Public has an art ‘encounter’ with ‘Ocean Ions’ performance at Main Beach
It’s not uncommon to see people flock to the Orange County coastline during extended weekends, but the crowd amassed at Main Beach on Saturday, Nov. 9, was engaged in untraditional beach activities.
Several hundred stood rooted to the spot on the boardwalk in the late afternoon, when they happened upon a group of performers engaged in a kind of interpretive dance in the sand.
A vocal performer’s voice floated on the air, accompanied by notes from a single woodwind instrument.
The dancers — including children — interacted with acrylic pieces of various shapes and sizes, the light from the sun resulting in various shifts in color as the surfaces came into view between the sand and the shoreline.
“I think that was part of the whole point, to have this magical experience at golden hour,” said Victoria Gerard, deputy director of Laguna Art Museum. “... In Laguna, there’s so many different art activities that go on, and I think because of that, the community really has tolerance for all different types of hyper-contemporary experiences.
“People really liked it, and it was awesome to see the artwork come to life after people just kind of saw the installations sitting stagnant on the beach.”
It was the latest activation of bringing art outdoors for Laguna Art Museum, which just completed its 12th annual Art and Nature initiative. The showcase began with an upcycled couture fashion show the previous weekend and was book-ended by the collaboration of commissioned artist Christian Sampson and the Volta Collective, a dance group led by Mamie Green.
Video footage of a six-hour rehearsal for the performance was shot near Bird Rock Beach in advance of the event. The production video is now on view on the second floor of the museum, along with other acrylic works of Sampson experimenting with light.
From Nov. 7 through Veterans Day, Sampson’s sculptures were placed in five locations — Diver’s Cove Beach, as well as two sites in each of Heisler Park and Main Beach.
“There were all those people on the boardwalk, and it was perfect for that, but it was really not so formal as like, ‘The curtain’s going up, the curtain’s going down, here’s where your seat is,’” Gerard said. “It was really like an encounter with the work. That is what, I think, is so great about the Art and Nature program ... it’s unexpected.”
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