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.