Local artists create sound-based performance art

With support from the Artist-in-Residence Program at the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Woodstock, Vt., artists Ellen Smith Ahern and Menghan Wang have collaborated to create innovative soundscapes, which they plan to incorporate into a performance art piece. The soundscapes were drawn from natural sound recordings from the national park forest.

Smith Ahern — a dance artist and community organizer who lives with her family on Abenaki lands in N’Dakinna, N.H., according to her website — began her residency with the park at the start of this calendar year. According to Interpretation Program supervisor Kelly Sczomak, who helps with the Artist-in-Residence program, Smith Ahern is the only performance artist to be an Artist in Residence in her memory. 

Sczomak said Smith Ahern has “brought a really special energy to the program” – adding that she has especially emphasized local community engagement in her work, drawing from her “community organizing background.”

“I’ve learned she has this incredible innovative approach to bringing diverse artists together, and that was her priority,” Sczomak said. “Day one, she [was] like, ‘Is there any way that I can get more people in my community involved?’”

Expanding on this community-centered philosophy, Sczomak said Smith Ahern and collaborating artists presented a “gorgeous” interdisciplinary performance art piece, “Vulture Sister Song,” in front of the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller mansion for a free community program in July. The dance performance art piece focused on “telling stories about vultures” and “thinking about vulture imagery [and] vulture[s’] role in the ecosystem,” according to Smith Ahern, who participated in it as a dancer.

More recently, Smith Ahern has collaborated with Wang, an active local artist who was introduced to Smith Ahern via a mutual friend. The two created a trio of soundscapes built from recordings from three different locations along a park trail they named the “Ecotone” trail.

Wang said she used various techniques to record the natural sounds in the forest environment from unusual perspectives. These spots were specifically chosen, she added, from Smith Ahern’s observations of “interesting acoustics” there.

In one recording, for instance, Wang submerged a hydrophone — an underwater recorder — in a brook. For another, she installed a geophone — an acoustic recorder — on a tree trunk to record the “creaking sounds” made when wind blew through the tree.

“We were interested in those locations as the intersections of two or more natural spaces [that were also] liminal spaces,” Wang said.

After collecting the sounds, Wang said she refined them in post-production to create sound compositions that ultimately sounded either “harmonious” or “disharmonious.”

The compositions feature some human noises — namely Ahern’s humming in one recording and the sound of passing carriage horses in another — as well as one sequence in which Ahern plays the harmonica inside a tunnel, Wang said.

However, the musical quality of the compositions stems not from the instruments, but rather the naturally recorded sounds whose frequencies were altered in post-production, according to Wang. 

“I was thinking [that] resonance, despite just being a physical vibration, also can be a form of empathy,” Wang added. “Basically, we hear sounds because our ears are vibrating as a medium that vibrates with the sound transferred to our ear. … So I was really interested in this [idea that] maybe other species actually understand this naturally.”

Smith Ahern said she has previously worked with sound in collaboration with vocal artists and musicians. However, she said this process of using collected “organic” sound has marked an exciting new direction in her work.

“It’s been really, really fun and exciting over the past few years to work with folks, both with acoustic instruments and voice, and [to] then sort of head into this realm where we’re collecting environmental sound, which is so organic, and weaving that into electronic music and soundscape,” she said.

Smith Ahern also mentioned that the project has introduced a fresh perspective on a subject that has long been meaningful to her: the “interdependence and interrelationship” between humans and nature.

“I think that my work has definitely been sort of spiraling around and intersecting with nature and humans inside of nature and our relationship with it,” Smith Ahern said.

Wang, who has previously created work for the Climate Care Festival in Berlin, said she was drawn to the project because of her interest in the natural world and because she had “always [been] interested in working with dancers.”

Since 2007, the Artist-in-Residence program has supported the park’s mission of “tell[ing] the story of conservation history and the evolving nature of land stewardship in America,” according to Sczomak.

“The program is special because we have the opportunity to connect visitors with the landscape through art and creativity,” Sczomak said. 

For each visitor season – which lasts from May through October – the park selects a few artists — up to three starting in 2023 – for the residency, according to the national park website. Sczomak explained that artists are chosen based on their potential to enhance visitor engagement and to run engaging public workshops. After being awarded the position, they are given “a lot of autonomy” over their work, according to Sczomak. 

Unlike other national park residency programs, the park does not “expect a [tangible] product at the end” from the artists, Sczomak added. Instead, they are required to simply engage with the community, whether by participating in public events, hosting a workshop, opening up their studios or showcasing a temporary exhibit of their work.

Instead of stipulating a required tenure length, the park sets a minimum requirement of 100 hours, which may be filled by a combination of art-making and community engagement, Sczomak added. The artists commute to the site.

The three sound compositions are currently available for listening as part of a self-guided tour available for free download via the NPS app on the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller page, which Sczomak encouraged park visitors to use. 

Smith Ahern said the artists’ short-term goal was helping visitors foster “deeper” engagement with their surroundings — to “open up curiosity or even emotions.”

Meanwhile, Smith Ahern said she and Wang will continue to develop this sound art. The two are currently working on creating a performance installation piece incorporating these compositions, she said. In particular, Wang said that they seek to “recreate” the feelings evoked by the three trail spots in a space physically removed from the park.

Ahern said that they hope to create an accessible path similar to the “Ecotone” trail that audiences can follow. The experience will feature a “movement” – specifically dance – component enhanced with lighting design. 

This performance installation will be presented at 6 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 6 in The Main Street Landing Black Box Theater in Burlington, Vt. as part of the INSTINCT Festival.

The two also plan to give a performance at Crumb Factory in Montpelier, Vt., in the coming months. Crumb Factory is a budding artist collective featuring gallery and studio space, according to Wang, who joined the collective this year.