ARTICLE
A Very Special Dance Performance at Sea An Art Work by Heather Clark on Climate Change The public is invited to watch this free performance from the shore of Woods Hole Waterfront Park. Created by the first artist-in-residence at the Woods Hole Research Center. Heather has teamed up with the Vineyard's award-winning dance center,The Yard, and their resident dance collective, DanceTheYard, for a truly unique sea performance. DanceTheYard will dance on a marine construction barge with a crane, which will be in Great Harbor in front of Woods Hole Waterfront Park. The dancers’ stage will appear to hang from the crane, floating above the barge deck. The rawness of the barge/crane and the implied danger of the hanging platform (which is actually being safely engineered), in contrast with the elegance of the dancers and the sea, should be striking. The artwork is meant to create emotion around climate change. The hanging stage symbolizes the everyday, which is at a tipping point given the dangerous nature of climate change. The mechanization of the crane references the industrial age and our reliance on fossil fuel and the setting in the water reminds us of rising sea level. This artwork is not intended to say we are all doomed. Rather it signals some of the answers to climate change - physicality and the pursuit of art, science, and exploration, as well as the beauty of humanity and nature, which is clearly worth preserving. Heather Theresa Clark Artist Biome Studio www.heather-clark.com www.SkyStageFrederick.com 617-780-0157 Heather Theresa Clark utilizes art, architecture, and public interventions to catalyze built environments that power themselves, cleanse themselves, transform waste, provide wildlife habitat, produce food, and enhance the lives of people. Through her art, she demonstrates how present reality is not a given and can be crafted to make life more fulfilling. Heather approaches art making as a planner, green developer, and ecologist. She holds a Master of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, and a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University, summa cum laude, in Environmental Science and Community Planning, a self-designed major. As founder of Biome Studio, she has transformed a burned building shell into an open-air theater with a living sculpture; co-created the Busycle, a 15 person-pedal powered bus; overseen the largest deep energy retrofit in the U.S.; converted historic mills into green low-income housing; and installed over one megawatt of solar pv on 2,300 low-income apartments. Heather is also an activist. Heather founded the Play-In for Climate Action, a family-oriented climate change protest at the U.S. Capitol, which is held annually by Moms Clean Air Force, a special project of the Environmental Defense Fund. Heather is the artist-in-residence at the Woods Hole Research Center, a Hamiltonian Fellow, and the 2016 recipient of the Virginia Commission for the Arts Sculpture Fellowship Award.