Spring Planting Moon
Kona’s temp is down and she’s resting comfortably. I’ll pick her up in the am.
Went over to Cecil’s Deli in St. Paul for dinner with Joy and Ginny, two docent friends. That was fun. Cecil’s is an old Highland Park hangout from our days on Edgcumbe. It’s an authentic Jewish Deli and always a fun place to eat. I had a pastrami omelette.
After the dinner, we went over to O’Shaugnessy on the University of St. Catherine’s campus to see Emily Johnson and her collaborators perform Niicugni. Niicugni is a Yu’pik word meaning Pay Attention, Listen.
This is the second part of a trilogy, the first one focused on home, what it is, how we know it and experience it. This performance focuses on the land and our always relationship to it, yet how we can become distanced from it so easily. Reminds me of the quotes I posted from Chief Luther Standing Bear just below.
Emily and her co-dancer and collaborator, Aretha, (one of 5 members of Catalyst) tried to imagine how they could be in two places at once on the land. Much of the movement in the performance grew from improvisation based on that idea. The idea behind it, the intention of the piece, was to memorialize the fact that at any one point in time the land beneath our feet is connected to some other land, all other land, yes, but in particular land that may hold special meaning for us, like home if we are not at home.
Much of the work had little to no narrative line and included collaborators from three groups: urban farmers, (I forget right now.) and people who learned the Yu’pik art of fish lantern creation.
Allison, also a docent friend and a dancer, learned how to sew the fish skin lantern and made one that hung in the lobby of the auditorium. Many of the some 50 fish skin lanterns were the main lighting for the entire hour long performance. Salmon are a primary food source for the Yu’pik in Alaska, Emily’s people and her home. To make the fish skin lanterns the sewers skin the fish, then scrape all that could rot off, a process that can take up to 16 hours for each skin and four are used in the making of the lanterns. So, a lot of work and work related directly to living from mother earth.
The intriguing part of the performance with the collaborators from the three different groups is that she gathers different groups together each place she performs the piece and choreographs their involvement so it integrates with her work.
In case you’re interested here’s a video on making fish-skin lanterns.
Emily Johnson Makes a Fish Skin Lantern from Emily Johnson on Vimeo.
