River Charrettes

River Charrette #3 took place in the pastoral setting of Andalusia along the Delaware River. It is just a short distance upstream from the commercial recycling operation that was the site of the previous River Charrette. Andalusia, by contrast, is the bucolic, ancestral mansion and estate of Nicholas Biddle, one of the most significant figures to shape US economic strategies in the early 19th century. President of the Second Bank of the United States, Biddle was a one-man Federal Reserve Bank before the institution existed. 

Andalusia was built in response to the 1793 Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia, in which 10% of the city’s 50,000 inhabitants died and another 20,000 fled within a two-month period. Yellow Fever refugees were denied entry to neighboring towns as well as the major port cities of New York and Baltimore. When the epidemic passed, people with means built homes away from the center of the city. Nicholas Biddle was wealthy enough to make his new home upstream on beautiful grounds along the Delaware River.  

Andalusia was built as a refuge from future plagues. Its peaceful gardens and graceful architecture embody the paradox of leaders and elites in our liberal democracy: a simultaneous devotion and unease, even fear, toward the masses that are the lifeblood of the country’s wealth. As a place of manicured beauty, inviting contemplation, Andalusia makes us consider to what degree refuge is related to internal and external geographies.

On June 11th at 4:00 PM interdisciplinary artist Martha McDonald collaborated with David Brick to take audiences on a journey through the grounds of the historic Biddle estate—conjuring the memory of those who sought refuge there and marking the loss of those who could not. Known for her mournful work that summons history to reflect on the present moment, McDonald joined her practice of activating sites through song with Brick’s participatory, contemplative approach to performance. Together, they invited the audience to attune their senses to the site and to themselves in it. 

Martha Mcdonald is an interdisciplinary artist whose performances and installations feature handcrafted costumes and objects that she activates through gestures of making and unmaking and singing to transmit narrative. Her work has been shown internationally, at venues including Brotfabrik, Berlin, Germany; Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts, Melbourne, Australia; and the Tamworth Textile Triennial, Australia. Nationally, her work has been presented at The Joyce SoHo and PS 122 in New York; Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC; and in Philadelphia at the Institute of Contemporary Art, RAIR and The Woodlands, among others. McDonald has received fellowships from MacDowell Colony; the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts; and Independence Foundation. She received a MFA from Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. She is currently developing a new project at Black Mountain College Museum + Art Center in Asheville, NC.

David Brick is Co-Director of Headlong, a platform for performance and art research based in Philadelphia; and Director of the Headlong Performance Institute, an immersive training program for creating experimental performance. He collaborates broadly in creating performance, participatory installations and community. His current work includes the ongoing project The Quiet Circus which invites you to attend and participate on Saturdays at The Washington Avenue Pier along the Delaware River in Philadelphia and includes The Quiet Circus: River Charrettes, Performative Dialogues curated in collaboration with Philadelphia Contemporary.

Lisa Kraus’s career has included performing with Trisha Brown, choreographing and performing for her own company and as an independent, teaching at universities and arts centers, presenting the work of other artists as Coordinator of the Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series, and writing reviews, features and essays on dance for internet and print publication.  She has been a meditation practitioner since the 1970s and is currently the Director of thePhiladelphia Shambhala Meditation Center. She has an abiding interest in the space where dance and meditation meet. Recently, Kraus directed Trisha Brown: In the New Body, a yearlong festival of the innovative choreographer's artistry. Her restaging of a Brown work for Paris Opera Ballet is captured in the film In the Steps of Trisha Brown,which won the Jury Prize at the 2017 International Festival of Films on Art of Montréal. Kraus co-founded thINKingDANCE, an online dance journal and dance writers' training scheme.

Jude Robison has been practicing mindfulness meditation since 1980. She discovered meditation at Naropa University where she went to study dance. Movement is fully incorporated in her mindfulness practice through Contemplative Dance Practice and The Quiet Circus performance project. Jude was the Director of Karme Choling Meditation Center for 5 years, and is currently a senior teacher and lead meditation instructor at the Philadelphia Shambhala Meditation Center. She has a MFA in Book Arts & Printmaking from the University of the Arts, and has worked in several Philadelphia Special Collections Libraries, including the American Philosophical Society, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and the University of Pennsylvania Rare Book and Manuscript Collection.