Is this au revoir

If you missed it, you missed it for this year. And, according to my friends (hardly impartial, but that doesn't matter) you missed a wonderful spectacle. Never mind Matt sliding down silk 30 feet in the air, upside down, without a net; never mind Tawanda, dressed as a gull, leaping tall boulders at a single bound; never mind assorted dancers tumbling on rickety-looking aluminum-pipe huts. You missed seeing us bird-watchers peak. We moved in unison with each other AND THE BAND. Had you been at rehearsals, you would know what a triumph is was. We were fantastic!
I would say come back next year to see us even better, but although we will all be better and better in every way, there's no way of knowing that we'll be doing the same things.
My money is on change, because this is, as anyone who participated in it will tell you, an evolving work.
That's it for me for now. I have a photography show in Kingfield to get ready for.

Is this au revoir

Trust me

At a recent outdoor concert by a Cuban hip-hop group, my friend turned to me and said: "This is quite a spectacle to watch." He was referring to the dance component of the concert -- the hip grinds, the slips and slides, the hand gestures. Anyone who has watched MTV or TV dance competitions has become accustomed to seeing this kind of movement. It's part of our everyday world now. Like the way sports are ubiquitous in the media, dance has started to find a place in the mainstream.

And yet, and yet ... I wonder how many people have actually been to a live dance performance on a stage or, in the case of this blog, at a quarry? And how many of us think: Dance? Dance? I don't get dance.

My answer? Yes, you do. Understanding dance is as easy as watching a Cuban hip-hop singer gyrate onstage. You get it. She's sexy. She's groovin'. She feels the music. It makes sense because you're familiar with what she's doing. You've seen it on TV. Or maybe you've even done it at home. (Don't worry; your secret is safe with me.)

"The more you go to dance, the more you see," said Alison Chase, choreographer for Q2: Habitat, which opens this evening and runs through tomorrow at the Settlement Quarry in Stonington. I asked her how she'd like people to "understand" dance -- what skills do they need to "get" it?

"Trust your own responses," she said.

OK, great start. But there's more you can do ahead of time.

For instance: You're at a quarry. The title of the piece is Habitat. There's gotta be a clue in there somewhere.

Also, you can spend a few moments reading other blog entries on this site, OR check out Emily Burnham's recent story in the Bangor Daily News.

The point is: You don't have to go in cold. Or you can. You don't have to think about it beforehand. Or you can. You don't have to know the entire history of dance. Or any of it. But it's also OK if you know all of it.

Follow Chase's advice. You'll get it. Pay attention to whatever draws your eye rather than what you think you should be looking at. You'll feel something. Trust me. Then trust yourself.

neither rain...

Tempus fugit and all that. Today was the rehearsal before the dress rehearsal before the performance. By the time we community members (bird-watchers) arrived, the sky was getting very dark. As we took our places, Whitney pointed out that she is not local, and wanted to know what locals did or knew about lightning. I answered (being more local than she, having lived her 13 years, but still definitely from away) that really, locals or semi-locals didn't have a bead on lightning.
We all concluded that the cars present (two, I think) and the truck (one, but big) would suffice to keep us safe. Especially since the tower was taller than we are. We just planned to stay off the tower. Also no one was flying a kite with a key on it.
As we stood thinking things over I heard a drop of rain splat on my pink hat. It was followed by many more, and we all fled to the dryness of the truck. We stood and sat inside. Wendee took a nap with her head on her backpack. Stephanie ate an energy bar; Emily snacked on mustardy pretzels. I drank some water and sweated, in a friendly way. The rain, visible beyond the open back of the truck, seemed to be coming down in sheets. It didn't last long, and out we went.
And we ran through pieces of the performance. Nigel's band played and we counted. And counted. We did what we do, then did it again. And we weren't the only ones. The porcupines and the gulls did their thing. Carol mimed being a truck (you had to be there). Much of the cast had been at the quarry since 12 or 1 pm. We (bird-watchers) arrived at 3.
Even with time out for rain, we got a lot accomplished. We smoothed out some of what we do; we fixed entrances and exits, and checked out one short cut that I think we would need crampons and carabiners to use.
Tomorrow is a dress rehearsal. I'm not sure whether I'm wearing my new pants from the Turnstyle so they are not new at all, or some pants I've had for, I think, 27 years. I'm pretty sure I'm wearing sneakers.
It's coming together. I expect to see you through my binoculars, sitting on the edge of the quarry, watching us. We certainly will be worth watching.

