The Watermill Center's Weekend of the Avant-Garde
The Watermill Center has composed a tasting menu of avant-garde dance, opera, and visual art for this weekend, as well as a tour of the center on Saturday and an international brunch on Sunday.
The guided tour of the building, grounds, gardens, art collection, and study library will take place from 1 to 2:30 on Saturday afternoon and will be followed, from 3 to 4, by the opening of “Constellation in Red, Yellow, and Blue,” an installation of light sculptures created for the center by G.T. Pellizzi.
Mr. Pellizzi, a recipient of the center’s 2016 Inga Maren Otto Fellowship, makes his sculptures from galvanized steel, cooper wire, porcelain fixtures, and ceramic coated lightbulbs. The installations are derived from invented cosmologies inspired by the mythological, calendrical, and astronomical symbols found on many textiles in the center’s art collection.
An open rehearsal of BOTCH Ensemble’s “oyster,” an installation performance of indeterminate duration, will begin at 4 p.m. on Saturday. The ensemble was formed in 2010 by Joe Diebes to explore spoken language as a basis for a new kind of opera. BOTCH’s work combines sound, visual media, and the human voice in its many manifestations, including those altered by machines, mass media, and digital culture.
On Sunday, the international brunch, which happens from noon to 2:30, will provide an opportunity for visitors to engage with the center’s resident artists. This weekend, Mary Mattingly, whose “WetLand,” a modified houseboat that produces its own food and energy, is now docked at Long Wharf in Sag Harbor as part of the Parrish Art Museum’s “Radical Seafaring” exhibition, will discuss her work.
An open rehearsal by Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener, dance artists working with Charles Atlas, a film and media artist, on a collaborative project, “Tesseract,” will take place at 3 p.m. on Sunday. The piece includes a 3-D film, a live proscenium performance, and an installation for gallery spaces. Since 2010, Mr. Riener and Mr. Mitchell have created dance in response to complex and active spatial environments.
All programs, except the brunch, are free, but advance reservations are required for each.