COVID Summer Solstice (2020)

Performance and video project by Brontez Purnell, Keith Hennessy, and Nathaniel Moore in collaboration with video artists Chani Bockwinkle and Xavier Hamel.
Commissioned for Grand reUnion, a joint production of CounterPulse (San Francisco, USA) and Stary Browar Nowy Taniec/Art Stations Foundation (Poznan, Poland).

We were under the influence of Covid-19 touch taboos, an uprising against white supremacy, the move to working outside, the need to create digital content for Zoom festivals, an invitation to respond to the 1970s improvised performances of Grand Union, the question of online dance and ritual, the erotics of friendship, and more.

Video sources included improvised performances in Brontez’ backyard in Oakland and at Coit Tower in San Francisco, where the previous night a contested Columbus statue was removed. We gave all the video and sound material to Chani and Xavier who then made very different works. We suggest you watch them consecutively.

VIDEO EDITED BY CHANI BOCKWINKEL

(Mature Content, Nudity): https://vimeo.com/466688560

VIDEO EDITED BY XAVIER HAMEL

(Mature Content, Nudity): https://vimeo.com/466719455

CREDITS

Performance and video project by Brontez Purnell, Keith Hennessy, and Nathaniel Moore in collaboration with video artists Chani Bockwinkle and Xavier Hamel
Produced by Circo Zero and Grand reUnion
Photos (video stills) by Purnell + Hennessy + Moore
Commissioned for Grand reUnion, a joint production of CounterPulse (San Francisco, USA) and Stary Browar Nowy Taniec/Art Stations Foundation (Poznan, Poland)

ABOUT Grand reUnion

In the face of a world pulling apart, we insist on being together.
Change is in the air.
Right now how we can be together has changed. However, a crisis was already with us before the pandemic. Art Stations Foundation, CounterPulse, and Movement Research partnered to create an international, intergenerational conference in Poland in June of 2020 to address this crisis. A crisis precipitated by growing extremism and polarization tearing at the fabric of inter-human and interspecies relations, and our connection to nature.
The center of the earth is directly beneath each of us. We have something in common.

Ongoing blog, video, meetings: http://www.grandreunion.net