Re-Membering the Mountains
Re-Membering the Mountains is a Butoh solo that was premiered in 2010 as part of the Love Art Laboratory (Annie M. Sprinkle and Elizabeth M. Stephens) “Purple Wedding to the Appalachian Mountains” at Ohio University, Athens, OH. It is a ritual intended to grieve the loss of the Appalachian Mountains —and the eco-systems they support —to mountain-top removal, taking that devastation as the impetus for a corporeal process of moving from weakness and fragility towards strength and stability. The temporal progression of the piece moving forward in time/space moves backwards through the life of the mountains, back to a state to which we can never return but a memory with which we must continue to live.
The piece was re-staged in 2011 at the Battleground States: Collapsing Cultures and Darkened Dreamscapes at Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, and again as part of the adjudicated “[IN]VISIBLE TRACES: The Department of Dance Winter Concert” at The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH. Footage of the premiere performance is also included in Elizabeth Stephen's documentary film Goodbye Gauley Mountain: An Ecosexual Love Story.
The piece was re-staged in 2011 at the Battleground States: Collapsing Cultures and Darkened Dreamscapes at Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, and again as part of the adjudicated “[IN]VISIBLE TRACES: The Department of Dance Winter Concert” at The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH. Footage of the premiere performance is also included in Elizabeth Stephen's documentary film Goodbye Gauley Mountain: An Ecosexual Love Story.