Graveyards and Gardens is a reflection in between a dance and a concert, and could be conceived differently by the audience depending on their current perspectives of life.
The 90-minute performance examines memory as a process of reconstruction, embracing the various elaborations, distortions, and omissions.
“Imagine walking into a poem where you can feel the music unfolding as it happens, and you are surrounded by joy, grief, wonder, all at the same time.”
That’s how Caroline Shaw, a New York-based musician and producer, describes the collaborative performance she’s created with choreographer Vanessa Goodman.
First collaborating with Goodman seven years ago, Grammy Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winner Shaw seeks to explore new perspectives in performing art. To best reconstruct the subjective ambiguity of memory, Shaw uses a wide range of synth sounds and loops of music in this artwork.
“Both graveyards and gardens represent somewhere you can rest and let memories flow into, then out of your mind,” Shaw says. “And this is an archive of Vanessa’s past choreography — we were curious to see what would grow out of our past selves.”
Graveyards and Gardens, presented by Brian Webb Dance Company, is on stage April 22nd and 23rd at MacEwan University in the Tim Ryan Theatre Lab in Allard Hall.
