Photos by Argenis Apolinario
Valerie Green/Dance Entropy had the pleasure of being invited to create a new site specific dance work at Socrates Sculpture Park this summer.
“Clepsydra” a dynamic site-specific investigation into movement, water, time, and sculpture was inspired by and activated Mary Mattingly's "Ebb of a Spring Tide," the featured 2023 Socrates Sculpture Park installation exploring our relationship to coastal ecosystems and the shifting nature of rivers and water lines.
The collection of sculptures includes Water Clock, a 65-foot living sculpture fabricated on-site to mirror the cityscape across the East River, and a Flock House, a dynamic structure acting as a growing, making, and eventual living space to fit the evolving needs of the project.
According to Mattingly, “Water Clock is a tribute to the power of water, time, and the life force of this riparian edge. It vocalizes tidal shift with a composition for the twice-daily rise and fall of the oceans, brought on by the lunar cycle and unfurled by this climate crisis.”
Choreographer Valerie Green relied heavily on Mattingly’s written musings and conceptual drawings to generate movement vocabulary for “Clepsydra.” The piece is shaped by the physical environment of the installation, and the dancers rehearsed outdoors, braving heat waves and sprinkler systems to bring “Clepsydra” to life. Ronnie Burrage, acclaimed jazz composer and musician, accompanied the piece with his complex rhythmic and vocal stylings in collaboration with the Jazz Foundation of America.
The dance traveling to multiple locations within the park was presented at LOTIC TIME on August 5 to enthusiastic audiences and was a great success.
““It was a thrill to watch Valerie Green/Dance Entropy develop Clepsydra in the Park, for the Park. The work was surprising and alive with the immediacy of the dancers’ daily interaction with Mary Mattingly’s Ebb of a Spring Tide and our local community. For those of us working at Socrates Sculpture Park, this collaboration highlighted the potential of this place to be a site of creative exchange and radical imagination, an incredible contribution to the artist legacy at Socrates!””