About the time

The blog I wrote today was posted at about 3:40 pm--the times on the blog are out of joint.

staggering through

Porcupines examine a truck.

Mia has a conversation with a gull.

Mary and Jessica take five

Carol and Alison watch.

Backhoe with background.

Alison gathers the troops for the stagger-through.

Maybe I'd better explain. A stagger-through (and I've only ever heard Alison use the term) is like a run-through, only not quite so smooth. A run-through of a show, ideally, starts with the opening scene and goes until the end, without stopping. Right. Except there's almost always a reason to stop--people forget their lines, the blocking isn't working, people are standing where there's no light, or where there's a dead spot on the stage, and no one can hear them.

So, Saturday was to be a stagger through. There were only a couple of gliches. One of them has to do with the time-space continuum. Lately there have been, not one, but two programs on BBC America having to do with time travel (make that three, if you add Primeval, in which prehistoric and from-the-futures monsters come through a whole in time into the 21st century)--Dr. Who and Torchwood. In each case, time is slightly askew. A run-through is a little like that.

Us bird-watchers (in the theatrical sense) know pretty much what we are doing. What we don't know is WHERE or WHEN. Of, for that matter, just what preceeds and follows what we do. Or where we go when we are done.

Oh, you say, of course you know. Let me remind you, a quarry is not like a proscenium stage. There are a zillion possible entrances and exits. And Q2: Habitat, a spectacle with seagulls, trucks, giant porcupines and steel-drum (pan) band isn't exactly Giselle. It isn't even Swan Lake, despite the presence of feathered dancers. In fact, it isn't like anything else.

We go to our temporary spots and discover that the music doesn't last long enough. Alison, Mia and Nigel fix that. We change spots and find out that we have become invisible--our clothes have merged into the background. We think through our wardrobes at home--what else could we wear? And some of us discover that the music is hard to distinguish. When, exactly, do we begin? And how long do we hold that? The answer is a tough one--practice.

We try again (so much for staggering through). This time it is better--at least for us. And so it goes.

Remember the blind men and the elephant? Being a performer is a little like that--at the beginning you focus on what you are doing, and the rest is peripheral.

Saturday, it began to make sense. We got to see the why of the seagulls and the porcupiines. I don't think I'll tell you that bit--you can find out for yourself. Meanwhile, I'm practicing looking for the confusing fall warblers, which ought to be around any week now. See you in the quarry. This weekend.

Stunned in the Sun

Saturday, August 1 was surprising: the fog and gray lifted, and a full summer sun beat down on the granite flat top of our quarry stage. This was the first day all components of the new show OHA is producing, Quarryography 2: Habitat, were together: the professional dance ensemble, the community ensemble, the heavy equipment operators, the steel pan band. Together, they were working out a completely new and surprising "story at the quarry:" one full of drama and suspense (what will happen in the encounter between the excavator, in residence to build someone's "dream home" on site, and the Big Mama Porcupine and her babies?);
surprise (how does Rick's excavator always become so anthropomorphic?); and humor (dream house as jungle gym). It's all happening, it's all in process--and you can become part of that process when you attend the work-in-development productions this weekend, August 7-9, at the Settlement Quarry. Advance tickets are necessary and parking is very limited. You can buy your tix online, and download a map, at http://www.operahousearts.org/; or call 207-367-2788 and order from our box office.

