As Is (2021)

Highlights Clip

Music Concourse, Golden Gate Park

Amidst the pandemic, in April, 2021, JPMW produced As Is, a series of six free, outdoor, interdisciplinary, public art performances, that activated the expansive urban landscape of the Music Concourse in Golden Gate Park. 

The project was born out of the restrictions required by the pandemic: the shutdown of studios and theaters, the non-issuing of permits for outdoor performance, the mandate not to gather in large numbers. What does dance look like at this particular, vulnerable moment?  How can it be shared, otherwise than through computer screens and cell phones? How can we sustain a sense of connection as moving, feeling bodies, while respecting the need to maintain our physical distance from one another?  And, in what ways can we help  support the larger artistic community, during these difficult times, while still sustaining our creative autonomy? 

The result was a series of performance/events, rooted in an ethics of solidarity and collective care, which explored and presented ways of sharing space rather than occupying it. 

Three dance artists, Shareen DeRyan, Emma Lanier, and Samuel Melecio-Zambrano, performed a complex, structured improvisation that was integrated into various areas of the public concourse, creating an experience that obscured the lines between performative and non-performative occurrences, and broke down the sometimes hierarchical and estranging design of a traditional stage performance. Composer Clark Buckner strolled the concourse blending musical tones with the sounds of the park, while other interdisciplinary artists (10 in total over the six weeks - see below) responded creatively, in real time, to the happening and its contexts, further blurring the lines between witness and participant, audience and performer, archivist and artist.

Collaborators:

Dance Artists: Shareen DeRyan, Emma Lanier, Samuel Melecio-Zambrano

Composer: Clark Buckner

Scribes: Vanessa Chang, Bhumi B. Patel, Karla Quintero, Annie Kahane

Visual Artists: Valerie Liu, Atefeh Morshedi

Photographers: Kena Frank, Hilary Goidell, Amy Jacobson

Videographers: Luana Plunkett and Neal Morrison

Costume Art Direction: Nicole Argento

Site Coordinators: Belinda He, Emelia Blonkenfeld, Clementine Daniels