Above: dancer Cecily Placenti
On Thursday and Friday, June 27th and 28th, 2019, Catherine Gallant/DANCE present ESCAPE FROM THE HOUSE OF MERCY on Pat’s Lawn at Inwood Hill Park. Detailed information about these performances – and the story behind the dancework – may be found here.
An excerpt from ESCAPE FROM THE HOUSE OF MERCY was presented at the Baruch Performing Arts Center in April; it was at that time that I learned about the institution for which the dancework is named – the House of Mercy – and that it was located just a few blocks from where I live, up here at the Northern tip of Manhattan.
Under the guise of caring for young women who had gone astray, places like the House of Mercy were modeled on the Magdalen Laundries created by the Catholic Church in Ireland. Essentially they were prisons, where the ‘inmates’ worked long hours doing laundry, wardened by nuns who resorted to cruel punishments to enforce discipline among their charges.
Ms. Gallant told me that the site of the House of Mercy was off the beaten path where I often take my daily hikes: the trail that leads up from Inwood Hill Park, under the Henry Hudson Bridge, and down to the banks of the Hudson River. In such a place, the girls would have been truly isolated from the world. The House of Mercy was demolished in 1933; in Ireland, apparently, such places existed until the 1990s.
On Tuesday, June 25th, a dress rehearsal for the presentation took place on Pat’s Lawn. I went over to observe; at first there was a feeling of chaos as other events in the park distracted from the matter at hand. But soon things settled in, and I was able to take a few pictures.
An instrumental ensemble, led by trumpeter Kevin Blanq, perform New Orleans funeral songs and music by Lisa Bielawa live. Their instruments seem to have stories of their own to tell.
Above: dancer Jessie King and tuba player Kenny Bentley.
Ivana Drazic designed the costumes, which have the look of petticoats, old work clothes, and aprons.
Jessie King
Cecily Placenti, Halley Gerstel
Abra Cohen
Megan Minturn
Abra Cohen
Charlotte Hendrickson, Kelli Chapman
Halley Gerstel, Abra Cohen
Jessie King, Megan Minturn
Kelli, Halley, Abra, Megan, Charlotte, Cecily
Cecily Placenti
Charlotte Hendrickson, Halley Gerstel
Cecily Placenti
Megan, Cecily, Abra
Halley Gerstel
The dancers are: Kelli Chapman, Abra Cohen, Halley Gerstel, Jessie King, Charlotte Hendrickson, Erica Lessner, Megan Minturn, and Cecly Placenti
The musicians are: Kevin Blancq (group leader/trumpet), Scott Bourgeois (tenor sax), Rick Faulkner (trombone), Kenny Bentley (tuba), Moses Patrou (snare drum), and Connor Elmes (bass drum)
~ Oberon
Oberon's Glade 
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