Land Mass: A Triptych

Land Mass: A Triptych is dance series exploring the Michiana landscape in movement, light and sound.  Three distinct environments from Beverly Shores to New Buffalo will be the setting for Kristina Isabelle Dance to create a homage to the land.  You are invited to participate in a unique interactive walking dance performance all ending in a meal featuring local ingredients and flavors. 

My goal with Land Mass is to come back to the self and to the earth.  As a means to slow the pace of our daily lives and to surround yourself in an environment accentuated by moving bodies, sounds and actions thus allowing ourselves to see a new perspective.  A new way of seeing and being in nature.  A homage to the land.  Each new landscape inspires the work and is designed specifically for that environment.

Brincka / Cross Gardens

The Brincka Cross Gardens property was developed by an artist, and it is clear that this was his masterpiece. Bill Brincka was a professor at the Art Institute of Chicago, and his creativity can be seen throughout the gardens. Bill and his companion, Basil Cross, spent more than 40 years developing and nurturing four acres of landscaped gardens, which are surrounded by another 21 acres of pristine woodlands.

Bill and Basil lived in the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired home on the property until Bill’s death, in 2001. After Basil passed away in 2006, Porter County Parks and Recreation purchased the property to create a public park. Our staff, lead by horticulturalist Matt Brown, have since reclaimed many of the original gardens, clearing overgrowth and invasive plants to reveal the beauty of the landscape that was cultivated with such care by the original owners.

The gardens boast 400 different types of hostas, 450 varieties of daffodils, 25 kinds of crab apple trees, 40 cultivars of ornamental grasses and 25 varieties of forsythias. And that’s just for starters. You have to come out to the gardens and experience them for yourself to truly understand how special this property truly is.

Tryon Farm

Tryon Farms is a modern living community in Michigan City, IN an hour drive from Chicago. Tryon Farm is a sprawling historic landscape that has been transformed into a modern country escape for folks who want to live in wide-open spaces, while staying connected to Chicago, Lake Michigan and the beach.

Tryon Tryon Farm Institute, Inc. (TFI) is an Indiana chartered non-profit land trust and education membership organization with a mission to connect human and natural communities by promoting habitat diversity and sustainable land husbandry.

TFI currently holds title to over 65-acres (and manages an additional 25-acres) of Indiana preservation lands, including restored native prairies, wetlands, and woodlands. Additionally TFI maintains the agricultural heritage of Tryon Farm through an active partnership with a neighboring sustainable small-herd dairy farm.

Olmstead Farm

Dennis Olmsted is a land artist and lives on a 20 acre farm in New Buffalo.  We have recently been staying at one of his many cottages on the land and are very excited to share his land and tree circles. 

More info to come.