Funerals for The Ocean is a new participatory performance inspired by current climate activist happenings that address the global climate crisis, rising sea levels and a rapidly dying oceanic ecosystem. Ritualistic gestures and choreographies of memorial and gratitude are intended to be felt and witnessed as we explore the material of salt; that which remains when ocean water evaporates. In Funerals for the Ocean, audience participants, alongside performers are quietly guided to enact/perform a variety of carefully choreographed rituals intended to provide space and bodily gestures for grieving what we have lost while also paying homage to what has been.
Audiences members will move throughout Simard Payne Park during this performance. Please do not bring blankets and chairs. Bring only what you are comfortable carrying. For accessibility questions, please contact bdfboxoffice@bates.edu
Vanessa Anspaugh is a choreographer and performance based artist born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. Her work has been both commissioned and presented by Danspace Project, Dance Theater Workshop, New York Live Arts, The River to River Festival, BAX, The Sculpture Center, The Hessel Museum of Art, AUNTS, Movement Research, Catch Series,The Kitchen (through Emily Roysdon) Performance Mix at HERE Arts Center, Studio 303 in Montreal, as well as The Cowels Center in Minneapolis, for The Zenon Dance Company. She has had funded creative residencies through DTW Studio Series, Mount Tremper Arts, Kattsbaan International Dance Center, The Mac Dowell Colony, LMCC, BAX, BOFFO Fire Island Performance Residency, and The Bard College Fisher Center. In 2017 her work The End of Men, was a Bessie Award nominee in both the Outstanding Production and Best Sound Design (by Ryan MacDonald) categories.
