SHED is an installation performance that places three dancers inside of three tetrahedron shaped plaster sculptures that are slowly changed through the dancers movement within the structures. SHED took place on July 20th, 2018 at the Queens Botanical Gardens and was presented by the Queens Council on the Arts as part of their inaugural $10,000 artist commissioning program grant. Myself, Chuan Xie, Kyle Dietrich and Lauren Newman received the grant under dancer Chuan Xie's name.
Beyond writing the grant with Chuan and conceptualizing the idea with the team, I worked with plaster artist Kyle Dietrich to create the triangular canvases used to build three tetrahedrons in which the dancers move. The outer layer of the sculptures is a non-UV reactive gray, while the inner layers of plaster are all florescent, UV-sensitive plasters. Black lights around the performance space light the work. As the dancers move inside of the sculptures, the outer layer cracks off, revealing glowing patterns of plaster beneath. SHED was performed to a 30-minute long original score by Ryan Crowther. Audience members were invited to interact with the sculptures during the performance.
SHED proposes a new type of collaboration, where visual objects are completed through the choreographed movement and interaction of dancers. To finish the pieces, the three sculptures sat outside in nature for one month in the Queens Botanical Garden meadow. To read more about the process and work behind this project, please read this blog post.
