theconversation.com: Five women slowly process across Portsmouth’s municipal park, covered in hessian-coloured layered fabrics. On their heads they wear what look like strange overgrown dreadlocks, making them a group of connected beings. They move towards a deflated hessian starfish shape on the floor. Circling it, they enact a ritual performance, animating the space and quietly paying homage to the five-armed symmetry of echinoderms.
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If you've known me for long enough, you've probably heard me complain about the tendency many artists in academic settings have to categorize everything. While I recognize that labels have a practical use in keeping the world organized, I despise the act of assigning moral value or ranking forms of art. Therefore, this weird, depressing, eye-catching artwork from the south of England is what I'm all about, baby. I love art that defies strict definition or categorization. Is this theatre, dance, sculpture, architecture? Who really cares -- what matters is the effect it has on YOU. And I find this work to be incredibly affecting, and I can only imagine the intensity of watching this artwork unfold live. The choice to set this performance in an area affected by drought, so the costumes of the performers seem to be absorbed into the beige and yellow ground is masterful, and an incredibly valuable example of how to use your environment to your advantage (especially as we inch closer and closer to playground). The undulating, writhing arms of this psuedo-starfish reflect the dissonance that bubbles up as a person living in through climate crisis -- I'm aware of the inevitable collapse of our world and the destruction it will cause, but I also have to figure out what I want for lunch today and how to get there. It sucks! It sucks really hard. But this absolutely rules, so I'll savor it.
I find this art piece very interesting, it seems so beautifully done and I can only imagine what it is like to see it in person. The way the costumes blend in with the performance location due to the drought makes the piece feel very much part of its surroundings and part of the nature. The fact that starfish don’t have muscles rather they use water pressure to move is reflected in the choreography. The dancers have very fluid movements and then climb inside the giant starfish, bringing it to life. This piece seems very beautiful and interesting to see the women merge with the starfish bringing a seemingly majestic creature to life before splitting it apart and walking off with it. I really like performance pieces like this that are performed in outdoor public spaces such as the beach where anyone walking past can see it.
At first glace at this article title and first image it took me a solid second to realize that what I was looking at was not an actual star fish. When I clicked on this article I expected to see a rare species of starfish, but I was surprised when it was in fact an artistic performance. I have never seen an apocalyptic awareness performance be centered around the emergence of a giant star fish. So in that way I will say that this performance was effective in capturing my attention due to its creativity and originality. This artistic presentation style also creates a perfect platform for presenting a myriad of other messages that the presenters wish to present. Non-standard artistic presentations create a blank canvas for the presenter and for the audience to create or draw any conclusion from the performance that they wish, and in this situation they is referring to the creators, the audience, or both at the same time.
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