Melissa McGill's PALMAS

Artist Residency - May 2 to November 9, 2014

PALMAS Sound Installation

McGill’s PALMAS activated Manitoga’s Quarry Pool and encircling paths from May 18 through November 10, 2014. The work takes its name from the improvised, rhythmic clapping that is an integral part of Flamenco. McGill’s exploration enlivened Manitoga’s landscape in a unique call and response, creating a dialogue with the rocks, the water, the trees. A recorded sound composition of a professional palmero clapping accompanied visitors moving along Manitoga’s Quarry Pool paths at timed intervals. The clapping, plucked from its usual rhythmic role in the Flamenco dance, intertwined with the world of Manitoga’s woodland garden. “The sculptural quality of sound followed by its palpable absence enhances the visitor experience of and intimacy with nature, building upon Russel Wright’s original intention at Manitoga,” explains McGill. PALMAS animated and activated the site aurally to invite a heightened sense of awareness of Manitoga’s landscape – its natural richness. “Themes of presence and absence, accents and pauses are explored in the sound installation and at Manitoga,” noted Executive Director Allison Cross, “where the quarry itself is about the relationship between absence and presence of actual rock dug out, and later, of boulders purposefully placed to punctuate movement in the designed landscape. The recorded clapping of PALMAS is body percussion - literally hand-made sound that finds parallel with the hand-made and the hand-crafted at Manitoga.”

PALMAS Performance

McGill, a life-long dancer, produced a site-specific live music and dance performance at Manitoga on September 27, 2014. The work was performed on the Quarry Pool’s edge with an ensemble of musicians, dancers and singers, exploring their mutual interest in form and space through the traditions of Flamenco – essentially a dialogue with Manitoga’s spirit of place. Artist Melissa McGill and Flamenco y Sol Ensemble take inspiration from Manitoga's spirit of place in a riveting performance around the Quarry Pool.

PRESS
Melissa McGill's PALMAS at Manitoga interview by Sarah LaDuke (WAMC, September 2014)
A ‘Constellation’ of Light Above the Ruins of Bannerman Castle by Ted Loos (The New York Times, June 2015)
This Summer, Take a Kayak Tour to See Melissa McGill’s “Constellation"  by Sebastian Kaufmann (Observer, June 2015)

ABOUT MELISSA MCGILL

Melissa McGill has been exhibiting her artwork internationally since 1991 including solo exhibitions at White Cube, London; Power House, Memphis; and CRG Gallery, New York, where she is represented in the United States. She is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work involves an interdisciplinary process, primarily incorporating drawing, sculpture, and sound to explore the space between absence and presence, bringing to light the overlooked, hidden, or lost aspects of architecture, found objects, and art historically significant works of art. In recent years, McGill has become increasingly passionate about art in public spaces and its ability to contribute to communities in a larger sense. She is currently working on Constellation, a large–scale sculptural installation on the Hudson Highlands’ Pollepel Island, scheduled to premiere in June 2015.

Sound Installation: Melissa McGill, Artist; Paul Geluso, Sound Design; Arturo Martinez “Espiritu Gitano,” Palmero; Emily Philips, Site Installation

Performance: Artistic Director Sol La Argentinita, baile/cante; Music Director Cristian Puig, cante/toque-guitar; Peter Basil Bogdanos, percussion; Isabel del Dia, baile; Barbara Martinez, baile/cante; Stage design, LnJ Tech Services; Video, Rob Featherstone, Michael Arginsky

Photos: Vivian Linares, Mary Ann Glass.