Musical soundtrack created in collaboration by Kate Long Hodges and Marvin Todacheenie. Unaltered piano and string compositions by Séamus Egan added with permission. Gospel overlay sung by Barney Hodges.
Gates open at 5:30 pm, performance at 6 pm.
Question and answer session following the performance.
Please leave cameras and video recording devices at home: Kate would like the audience to be a part of this experience.
Kate Long Hodges has been collecting stories and collecting thorns from the various people and places that have been important to her. The two collections coalesced into Thorn Blizzard; a performance guided by the natural world as well as by her responses to all that she has collected.
“Thorn Blizzard gathers thorns like a field of arrows, directing our footsteps back to the center of a circle. Like the dendrochronology of a tree, this center shares a beginning; we are born from a pith and core that connects us to our family roots.
Through experience, the thorn has told me what the wrong direction is, and the pain of the wrong direction becomes a guide, leading me to move in a dance that follows guidance, a focused energy.
For this project, I listened to friends share stories about their childhood, loved ones who died too young, and relatives who lived so long. Although we all have unique and vastly different lives, we seem to have common threads that remind us we are not alone.
May this dance with a whirlwind of thorns bring into focus the celebration of our roots, growing from the past, and open the doors for living in the present, giving us the grace and strength to shoot for the stars.”