Land Mass: North Park
Land Mass: North Park
Land Mass is a site-specific walking dance performance highlighting the land and environment with movement, sound and sculpture. Land Mass is a meditative exploration of the land, body and our relationships and connection to nature.
Concept and Direction: Kristina Isabelle
Movement Creators: Angela Luem, Aaliyah Christina, Liz Conway, Precious Jennings, Kristina Isabelle, Megan Schneeberger and Kellyn Jackson
Visual Creator: Christine Forni
Sound Creators: Wilson Smith Tanner, Debra Sawyer and Lia Kohl (Aug. 31st only)
Costumes: Vin Reed
Film: James Forni
Land Mass: North Park Village Nature Center
Aug. 31, Sept. 1 & 2 @ 1PM
Kristina Isabelle Dance in partnership with Night Out in the Parks
North Park Village Nature Center
5801 N Pulaski Rd, Chicago, IL 60646
Kristina Isabelle and company have explored the concept of the elements: air, fire, water, earth in the body for over 4 years. In 2016 we presented And The Spirit Moved Me, an evening length multi-media and multi-level dance work for the theater. Now we are taking the work outdoors to discover the next level of natures influence on a moving body by incorporating the healing properties of a walk in the woods to alter perspectives and engage with nature and movement in new ways.
“Land Mass”: a Walking Dance Performance in the Forest
A Response to the work by the Felician Sisters
Kellyn Jackson, United Stand Counselor and Dance/Movement Therapist, invited the Central Convent Sisters to a walking dance performance on the Nature Trails across the street from Mother of Good Counsel Convent in Chicago. Kellyn was to be one of the dancers dressed as a deer and dancing on stilts. Sisters RoseAnita Ramirez, Katherine Fax, and Margaret Eder accepted the invitation and were enthralled by the beauty and peacefulness of the performance by the ten members of the Kristina Isabelle Dance Company to which Kellyn belongs.
The performance began by the Dance Company explaining how to mindfully contemplate the Forest, and then beckoning all of us to wander the trails and marvel at all that we would experience. We each wandered whichever trail we chose, mingling in and out with the performers and the other participants. By highlighting the land and ponds, the trees and tree stumps, the birds and squirrels and many real live deer, with their movement, sound, and sculpture, they helped us to explore our relationship and connection to nature and the outdoors.
All three Felician Sisters were impressed with the feeling of slowing the pace of our lives and honoring the environment by this meditative ritual. In many ways it paralleled a Mass in Honor of Creation, or a walk in the woods with Francis of Assisi. The next time you come to Chicago, you might find those three Felician Sisters again walking the trails at North Park Village Nature Center across the street. Come join us.