Austin’s Blue Lapis Light has become famous over the years for their large scale, site-specific aerial dance works. This month, they’re presenting a new version of the show Belonging, performed at and on the Seaholm Power Plant.
“We have aerialists performing on the smokestacks and out of the parking garage windows and on the ground,” says Blue Lapis Light artistic director Sally Jacques. “And we have projections on the building that the dancers move through.”
Jacques says there’s a deeper meaning behind the work, too. “This piece is about the environment and the climate and our connection to, and interdependence with, our earth,” she says. “And the images show the beautiful Earth, and then they show what we’re doing to the Earth. And it’s also about refugees and the displacement of people, which are [represented by] the ground ensemble dancers.”
The dancers, aerialists, music, and projected images will come together, Jacques hopes, to create a work that will impact the audience. “This piece is sort of a way to connect and to understand our interrelationship and interdependence with all that lives and breathes on this Earth,” she says. “We are part of Mother Nature, we are! And so I think – as artists, as dancers – we are able to, through movement… create the beauty and transcendence and the ability to fly through air against the moon and stars. And the physical skill and athleticism that is required for each of those dancers is phenomenal. And it’s sort of symbolic of a way to push through something. And I really believe that we can push through the current climate – this polarization of our political climate – with this knowledge that we have to do something about the climate and the environment. I always find it’s hard to [say] what I hope audiences take away. I hope they have an experience in the heart, and it connects to them, and… they can feel what they’re feeling in that moment and know it’s possible that we can start healing from all these wounds going on on our Earth. It’s hard to sort of say what someone [will] experience, because we’re all individuals and we all see things differently, as witnessed by the current political climate. So I hope that there’s a connection of feeling and passion and possibility.”
'Belonging' runs from September 14 - 24 at Seaholm District Plaza.
