TELLING CIRCLE

At the quincentenary of Columbus’s arrival in the new world, Boston’s First Night, a citywide New Years EVE Celebration in collaboration with lighting designer Steven Rosen of Available Light, we designed a large collaborative artistic event built around a large elevated platform signifying a compass rose with each cardinal heading (North, South, East, West) represented by a different boat coming from a different corner of the globe.

There was a junk, for example, for Asian cultures with a shadow puppet exhibition on board, a slave ship for African Countries, a Spanish Galleon,and a European ship– all representing the multi-cultures that make up the New World. On top of the compass platform at the cardinal directions were four large inflatable puppets, representing the origins, according to Native indigenous storytelling mythologies, of the four elements as understood by Native tradition. A fish for Water, a Bear for Land, A bird for the Air, and a Lizard for Fire.

The Indigenous origin stories were pre-recorded with indigenous tribal elders speaking the parts and narrating the voices for the individual puppets while a large inflatable hemisphere with 100 intelligent lighting fixtures used light to help illustrate the stories. The work, which I titled TELLING CIRCLE employed many artists in many disciplines all building the boats and the performances which took place on the boats. The work was my first “community-building-as-artwork”.