Surfacing: Trapped in Amber

Surfacing is a performance project that developed out of a proposal for Lake Anne Plaza in Reston, Virginia entitled Trapped in Amber. These two projects explore connections between bodies of water and bodies in motion to reveal and frame past and present stories. Trapped in Amber adds vertical elements to the primarily horizontal spatial dynamic of Out of Place (Reston, Spring 2012). In this work, Lake Anne's planar surface is marked by an array of rectangular floating elements linked to one another and the harbor's edges with ropes and pulleys. A series of vertical lines dropping from the harbor wall would offer a counterpoint to this horizontal motion. As darkness falls, we envisioned dancers pulling the lines to draw the glowing vessels out of the water and site them around the plaza. The audience would discover archival images and texts—fragments of Reston’s past—embedded into the vessels’ surfaces and provoking inquiry into this planned town's origins.