Since 1985, Marylee Hardenbergh of Global Site Performance has created large, outdoor (and sometimes indoor) site-specific performances all over the world. These performances create beauty in a particular site on the earth by drawing attention to the beauty that already exists in that place. Hardenbergh employs local performers and local composers so that all aspects of the performance are site-specific.
A tribute to clean water performed at the Seneca Wastewater Treatment Plant, to bring together art & environment. Twelve dancers at various sites with full moon rising as backdrop. Original score composed for the site by Miriam Gerberg.
According to Camille Lefevre, Twin Cities dance critic who has written extensively on site-specific dance:
A dance is site-specific when the choreographer receives her spatial dictation,directions for audience placement, and theatrical inspiration from the site itself; in turn, the site becomes the framework for or map of the dance. The site-specific choreographer also generates the work’s movement vocabulary and its content out of her excavation of, research into and interpretation of the site’s unique cultural matrix of characteristics, whether architectural, historical, political, economic, social and/or environmental.
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