Community Planting & Story-Seeding with Parijat Desai

The Gallery at Gibney: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center
280 Broadway

Artists Dedalus Wainwright and Parijat Desai, Gibney Dance in Process Resident Artist, invite the Gibney community to participate in the planting of our Listening Wall. 

Bring your seeds, sprouts, and small plants, and Dedalus will guide you to place your offerings into the soil of our green wall. Don’t have seeds or plants to bring? We’ll have some available for you. We’ll also have prompts and paper—for you to write your stories, poems, or intentions and to plant in our wall.

This co-created Listening Wall will grow over the course of the artists’ Dance in Process residency, and embodies Parijat’s inquiry into unearthing long-held stories, and collectively seeding new possibilities.

Attendees and passersby are welcome to join at any point during the planting activity. Parijat and Dedalus will offer a formal welcome at 6:30pm, and the event will conclude with a participatory circle dance to encourage our offerings to grow!

Timeline

5:30–6:30p: Open Planting and Story-Seeding Session
Participants are invited to plant seedlings they have brought or those offered by hosts, and written responses to prompts, into the soil.
6:30–6:45p: Welcome and Meet the Artists
6:45–7:15p: Planting and Story-Seeding Session Continues
7:15–7:30p: Circle Dance: Ritual to encourage plant growth!

ABOUT THE RESIDENCY

From June 6–27, dancemaker Parijat Desai will be in residence through Gibney’s Dance in Process (DiP) program working on How Do I Become WE, [a performance and participatory ritual] built around a Tamil folk tale in which a woman has a story stuck inside her, until she finally tells a wall. Employing culturally rooted and experimental practices, with a dose of trickster play, the piece inquires into the process of reconnecting with the natural world and our inner power, releasing hurt, and activating the collective body.

For her DiP Residency, Parijat is collaborating with set designer Dedalus Wainwright, composer Andy Miller (Milwaukee), and filmmaker Alla Kovgan. In studio, Parijat will be developing choreography with dancers Rei Akazawa-Smith, Tri Bobo, Bree Breeden, Devika Chandnani, Anna Gichan, and Nadia Halim, and devising character with Zavé Martohardjono. DJ Fogel will support with dramaturgy and costumes are by Jeffrey Wirsing.

Dance in Process is generously supported by The Mellon Foundation.

Photo courtesy of the artist.