Hortus Imaginum (1992)

7 performers, spoken text, live fiddle, song and bagpipe, recorded song, slide projection on building facade, garden stairs, trees and smoke

Hortus Imaginum was the first in a series of performances (1992-97) in which the audience walked trails and paths, thus engaged in relationship, active embodiment and spectatorship as they passed live performers, still images and sound sources. I referred to this body of work as landscape-based.

From the print program:
Hortus Imaginum is a performance for public gardens. It is an investigation into the identity of nature and culture. The intent of the work is to invite the audience to consider what we mean when we use the words “nature” or “natural” and “culture”, and what we consider the relationship to be. I have chosen to situate this work in a garden, because the image of the garden is one of “cultivation”; nature framed. I am interested in the garden as a place where nature and culture meet….

Hortus Imaginum is devised as a walk through the garden. Along the paths you will find aural and visual images, each of which relates in some way to the work’s theme. These include tape songs playing under trees, based on the botanical names and stories of those trees. I have projected photographic images of local buildings, icons of our civilization, upon the leaves of plants. Images of parts of the physical body entering nature are projected on the facade of Rodman Hall….

June 6 and 7, 1992
Walker Botanical Garden, Rodman Hall, St. Catharines ON
part of niagara unpeeled, curated by Reinhardt Reitzenstein and Carolyn Pinder, Niagara Artists Company 22nd Anniversary

Choreography: Elizabeth Chitty
Text: Elizabeth Chitty, Isadora Duncan
Tree Songs composition & vocals: Elizabeth Chitty
Tree Songs Recording & Mix: Michael D’Amico
Technical Director: Ron Snippe
Stage Manager: Dorene Inglis
Dance staging: Judith Miller
Horticultural Consultant: Roland Barnsley

Cast:
Girl Child: Nell Chitty
Woman Child: Kate Furseth
Young Woman: Jessica Runge
Woman: Elizabeth Chitty
Elder Woman: Alice Crawley
Violinist: Beth Bartley
Bagpiper: Gary Hall

Photos: John Mukts