Surfing the Shadow negotiates with humor and deeper expression the relationship of husband and wife, individuality and mortality. The audience is drawn into Bernard’s symbolic world and given the space and time to reflect on their own identities through the relation of an aging woman in transition, with all the banal and automatic gestures that embody the universal struggles we all face in an increasingly global society. This is Bernard’s second project with sample-based composer Owen Chapman who sources Bernard’s text and manipulate sounds from vintage recordings to help construct walls of an aural and physical labyrinth from which the artist extricates herself using gesture, movement, spoken words, objects, images, and sounds. Bernard achieves this through dramatic and occasionally periodic postures that create discomforting dances.

Credits:
Creation and Performance: Karen Bernard
Direction: Rachel Schroeder
Music: commisioned score by Owen Chapman along with music by Arthur Lyman and ambient nature recordings

The development of this work is made possible through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Puffin Foundation, The Field’s Artward Bound Residency at Earthdance and Silo, Fieldwork, and Movement Research at Judson Church. Many thanks to Michael Burke, Patricia Hoffbauer, Victoria Libertore and Ryan Migge.

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