THE CRONUS LAND
The Cronus Land is the culmination of a project cycle that includes the works Pales, Esther & the Omphali, and Oubliette. It is a site-specific contemporary dance work that was installed in the decayed splendor of the Louis XVI Ballroom in Hyde Park’s historic Shoreland Hotel. The first half of the performance features a pilgrimage for 12 audience members through a labyrinth of moving walls and shifting pathways in which performers dance, vanish, and reappear. Following cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, the second half of the performance begins with the audience entering a glowing structure, where they are seated only feet away from the dancers. The Cronus Land is a study in the psychological impact of different modes of viewing, as well as the catastrophic shifts that occur as potential energy yields to kinetic. A study in privileging and disenfranchising through the manipulation of space, Oubliette developed what became the second half of The Cronus Land, positioning the entire performance inside a 5×8 foot pit, with the audience suspended above the performers. Mining The Epic of Gilgamesh, Esther & the Omphali examined domestication as a metaphor for the conjunction of love and betrayal inherent in friendship.
