How Now?
How do we do this? In the wake of all that has happened, what is the process by which we forge ahead? This is what we are asking you to come and help us figure out.
WE CAN’T HELP BUT GET A LITTLE PHILOSOPHICAL WHEN FACED WITH FOUR WALLS (INSTEAD OF THREE)
That’s how it’s been for live artists for the most part, from what we’ve seen and heard, virtually, for more than a year. And that’s where we all find ourselves now: done with staring at four walls. Actors (and writers, and directors, and musicians, and puppeteers, and designers, and technicians…) are breaking down all the walls to get to us, to you, to anyone who might comprise a living audience sharing the same space with them. They can’t do one more video live-stream from their closets. The walls are tumbling. There is once again Shakespeare in the parks. Dancers no longer partner with the furniture. Audiences, too, are clamoring to see live art together. We find ourselves here in this (albeit geographically-specific) waning cycle of a global pandemic, the end of which still remains unseeable, veritably dancing in the streets.
That said, in Highland Lake we’re being cautious, while cautiously optimistic about what is possible for our live art endeavors. Though we have been on pause, and are poised to once again resume play, we do not just pick up where we left off. 2020 was a banner year for epidemics of all stripes in America for which there are no vaccines. The cures must lie in how we come together — if we can come together. But that’s another post…. Meanwhile, we are coming together.
As we have written elsewhere, and will no doubt continue to write about here and in other elsewheres, ours is a house of experiment, and this summer THE EXPERIMENT IS ON. We have invited strange bedfellows to sleepover and dream — four separate cohorts of creators will each converge for a week, now through the end of August — some having pandemic-postponed plans with which to forge ahead, others who will be attending to the wind and where it leads them. We are likewise inviting our local friends and neighbors to come for an evening — four in total — to bear witness and be party to the experiment, to help us ponder the question, “How Now?”
How do we do this? In the wake of all that has happened, what is the process by which we forge ahead? This is what we are asking you to come and help us figure out. On a practical level, we have required that all participating artists and volunteers be vaccinated, and we are asking that all who come to the evening events bring a mask to wear for any indoor portion of the sharing. We will have some food together, share some artful fragments of work and wanderings, and together devise a plan to save the world.
The first of these evenings of sharing will be Saturday, July 17th at 6pm. Then every other week after, we will share again with a new group of artists: July 31st, August 14th, and August 28th. Check the Calendar for the list of participating artists and to RESERVE TICKETS. Participation is capped at 35 for each event.