The Wood is Singing in Color (excerpts) – FESCH.TV

The Wood is Singing in Color (excerpts) & FESCH.TV:

A site-specific performance by Martha McDonald at Wharton Esherick Museum in Malvern, PA, performed on November 13, 2023 in the workshop designed by architect Louis Kahn and furniture maker/sculptor Wharton Esherick. “The Wood is Singing in Color” explored Esherick’s creative influences in the 1920s and 30s, including Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophical design theories which sought to express unseen spiritual energies through form and color and often featured crystalline shapes. The environment and costumes for the performance, made in collaboration with woodworker Casey Chew and fashion designer Dana Meyer, were inspired by Esherick’s prismatic furniture and stage sets.

Esherick was also an amateur dancer and studied a dance form based on Eurythmy, a performance form Steiner created to make music visible through movement with colored veils. McDonald studied Eurythmy to create a dance for the piece. The performance featured original music McDonald wrote with Brooke Sietinsons and Miriam Goldberg, who also perform with her. McDonald’s lyrics were drawn from Esherick’s personal writings. Some songs were inspired by the ecstatic spiritualism of 19th century shape note singing while others conjure the unseen energies in nature with which Esherick and Steiner were so deeply in tune.