Tides Project: Abyss
Maura Nguyen Donohue
& Damiano Bagli

Maura Nguyen Donohue continues her work with reclaimed plastics and dancers in collaboration with Italian sound occultist and scenic designer Damiano Bagli, meeting his low frequency sound, high impact noise, video, sculpture and light to offer visitors a submerged world where the realm of final decomposition is a respite from production, a gateway to repose and contemplation before the cycle of regeneration begins again. As the exhibition evolves over 4 weekends of shifting performances, viewers will be invited to experience different extreme and subliminal experiences to encounter the darkest depths. Inspired by Salvador Dali’s method of “slumbering with the key”—a way of coasting towards a “hypnogogic” nap, wherein the mind unlocks free flowing associations, i.e. creative thoughts. “…You must resolve the problem of ‘sleeping without sleeping,’ which is the essence of the dialectics of the dream, since it is a repose which walks in equilibrium on the taut and invisible wire which separates sleeping from waking.” — Salvador Dali, 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship

About the Artists
Maura Nguyen Donohue is Associate Professor of Dance and Faculty Associate for Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College/CUNY. She co-curates the Estrogenius Festival, a celebration of works by women and gender non-conforming artists. Her previous Tides Project incarnations have been a part of Women in Motion: euphotic zone & North Pacific Gyre (aka ‘trash vortex’); and La MaMa Moves: drowning planet/disposable bodies.

“Yes, our oceans are drowning in plastic, the detritus of our failed civilization… The stage picture is a beautiful Rorschach in which you see cataclysmic images, like a horizon of beached fish. My companion saw the end of the world in it. The experience was not cheerful, but it was impressive.” — Barney Yates, NYtheatre-wire.com

Damiano Bagli is an Italian sound occultist, composer, painter, author, scenic designer and virtual reality artist. He has produced symposia and published works on noise, and has conceived and is currently directing a VR theory-fiction project. He has designed sound and composed for acclaimed Italian theater company Motus, visionary Swedish director Markus Öhrn and for the Robot Festival in Maryland and Santarcangelo Festival in Italy. He has designed and built sculptures for Italian directors Romeo Castellucci and Roberto Paci Dalò and the BilBOLBul Festival. His paintings can be found across walls, in abandoned buildings and tunnels across Europe and New York.