LA FEMME DANS LA LUNE
White Rabbit Arts Festival
2016
MOON: the matrix of being, the psychosomatic foundation of the self, the womb and ground of life; the body and the soul, that which senses and intuits, the feeling of nature; the impulse and capacity to gestate and bring forth, to receive and reflect, to relate and respond, to need and to care, to nurture and be nurtured, the condition of dependence and interdependence, the diffusely conscious and the unconscious, the anima, the immanent, the centripetal, the home, the fertile source and ground, the cycle of manifestation, the waxing and the waning, the eternal round; the ruler of the night sky, of the diffusely visible and the invisible, multiple sources of luminosity within the encompassing darkness, the polycentric; yin, the while that contains in potentia; Luna and all lunar deities, the Great Mother Goddess, together with aspects of the Child (puella, puer), constituting the relational matrix of life. – Richard Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche
There is a woman in the moon. She was never a “He”, but rather a woman whose face is ever changing depending on where she is in Her 28-day cycle. Flowing between stages of full lunacy to quiet emptiness, her passage from light to dark is in an eternal cycle. She has within Her grasp the power over water, and essentially all life on earth. Her pull is magnetic, unwavering, and relentless. Like puppets on an invisible string, all living beings, whether plant or animal, are incapable of escaping Her. We dangle from the threads of Her power, following Her path in an infinite loop across the night sky.
La Femme Dans La Lune: A DANCE IN FOUR PARTS is a cinematic in-situ installation work that follows and corresponds with the cycles of the moon. The complete running time of this work follows the full 28 day cycle through the four major phases of the moon.
The projected image is waxing and waning in relation to the percentage of the moon that is visible to the naked eye. (ex. first quarter = 44.6% of the moon is full, therefore only 44.6% of the projection can be seen)
During the particular installation period at the White Rabbit Arts Festival, the moon was positioned in the full, and so the projection of the woman in the moon reflected in the full. The dancer, a formally trained ballerina, uses her body to articulate the emotions and feeling that surround the start of a womans cycle when she is most full. Typically this is a time that is related with angry outbursts, anxiety attacks, crying spells, and uncontrollable mood swings all happening in succession, then back to a stable emotional state.
Accompanying this projection is an audio work created by Johnny Spence and Niq Dourado that was developed after an ethereal experience in the Bay of Fundy during the lowest tide not only of the year, but the lowest tide on the planet. This sound piece was performed live at dusk during the festival, and then placed on an infinite loop accompanying the Woman in the Moon during her state of madness.
