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In contrast to the elegant, polished space and uplifting artwork on the walls, the performances grounded me quickly and completely.

photo by Mathew Pokoik

The pain in this world is greater by the day. What started out as a funhouse mirror in "Revealing" quickly became a chamber of horrors. This is Ironic because Coney Island is about to be bulldozed by a cruel and selfish developer. The inescapable mylar reflection of our own alienated souls conceal the intelligence of nature. Intelligent design fanatics must realize that humans merely mimic the thousandth part of that intelligence. Interpreting the brilliance of nature as proof of a anthropomorpic god's design is getting it backwards. I interpret the dancer smearing white to represent the obfuscation of white people dominating the globe. As yellow and brown rise to eminence, color will no longer be a delineating factor. Smearing black symbolizes the coup de grace of humanity destroying Earth in a tidal wave of fossil carbon and uranium. No other single factor in our planet's evolution has been as destructive as human activities, except possibly the meteor impact that ended the rule of dinosaurs. I hope enlightened Earthlings of the future will be able to look back at our Anthrocene epoch with the same relief as we view the demise of Tyranosaurus Rex. Unfortunately, although Marcia Johnson was able to exit the torture chamber at the end, there is no exit from the awful mess we are making of out beautiful, precious and irreplaceable planet... except through a radical transformation of human nature.

"Installation #4" offers a ray of hope, as though magic strings could lift us out of our predicament. Djamila Moore, Aynsley Vanderbrouke and Kristen Warnick dashed my hopes for deliverance by dashing themselves against the floor in what must have been as painful an experience for them as it was for me. I hate violence and make every effort to avoid it. Aynsley's fingers and toes are so expressive they almost took my mind off the suffering. Hoisting the ferns was the last straw. What we do to nature we do to ourselves. Elevating it, putting it in zoos or museums, or dangling from a flagpole on fourth of July makes little difference. We are certainly smart and talented creatures, even the least of us.

I thank Mount Tremper Arts for an artistic and thought provoking evening. Keep up the good work!

Dave Channon lives in Shandaken, New York.