Sitting In A Circle

"Sitting In A Circle" is a film created by Ishan Vernallis and Erika Chong Shuch. I was one of many performers in it, as was my daughter, Skyla, pictured picking a daisy in the middle of this group photo taken by Ed. It was filmed during Erika's residency at the de Young Museum, primarily in the James Turrell "skyspace," in the sculpture garden. It was a really fun and visually remarkable experience. We spent so many hours in the skyspace--a sort of concrete igloo with a hole cut in the top--in many moods of light and weather. I was really struck by how it feels to view the world through a single opening. It rained one day, an incredibly momentous event. A seagull flying overhead was an exhilerating, rare occurrence. A leaf dropping in through the opening felt like a message directly from God. It was wild to dance literally in the round, rolling around the edges like laundry tumbling in a dryer. The concrete bench that runs along the interior is heated. And at night neon lights fade from blue to green to red illuminating the dome and changing the way the sky looks through the hole. If the light is blue the sky looks chartreuse. Here is a link to a video to give you a sense of the view through the hole. A rough cut of the film was shown on October 1, 2010 at the de Young. Stay tuned for further (final cut) showings.