Well, you can dance

Switching gears now, kids, because, while I'm not done thinking about Shakespeare, I'm moving on to dance for a while. Last week, the giant choreographer Merce Cunningham died at 90 -- if you don't know him, read the comprehensive New York Times obituary by Alastair Macaulay.
Cunningham's death got me thinking about form in dance. A few year back, Anna Kisselgoff -- another great dance writer -- reprimanded me for reading too much story into a dance work. It's about form and movement, she said, not about your silly story-making. (That's a paraphrase.)
But I'm as devoted to narrative as Kisselgoff and Cunningham are devoted to form. So I was thrilled to hear Q2: Habitat choreographer Alison Chase, at the Stonington Opera House in Maine, describe her two Quarryography works as "narrative spectacles."
For more background on the two-year Quarryography diptych, spend some time surfing the Story at the Quarry blog. More succinctly: Chase is working on her second major site-specific choreography at the Settlement Quarry on Deer Isle. She includes professional dancers, some of whom are from her time with the famous dance troupe Pilobolus, of which she was a co-founder. Many others come from the community.
It's that community part that got me thinking about form. We all know professional dancers are trained. Presumably they can move in ways we find pleasing and thrilling. But Joe Fisherman onstage? I'm sorry; I'm thinking he's not going to be my Dancing-with-the-Stars dream guy.
I'm wrong. Chase filled me in: "Those community-and-professional dynamics allow a wider range so that you get a variety of gestural exploration. Because someone isn't a trained dancer doesn't mean they don't have a range of expression. We're always amazed at the power of simplicity. Once we get rolling, it's exciting to see the exchange between non-dancing adults and trained dancers."
In other words, she's not looking for a perfect plie out of Joe Fisherman. She's looking for an "individual expressive quality." And that information helps her shape the overall piece. She finds a dance move where it's least expected and then uses it. Ah, back to form.
That's perfect for Q2 because, as an event, it's happening in an unexpected place: a quarry. Which is where "narrative spectacle" comes in.
"It's about habitat, about who inhabits that space," said Carol Estey, production manager and the Opera House co-founder whose roots on the island go back to childhood. (She's in the picture here rehearsing with Chase.) The people who will "inhabit" the quarry at the sneak-preview-in-development Aug. 7 and 8, and then again in its premiere in 2010 are going to look a little like you and me -- except for those pro dancers in the group. And it's not just because Chase wants to see the unexpected. It's because she has a story to tell, and some of that story comes from the bodies of local residents.
"People have always wanted to perform," said Estey, who is a trained dancer. "People have always wanted to be in things. They realize now they can be, and they don't have to have as much skill as they have to have commitment and desire. They see the possibility."

posted with photos by Alicia Anstead on ShakeStonington.blogspot.com

Some big props arrive in the fog

T Tawanda at rest.

Steward George Fields had just finished this bench, halfway up, near the glacial striations sign. I was the first person to sit on it. I did not carve my initials in the bench. You'll just have to trust me.

You may have last seen Matt Kent hanging by one hand from the backhoe. Here he is as a scary gull. But Matt is very shy, otherwise.


The BIG porcupine in the mist.

And the porcupine with a person.

Rick and the backhoe on the road.

The backhoe and the tower on their way into the quarry.

Seduced by the promise of a look at the big porcupine, the bigger backhoe and the slender tower, I went back to the quarry on Wednesday, drifting down to Stonington along with the fog. I turned onto Oceanville Road, but could go no further. Two of the stars of Q2: Habitat, were taking up the road. Rick Weed and the backhoe were going toward the quarry, but they had stopped to talk to Charlie Peabody in his truck, headed the other way. They blocked the road for a while, then split. I followed the backhoe down the road.

The dancers were hanging out in the mist, having just finished working, and about to do some more. Meanwhile, some were lying on the ground, as if a fog-tan was the goal; others practiced lifts, while Tawanda perched, first on a rock, then on the structures that look like outlines of little houses.

