Hidden Springs Selected for Art on the Beltline - Atlanta
To View Performance Photos Click Here.
The view an update on the Hidden Springs performance on Nov. 5, 2011 for Atlanta's Art on the Beltline click here.
The view an update on the Hidden Springs performance on Nov. 5, 2011 for Atlanta's Art on the Beltline click here.
My project proposal - Water is Life - Hidden Springs, Atlanta - has been selected for inclusion in Atlanta’s 2011 Art on Beltline. The project brings focus through public performance, community art making and landscape alignment to Atlanta’s now hidden springs and their former function as public and private water resources before, during and after the American Civil War. 2011 marks the beginning of the 150th anniversary of this war. The performance includes dance, drama, masks, mime and music and will take place on Saturday, November 5th at 3 p.m. at the outdoor performance site near the Memorial Drive entrance to the Atlanta Beltline (behind the Station).
Eleven years ago Gateway Performance Productions, -the non-profit arts and education organization I helped found - established a performance, rehearsal, workshop and exhibit space at the Little Five Points Community Center in Atlanta. Joe Shifalo, the then building manager and visionary founder of the L5PCC (also known as the " Mayor of Little Five Points"), told me a natural spring that served a Civil War field hospital was located directly beneath the floor of The MASK Center - Gateway's ground floor performance venue.This historic reality has informed my inner creative landscape for over a decade.
Natural springs were once an important part of Atlanta’s lifestyle and economy. The huge City Hall East building located on Ponce de Leon Avenue, one of Atlanta’s major streets, covers the famous Ponce de Leon Springs that once offered recreation and healing to residents and visitors. Gateway’s Board Chair Tom Spach has a home with a creek that runs between his property and the Callanwolde Center for Fine Arts. Tom recently told me there used to be a visible spring on the grounds that surround Callanwolde - a central feature at the parties held outside the magnificent Gothic-Tudor style home when it was owned privately by the Charles Howard Candler family.
The first rehearsal for Hidden Springs took place on Sunday, July 3 at The MASK Center in Atlanta. Performers Allen Pittman, Michael Hickey, Gwyneth Bragdon, Dahna Barnett and Diana Young created dance and music to honor the spring beneath them for providing water for soldiers during the Civil War. They also aligned the space using the methods taught to me by Franco Santoro, a staff member at the world famous Findhorn Foundation in Scotland - a United Nations Training Center for Planetary Sustainability. My studies with Franco during 2009 were made possible by a grant award from Alternate ROOTS and the Ford Foundation as well as support from Gateway Performance Productions.
