Mutable Being No 2, self-portrait, Los Angeles, 2017
THE IMPERMANENT SKY
Lisa Wahlander presents The Impermanent Sky, a ritual performance made in relationship with Pieter Performance Space's ever-changing light from sunset to dusk, accompanied by an original score from acclaimed composer, Jeremy Zuckerman. Through aural hallucinations and shapeshifting imagery, The Impermanent Sky blurs the line between the abstract and the concrete, conjuring multiple realities and invoking a transformative experience in deep time.
The Impermanent Sky occurred 1/2 hour before Sunset on August 6th, 13th, 20th, and 27th of 2017 and was made possible with generous support from Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant and Pieter Performance Space.
“Beautiful, ethereal, primal/primordial, otherworldly, transportive. This is the kind of work I can see multiple times and find something new to appreciate with each viewing.”
“I loved being lost in the stillness of the body. The suspended expectation allowed my mind to soften and drift. When the creature finally expanded out into space, I was delighted by the alien quality of her emergence. Something primal, something ancient, not to be avoided, but respected and observed. I felt like I was in the presence of a living mythology. I loved getting lost in the anticipation, delighting in the long stillness, the sustained abstraction of the body, appreciating the subtle qualities of the breathing body and the shifting light. It was like a healing bath for my brain. I felt my own primordial needs surfacing as I watched something alien and familiar all at once.”
“Watching the body of Lisa twist, fold, levitate and be still is learning to see in a new and different way. The Impermanent Sky is a portal into a razor sharp etching of a female human body; Lisa is not just Lisa but the cosmos, the ocean, the octopus and the clouds. Natural and produced sounds swirled to cocoon us all as one brain and then we had no choice but to sense our way to emergence.”
“What impressed me about the Impermanent Sky was how Lisa’s movement, the fluidity of the music, and the changing sky all came together to create an organic story. I left feeling that I had been a witness to a natural history.”
- Ryan Ramseyer
“I remember the quiet. Lisa was moving thoughtfully through time and the fading of the light. I listened to my own body quieting, noting the power of a day, disappearing into night. Understanding that was enough, and everything.”
- Victoria Marks
“I loved the dynamism of the work, the ebb and flow in the performance space and in the movement itself. Lisa’s use of the setting sun as both illumination and stage design was inspired; it became a character of its own, one she interacted with consciously and subconsciously. I felt like she was very much in sync with the environment.”
- Leigh Purtill
“Inventive and generous.”
- Diaz
“The Impermanent Sky seamlessly slid through temporal space, the body morphing with light to a liquid sonic harmonization. The shifting of corporeal viscera, space and sound meshed into a personal tapestry, as three become one; three being light, sound and body. As details became broad strokes, delicate transformations fed into boldness where recognizable images disintegrated into the evaporating light. Lisa Wahlander and her collaborators immersed the viewers into an illusory landscape of transformation and discovery.”
- Jeremy Hahn
“Watching Lisa blossom on stage was a cathartic moment that I think all artists can appreciate. We are born with a need to create. We are then told by the powers that be there is a certain way to do so and only our way is acceptable. Lisa barreled through those limitations with ease. One must learn the rules before one breaks them; and having mastered those rules, Lisa let us feel they were never there to begin with.”
- Stephen Bietler
“What hit me hardest with The Impermanent Sky is how ritualistic it was. I felt I was observing an extremely personal ritual that would happen whether or not I, or anyone else, were there. Instead of audience participation or eye contact, Lisa always seemed to be engaging and seeing something beyond the space. With that intensity, visuals of animals and nature would develop around her and she became them. There was a bubbling of sensuality that was much rawer than any other work I have seen. A sensuality that dealt with the lack of control we have over time, space, death. I wouldn't often group sex with those things, but with Lisa’s piece I did. All of which was produced without any blatant movement or reference to such ideas. Lisa’s physical strength combined with the meditative, slow burn of the piece was a wicked combination. When I think back on The Impermanent Sky I am reminded of a journal I had growing up; it had the sun on one side and the moon on the other.”
“The Impermanent Sky was mesmerizing. I loved Lisa’s creativity with the interaction between the changing light, the props and her movements. She imperceptibly transformed from dancer to something else, and transported me lightly into an environment that seemed to merge tangible objects - plants, her body, the window panes - into a fantastical realm of strange creatures in a surreal atmosphere. The original music provided a counterpoint that was appropriate and not intrusive. The audience was a living, breathing participant in watching Lisa’s movements until at one point, I forgot there were people in the room besides her. Altogether an extraordinary experience.”
- Ellen Isaacs
“Lisa Wahlander in The Impermanent Sky was deeply human; yet simultaneously abstracted, like Brancusi sculptures. Courage had this solo artist without a hint of artificial light, in a white unitard; shape-shifting, almost unnoticeably, in the dimming evening. Obviously with technical dance training, she abandoned expected dance devices to transport us to other-worldly places.“
- Diane Shigekawa
“The Impermanent Sky was a piece of art that affected me so strongly. I will remember it for the rest of my life. Great art changes you, and this did that. I was uncomfortable. I was anxious. I was awestruck. I was curious and I was dumbfounded. All from one woman and one potted plant. And the third character in the room, which was Jeremy and his music. I felt swept away by the experience as though I had traveled to a different place. And the light. The use of natural light was exceptional.”