And the porcupine was a big as expected. Full of puppeteers, it lumbered across the quarry. The fog was sliding in, they had hours of rehearsal left, and I was hungry. I went home, hoping for better weather. We'll see.

seagulls and porcupines Oh my!

Alison talks to the porcupines. They appear to listen.

Porcupines on the move. Slowly.

A flurry of gulls takes off.

Gulls.

Alison in the quarry, rounding up the gulls.

Gulls, living right on the edge.

Tuesday, July 28, was the first day in the quarry for the dancers from away (plus Wendee, who was here) and the porcupine costumes. It was the second time for the gull costumes, but this time they were inhabited by dancers. And it was sunny. On Sunday the bullfrog in the new pond by the edge of the amphitheater was quite vocal. This time he was pretty quiet.

And Wendy Schweikert was putting the finishing touches on a porcupine.

It was like all rehearsals, except bigger and hotter. Maybe CBDeMille worked in similar places. In order to be heard in the vastness, Alison had to pitch her voice. And in order to be seen, the dancers had to move big and fast, except for the porcupines, who moved big, low and slowly.

At this stage, like all productions, it looks as if the parts are going to be way bigger than the whole. The puzzle of putting it all together is out of the performers' hands (or feet, or wings...) for the most part, but resting on Alison and Mia's shoulders. There's still the pan band to fit in; the birdwatchers--and let's not forget Rick Weed's backhoe and Charlie Peabody's truck...

The babies who were there (Matt and Emily Kent's son Owen and Todd Devinish and Wendee Rogerson's son Everett) are not going to be in the production. They, along with an assortment of people who went to the quarry to look around and found something very interesting to look at, were just watching.

not being a seagull

I was all set to be a seagull, and was accustoming myself to scrounging scraps from the tourists strolling the streets of downtown ! Stonington, fresh off the boat (them, schooners, not me). Alas! or maybe hoorah!, it was not to be.
Us intrepid community members, out numbers now significantly increased by more than 100%, are probably not going to be gulls. We may be birdwatchers. To that end, the six or seven or eight of us spent time in the elementary school gym on Saturday, spotting basketball hoops, bleachers, lights, scoreboards and Mia and Alison. We pointed, sneaked, bent down low and then looked right into the rafters, all the while using binoculars which must be seen to be believed.
We tried moving in canon (that's one and then another), moving as a group, and standing, sitting, looking and emoting.
Someone did a wonderful movement. We all copied it, and then the originator couldn't reproduce it. We counted. We whispered to each other. We had it.

Sunday, we did similar things in the quarry. If you don't know this, let me tell you from experience from dancing in the quarry three previous times: GRANITE IS HARD. And pebbles are slippery. And what looks perfectly level from 30 or 40 feet away is, in fact, indented, slanty,
chipped and otherwise not what you would expect from a dance floor.

We didn't fall. We moved in something like unison. We were very far apart--wait until you see it. Meanwhile, I'm the one with the red hair. Or pink hat. Or not.

All the dancers are finally here. Carol and I, for want of something better to do, drove up to the Bangor Airport to pick up five young nubile flexible talented and beautiful dancers (wait until you see them!), three of whom had been here before. Lest you think they came by plane, allow me to disabuse you of that. They drove up in a rental, and we picked them up, not coming off a plane with hugs and kisses, but getting out of an SUV in the Hertz section of the parking lot. With hugs and kisses. Since three had been in Quarryography, they knew to treat Deer Isle like a foodless wilderness, and had cleverly gone to Hannaford to stock up. I didn't ask on what. Maybe I'll ask them....

It's really going to happen.

Anything for a free lunch

The sweatshop in Mia's studio.

Here's Mark Kindschi modifying the skeleton of the world's largest porcupine.

Huts or summeer houses? Come to Q2: Habitat and see!

Porcupine pelt in the making.

Carol sews! Well, cuts. It's the legs for the gulls.

