2011
Vernon, Vermont
Conceived by Melinda Buckwalter
Improvised by Melinda Buckwalter, Jen Harmon and others

The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant has similar GE engineering as Fukushima, the nuclear plant destroyed in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. This June 2011 somatic action, which took place in a park adjacent to the Vermont Yankee, was performed in response to the crisis unfolding in Japan and in conjunction with the Global Water Dances Day. Moving through the infant’s developmental path from the ground to standing under the buzzing overhead wires, and rocky ground conditions created an urgent and compassionate understanding of what it means to be with the environment.

Prior to this work, Jen and Melinda danced together in 2010–11 researching the body and performance in a work group that also included Daniel Lepkoff, Christie Svane, Gale Turner, and Sakura Shimida. This laboratory allowed artists to share current research practices and compositional experiments.

(photos Melinda Buckwalter)