Consumed by Interactive Media & Born Again: Sagittarius A Review

I live in the Mt. Ida region of Troy, close to Prospect Park. It’s a diverse and expansive pocket in the hustle-and-bustle of the rest of the city; I am within walking distance of restaurants, RPI’s campus, and a large woodsy area on the outskirts of the park. It’s a hidden gem that not many students know about – a serene, untouched speck on the map of the capital region swallowed by college and city life, completely out of place by any first glance. But after many visits, the area grows on you. In the middle of the woods there is a gorge, complete with a long river path of rocks, remnants of old industrial power buildings, and a huge waterfall underlooking a church from the street above that peers down into its abyss. It is plagued with the occasional trash and metal scraps, remnants of onlookers that take the scenery for granted without further understanding what the gorge has to offer. But overall it is one of the most stunning spots in Troy, a cornerstone of finding peace of mind and new life in an otherwise busy environment, and my favorite place to visit and unwind. I practically live there in the warmer months. One can imagine my excitement when I made a trip to experience a multimedia show at EMPAC, expecting merely a combination of dance, music, and visual stimuli, and coming to find an interactive story that takes place in these very woods.

The show – conceived and directed by Yara Travieso – told the story of Sagittarius A (SA), both a real star-turned-black-hole at the center of the Milky Way and a mythical tale about a feminine deity whose limbs are eaten by a wolf who stalks her. Technically, the show pulls out all the stops and uses every detail of the concert hall itself and Troy as a whole to an advantage. Open seats in the rafters become spaces of dance for the two female leads: Ana (Jennifer Payán) and Dr. Amalia (Catherine Correa). The round noise panels on the ceiling turn into a screen for clips of Ana in despair and solitude, using the circular shape as a tool to show the demons surrounding her. Short film pieces project on the wall, shot in Prospect Park, the surrounding woods, and the gorge, depicting Ana’s real life encounter with the stalking wolf she has been rehearsing to combat on stage. Rails and walls in the theater are clipped with large sheets controlled by Ana in the summits of her dance performance as SA. The audience uses their phone lights to depict the massive galaxy of stars born anew after SA becomes a black hole. Most impressively, the tech room in the back of the concert hall becomes a backdrop for live footage, peering into Ana’s costume change backstage, fixating on various parts of her body. As she returns to the concert hall and walks to the aisle door to make her exit, she walks just to the left of me in my seat, and I look up to the screen directly at myself as she strolls out. I am still struggling to grasp where the front camera was even hiding.

The live music used during the show was a phenomenal blend of jazz, folk, and electronic music. A beautiful arrangement of violin, keys, and brass is both amplified and obstructed by a loud, grumbling bass synth, distorted and bit crushed almost beyond recognition. At the darkest points of the performance, it’s almost impossible to even recognize the pitch being played – just a visceral tone of clicks echoing across the walls over the faint whimper of a saxophone. The piece at the show’s climax is the most beautiful; a slow and emotional waltz about the power within a woman over the perception of any stalking wolf. Two vocalists sing “breathe” in a serene glissando as Ana pulls at the ropes of two massive sheets on either side of the room, showing her strength beyond the limits of her body. Every strobe light on the stage visualizes multiple shadows of Ana as she dances across the stage. It is a living and breathing musical piece, breaking the boundaries of audio and bringing the music to your eyes. I truly struggled to narrow down any detail of the show I wasn’t completely floored by.

Overall, the piece was a phenomenal portrayal of how women are perceived both in the arts and in all aspects of life. Ana is an artist marginalized and encapsulated by wolves, peering upon her work only to gaze looks of her beauty or sexuality. Eventually, one of the wolves musters enough courage to make an advance, attacking her at her most vulnerable in an attempt to gain a piece of the living human they have for so long observed as an object. While this initially paralyzes Ana, she collects herself, searches out the wolf, and fights back to make the forest her own. She is born anew from the experience, finding herself, her true purpose, and dismantling the existing hunter-prey dynamic to start a narrative of her own device. Such is the tale of many powerful women in society. Such is the tale of a star that birthed a galaxy out of a black hole. Such is the tale of SA and the Wolf. Such is the tale of the Poestenkill Gorge in Troy, NY. All delivered in a breathtaking and emotional performance unique to EMPAC and Troy, a moment that cannot be replicated. Yara Travieso said it best herself: “We will rethink the hierarchies of power within the cinematic gaze and the presentational stage with respects to woman body. We will begin to uncover the suffocating language within women and we will BRING FORWARD our ways of storytelling, and intuitive narratives: In the first 20min she eats the gaze, freeing herself to use the rest of the evening to harness her power.” I extend my highest respect and congratulations to Travieso, Jennifer Payán, Catherine Correa, and all the musicians and technicians involved in this show. It was a truly phenomenal, life-changing experience.