July 21, and all is well.

Gluttons for punishment or just plain gluttons? Hard to know. A group of us, ladies all, answered Mia's job listing for sweatshop workers, to put the quills on the porcupines. (You can sing that to the tune of " Put de lime on de coconut....) The carrot was a free lunch. Although delicious: sesame noodles, marinated cucumber salad and green salad, with optional bread, maybe it wasn't really free. Not even if you factor the blueberry cake into it.

What we did was sew bunches of raffia onto the blanket-like pelts of the porcupines to be. All in the service of our art, it was. Even Carol Estey got to work--she was cutting out the leggings. No doubt she got that job because of her terpsichorean expertise. You never can be sure. After all, there is such a thing as pure blind luck. So she didn't have to thread the bulky raffia in the eye of a needle, even a big needle, and loop it into the fabric, pull it clear, line it up, fluff it out and tie a know so to would stick out, not lie flat. No squares. No square knots.

Meanwhile Mark was out in the Entropy Forge working on the metal frame/skeleton for the mother of all porcupines. It's on wheels. It's big. It was partly paid for by a grant from the Jim Henson Foundation. They know a good puppet when they read about one, and this is a doozy.

Having seen Cableman dance and bow in the quarry, I'm looking forward to watching the porcupine do her stuff. Should be fabulous. If you want to join in the fun, it's not too late. CALL 367-2788 and tell them I sent you. Maybe I'll see you in the quarry.

casting call--with props and costumes July 19

Kim is a seagull.

Mia and Carol are birdwatchers.

Alison and Carol spy a bird (must be Kim).

So where were you? Huh? I was there--so were Carol, Mia, Alison (in charge) and Betsy and Kim. Where were the rest of you "community people?" We had a wonderful time trying on the gull hat, wings and then seeing what moving in them felt like. The binoculars were easier to use, mostly because they had no lenses. It's all in the focus.

Quarryography was full of milkweed pods, blocks of granite and some of us in very odd, elaborate dresses. Alison is thinking maybe shorts under the wings--Mia has made wonderful yellow and orange leggings that make legs look like bird-legs, but a little more substantial.

Trying to fly up in the air like a startled gull, whirl around a little, hover and settle is surprisingly comforting--it's an opportunity to see what it might be like to be a gull, but without the french fries.

The next rehearsal is Saturday at 10, and I expect that now that you have read this there will be an absolute dash for the gull hats, a little like Filene's basement on a good day. I'm ready. Maybe because I was there I get my choice? Nah. See ya.

Seen on a Rooftop in Brooksville

This is just one of the many wonderful images that Mia and Alison have been preparing for the August sneak peak of Q2: Habitat. Carol has arrived in town to handle all details and dancers arrive next Sunday. Meanwhile we are calling for community members of all types to join in the fun, become part of a tribe of birdwatchers, trees, rebels, etc. No experience necessary. Tribes will use enhanced pedestrian movements. Casting call tomorrow (Sunday, July 18) at 1 pm at the DI/S Elementary School gym. Or if you can't make that, please call 367-2788.

Hello fellow Habitat-ites. I'm heading to the island tomorrow. Three day drive from Columbia, MO, to join the craziest lot in town and bring wonderful things to light on the Quarry stage. Can't wait to see everyone. Say, are you coming to the auditions on Sunday? We need you. Yes, you, reading this. :) Carol

entrances and exits

This is the peerformance ampitheater seen from above.

Where it is wet, it was bone-dry for the last Quarryography performance. Some of the dancers, me included, hit behind the horizontal rock--and our problem was gravel, not water.

The dance floor

A cableman progenitor

Left--one of the trails the audience will walk up needs a little work.
.Anne Hooke (IHT) shows Jennifer Morrow (OHA) a map of the trails. George Fields (IHT) looks on


Entrances and Exits

Usually a theater has a stage door, guaarded by a guy named Charlie with a cigar in his mouth. Performers and stage crew walk by him with a wave, and everyone else is barred from entry. If you want to catch a performer you wait outside in the rain with your little autograph book in your hand, or you make an appointment, and Charlie has your name on a list. Audience members enter through the lobby.

