I had the opportunity recently to present a new work entitled “Returning Home” as part of the Illuminate Salt Lake Festival at the Salt Lake City Public Library.
Direction and Projection Design: Kara Komarnitsky
Performance and Movement Generation: Elizabeth Chaillé, Seryna Rogers, Severin Sargent-Catterton, Rachel Miller
Music: Seth Alexander, Michael Wall
Technical Advice: Nickolas Komarnitsky
“Returning Home” is an intermedia performance piece that addresses the importance of the Great Salt Lake ecosystem to migratory birds. Projections transform the space into a reimagination of the wetlands to provide multiple perspectives on the diversity and richness of the ecosystem. Dancers weave through the projected environment telling a story of flight, struggle, rebirth, and adaptation through the lens of a migratory bird returning to its birthplace on the shores of the Great Salt Lake and finding it drastically altered. Audience members can contribute to the performance by responding to vital questions: What qualities define a home? What sensations arise in times of extreme change and loss? What actions support renewal of lost spaces? Their responses will be integrated into the projection environment in real time to offer moments of reciprocity and reflection.
In between the performances audiences could enjoy an interactive projection installation and learn more about the birds that depend on the Great Salt Lake.
The questions below were posed to the audience during the performances and an interactive website gathered their responses and incorporated their answers into the projections. The word maps below are the results of all three of our audiences.
Kara Komarnitsky 