moment. The lives of inspiring people of course, but also recognition of Lenapehoking (the traditional name for New York City and the surrounding area for Lenape tribal nations) and the current lives of indigenous people in this country, or the way graves and monuments can function as advertisements for causes and ideas. Cemeteries are also ecosystems teeming with trees and birds and myriad examples of life. As one of the most overt natural landscapes in New York City (because, of course, the whole urban area is a natural environment), Green-Wood has a lot to teach us about our place in the natural world. History is always housed, and to walk is to commune with the ground we inhabit.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Cairns, co-composed, written and narrated by Gelsey Bell, is now available via the HERE Arts Center. Click here for more information.