When your theater is a quarry with big open spaces and lots of trails, some ending on the edges of cliffs, and your are expecting a couple of hundred people to make the trek up either the main road/trail or a trail from the water-side, it's hard to control where people might end up.

Such a big production needs a staging area, dressing room and a place for the performers to hang out, preferably out of sight of the audience.

Ann Hooke and George Fields, IHT, met Linda Nelson and Jennifer Morrow (OHA) at the quarry on a gorgeous July morning to figure it all out. Walking the trails up and down, figuring out where they needed signs telling people which way to go, or not go, the four noted rough spots that need trimming, confusing spots that need volunteers to watch and places that are just not passable.

Ann had the map and a clipboard and they all walked. The walk started at the parking lot for all, then from the top of the quarry everyone walked down to the bottom. It sounds more onerous than it was--the day was drop dead beautiful. And by the end of an hour, they had it figured out.

Still, looking at that open space, it was hard to imagine it filled with heavy equipment, a steel drum band and an assortment of performers wearing exotic costumes. One year it was pink granite blocks that balanced on our heads. Beanies with wands extending from them--milkweed. And ball gowns. Tutus. This year it might be vinyl wings, tried out by the 7th-graders earlier. There's no knowing.

One thing is a constant--that fabulous quarrry. Stone underfoot, hard and unyielding. It's worse when it's slippery with water.

entrances and exits

Pictures from the parade

parades

Here's the news. It did not rain on July 4th . In fact, it did not rain on the parade. Amidst the flags, kiddies in VERY cute poses, horses, boy scouts and Haystack carrying its own cloud was OHA. and there he was, making his first public appearance this year--Cableman. Admittedly he did not have the space to demonstrate his unique grace and power. In fact, he was pretty much confined by the width or narrowness of the road. Still, it was a thrill to see him, looking not a year older than last year. Alison (Chase) hung off the side of the cab of the truck and Mia (Kanazawa) walked along with a block of granite on her head. I mean, we all knew the granite was costume, but it looked pretty real. The truck was prop rather than costume. It all served to whet my appetite for more. And more.
Cableman did not show up on the Stonington Fish Pier for the Fish'n'Fritters. He was home rehearsing. I'm going to the fireworks. Maybe I'll see you there.
Alice

So You Never Know

Mia was recently at a doctor's appointment on the Island and saw this radio tower lying in the grass and went inside and asked the receptionist Brenda Merrill about it. It was taken down back when the addition was put in. Realizing it would be a great "prop", she asked if we could use it for Q2. After putting it to the Board of Trustees, they said that "Yes, you can- that it would great use for it!"

So, this year we will put up one 20' section of the tower. Rick Weed has generously agreed to pick it up, deliver one section to the quarry and store the rest at his place. The plan is to use the granite blocks that Rick had set up around the "upstage" edge of the quarry and reposition them as "rubble" which will also serve as anchor points for guy wires for the tower.

You never know where you will find what you need.

Now does anyone have an empty portable storage unit?

Artist Mia Kanazawa discusses her work at the Reach Performing Arts Center. A part of OHA's production Q2: Habitat.

dancing off the stones

While we're all thinking about dancing in the quarry, wearing sneakers and protective auras, let's not forget about another dance world, this one on Fox TV. If you're not watching "So You Think You Can Dance," shame on you. If you like dance at all any way any time, this is really must-see. Ignore the pandering to and of the judges, the stupid cutenesses, and concentrate on looking at what people can do with their bodies. The dancers are paired at random, and then are given dance styles at random: Susie and Johnny and Latin dance, for example, even if Susie is a "Contemporary " dancer (can someone explain what that it? It seems like modern dance without the edge, performed in halter tops and biker shorts) and Johnny is a hip-hopper from LA. Not to mention the odd styles of hip hopping: locking, popping, skanking (or maybe skank is the adjective).
Of course it's a competition, and of course people get voted off, but it's not too traumatic for those of us sitting on our couches with our feet in parallel first. Alice

