Still Point: a landscape and art collaboration

Nature became art, and art intertwined with nature, during Still Point, a magical landscape and performance experience last Friday and Sunday. The public was invited to witness the unique installation/performance on a serenely beautiful property in West Tisbury during two guided tours. Still Point, an art and nature experiencewas a collaboration between landscape artist and patron of the arts Claudia Miller, whose thoughtfully laid out West Tisbury acreage provided the site, and director/choreographer Wendy Taucher of New York and Marthas Vineyard. The two women have been working on the piece from conception to selection of material and casting to logistics for the past two years.

On Friday afternoon, a group of about 50 people gathered in a large barn and its adjoining veranda. They chatted while waiting not quite sure what to expect for the adventure to begin. Then, after a brief introduction, the audience was split into four groups and shuffled off in four different directions.

The weather was perfect. A warm, bright, Indian summer day. Following an all-but-silent guide, the guests walked along winding paths, first skirting a pumpkin patch, then passing from open field to canopies of trees where the sun created a dappled surface on the path.

There were pleasant surprises, both planned and fortuitous, to be discovered along the way. A beautiful rock sculpture by Dave Brown, a feat of both engineering and aesthetic vision, was on display just off the path. A pond lay behind a scrim of foliage. A formation of geese flew overhead, causing the walkers to look upward. Then, shifting their focus back earthbound, they were greeted by a serene Buddha sculpture sitting unobtrusively on a large rock to the side of the path.

Eastern deities popped up often along the way, perched in trees or on rocks, festooned tastefully with sunflowers and feathers. A copse of starkly white, branchless tree trunks presented itself as an organic sculpture garden.

After a lengthy walk, the visitors arrived at a semi-clearing for the first of four 10-minute performances. A group of six opera singers, both men and women in orange ombrerobes and tunics, surrounded an incongruously placed piano. Strolling through the trees, gazing off contemplatively in different directions, the group filled the woods with otherworldly music. The piece they performed was an arrangement by Ms. Taucher and pianist Dror Baitel, based on J.S. Bachs Goldberg Variations. The singers, like all the other participants, were accomplished professionals recruited from Ms. Tauchers company of New York City singers, actors, and dancers.

While one group of visitors was immersed in this nature and art experience, the others were playing witness to three disparate performances. Then each group moved on to the next prearranged location. Each piece was created specifically for its particular site.

At a clearing surrounded by Tibetan flags and a large Buddha meditating next to a sea-washed driftwood tree, a solo dancer interacted with a row of inverted stumps, her movements and poses emulating, or responding to, the twisting root formations.

From atop a log bench, actor Donovan Dietz gave a powerful dramatic reading of a poem which combined a work by T.S. Eliot with poetry by West Tisbury Poet Laureate Justen Ahren. An excerpt from Eliots Four Quartetsreferred to as The Still Point of the Turning World was the inspiration for Mr. Ahrens contribution.

At another clearing, a quartet of singers stood arranged around and atop a large flat rock. Unaccompanied, they harmonized beautifully on a chanting arrangement of four of Bachs chorales. Chirruping insects filled in the pauses. The piece, intentionally nonverbal, had mystical and spiritual overtones.

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Still Point: a landscape and art collaboration