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.