Collaborative School Residency

The Many Habitats of the Settlement Quarry

"...the plant consisted of nine dericks, three engines, one traveling crane, one locomotive, two compressors, sixteen steam or pneumatic drills...." The great thing about creating performance at the Settlement Quarry is just this: it is an unbelievable combination of habitats: filled with bird song and wild creatures, as well as with the echoes and detritus of its industrial past and human present. Artists Mia Kanazawa and Alison Chase will recreate one of those famous dericks, and put it to an entirely new use in Q2: Habitat; the birds and their songs, the porcupines and spruce, will take magnified shape and life in the costumes of dancers and the objects animated by puppeteers. Using the derick and an excavator, a compressor on a tow truck, participants will operate a winch across the amphitheater floor: a slow moving cable expressing the ceaseless motion of the change all of us bring to our desired and selected habitats. The quarry bears the visible traces of all its inhabitants; and through the shared experience of performance we will all get the chance to be immersed in these past, present, and imagined futures in new ways.

Settlement Quarry

Settlement Quarry granite is 360 million years old. That's a long story, needless to say.... I'll hop right to 1900 when the Quarry opened. According to a 1908 publication succinctly titled Stone, "...the plant consisted of nine dericks, three engines, one traveling crane, one locomotive, two compressors, sixteen steam or pneumatic drills...." Well, you get the picture. Granite was in demand then and this quarry's stone still stands the test of time supporting the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges, protecting the New York County Courthouse, Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Kennedy Memorial in Arlington Cemetery.

Today, the clank, roar and screech of industry is replaced by a chorus of bird song. Spectacularly so, if you visit early in the morning during the spring warbler migration, as these folks did a few weeks ago. Island Heritage Trust now owns and cares for this historic property. It is open to the public whether you have two legs or four, wings or wigglabilty. Please visit and let us know who you met there at our "wildlife sightings" page on www.islandheritagetrust.org.

and some 7th-grade seagulls.

Girls with wings--the 7th-grade girls try out their wings in the Settlement Quarry. Tawanda looks on from the right; Mia Kanazawa and Alison Chase are watching from the quarry's edge.

Thursday at the Quarry with the 7th grade

June 4th, a sunny, hot Thursday provided an early view of what Q2:HABITAT might look like if performed solely by 7th-graders from Deer Isle Stonington Elementary School. Mia Kanazawa stood in the quarry looking at what her costumes, sea-gull heads and wings right now, might look like in motion. The kids, enthusiastically directed by Tawanda Chabikwa, who had been on hand at the school all week working with the kids, moved, shuffled, danced, lounged, chewed gum and resisted. A group of kids wearing the seagull hats drifted across the far side (from where I was standing) of the quarry, looking a lot like people on a forced march. Contrast that with the girls with the wings, rehearsing and planning what they were supposed to do: "first we lean this way, then that way, we bend down, run around ...lean." And then they did it.
For a moment they seemed airborne, their white vinyl wings streaming out behind their arms as they circled and settled. Like birds.
Another group had one girl in a seagull hat perch on top of a platform of 7-grade bodies. She leaned out. Mia wanted to see what it would look like with wings as well as a hat. Her moment aloft was brief, but startling.

Welcome

Welcome to the blog for Q2: Habitat, the second multidiscipline production staged in the historic granite quarries of Stonington, Maine. Q2 is a sneak peak of this in development story from artists Alison Chase, Mia Kanazawa, Nigel Chase; and our community at Island Heritage Trust’s Settlement Quarry. The original production, Quarryography, took place in August 2007 at the Settlement. Check out the video below.

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