This outdoor dance performance was the culmination of Linda K Johnson’s year-long artist residency amid the construction of the South Waterfront. Promenade responded to a rectangular park – a blank plot of grass surrounded by cranes and just-finished high-rise buildings. A PA system was mounted on the balcony of a nearby condo, where I mixed ambient tones at a volume just loud enough to integrate with the urban environment. Six performer-participants rode bicycles with portable amps attached. Circling the park, they played long drones to create a swirling doppler effect. The bicyclists then moved among the audience, playing clusters, streams and bursts of loosely synchronized sound. At various locations, dancers dressed entirely in white performed short interactions, illuminated by a crew holding battery-powered lights on long poles.
South Waterfront, Portland OR
July 2009
Seth Nehil 