The Walker Art Center was inundated with breathing sculptures over the weekend for dual performances created by Seattle-based choreographer Heather Kravas and visual artist Victoria Haven.
Featuring local and visiting performers, "Solid Objects/Sandwich," displayed throughout the museum, and "Solid Objects/Voids," in the McGuire Theater, made for a meditative experience accented with vivid imagery.
"Sandwich" had a casual quality with amorphous boundaries. On Thursday night, much of the action took place in the Cargill Lounge in proximity to a giant triangular structure with top and bottom platforms that formed the sandwich. Performers ventured away from that main area. At one point, two dancers clogged their way through the lower lobby area and stairs, enacting a synchronous lean to one side as they stomped their feet.
The structure for "Sandwich" was printed on a piece of paper on the wall. The nearly four-hour performance went through each section before going through them again in opposite order. However, that structure wasn't experienced by each audience member in the same way. Because the work took place around the museum, some visitors simply walked through the performance or engaged with it briefly.
Even the more formal setting of "Voids" had moments of disruption between the stage and audience. More than once, the performers created a moving chain that inched into one section of the chairs like sloths.
Zeena Parkins' enveloping sound composition created a more focused feeling in "Voids" than "Sandwich." Jose Solares Jimenez and Mitch Stahlmann performed live music amid a score of loops, chirping birds and vibrating twangy strings. At one point, they could be seen from the back balcony sending their eerie flute notes over the auditorium.
At times the snaking bodies in "Voids" coagulated into body puddles. Only a single performer stood away from the rest of the group, with the black leotard contrasting with the loose-fitting costumes of the other dancers. That performer simply stepped forward and backward like a pendulum for much of the piece.
Toward the end, three other performers in black leotards joined the singular dancer as the main group slithered off the stage. The quartet's dance had much more specific choreography, employing repetition and pattern. Lighting designer Madeline Best created lovely shadows and a moonlit special illuminated a dancer joyfully splashing in a pool of water to superb effect.
The two performances were in conversation with each other. While each interacted differently with the audience, both felt like a ritual of communion, bodies and space.
