36.5- A Durational Performance by the Sea

from 36.5- A Durational Performance with the Sea

36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea

story by Dave Washer

" 36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea is a series of performance works and video works created by Sarah Cameron Sunde that engage people on personal, local, and global scales in conversations around deep time and sea-level rise. It began with a poetic gesture – standing in water for 12 hours and 48 minutes while the tide rose and fell on her body – and has grown into a complex, collaborative, evolving series of works spanning seven years and six continents. By executing these works in seas around the world in both a live form and video form, we hope that each individual that encounters the project will consider our contemporary relationship to water, as individuals, in community, and as a civilization.

Each work in the series consists of deep community engagement, live performance event, a time-lapse video, and a long-form cinematic video work from a different coastal location."

Opening quote from the website: 36pt5.org

**Sarah takes her place at the first low tide**
All photographs by Dave Washer

I came to be a part of this on an inspiration. I called my friend Emily Blumenfeld who founded Works on Water and asked her what projects she was working on. She told me she was curating a durational performance with the interdisciplinary Artist Sarah Cameron Sunde an at that moment was writing something about it. I had never heard of Sarah, but I offered to take a read and edit her piece. What I read touched something deep. I called Emily said change the first paragraph and I need to be a part of this.

Sarah’s 36.5 was called a durational performance, but it truly is something way more than performance art. It is a sacred act to heal our oceans, for the communities who live near them and to respect the ancestral indigenous cultures who lived here long before we changed/destroyed their landscape and traditions.

Amiria Puia-Taylor of the Maori people from the continent of Aotearoa joins Sarah. Her Jacket represents the activism of her ancestors to save her culture, their langauge and their beloved ocean waters of their homeland.

**Eric, community advocate, run's the local group Minor Mracles and and manage the grounds of the Socrates Sculpture Park, joins in the early morning**

It is a radical moment, the Durational Performance is participatory with the people who arrive and stand with Sarah. Everyone brings a different story, everyone’s experience is unique, but all are intimate and all are feeling their connection to the woman wearing the red jacket and the salt water she is standing in. Sarah stands for the full tidal cycle, no small feat, she feels more like a meditative monk than a performance artist

**Slowly people reverently enter into the tidal zone**

Roughly around twenty people, sometimes more sometimes less will stand in the water with Sarah. Sometimes for a many hours sometimes for only 30 minutes. The flow was continuous all day. The people were like our own human tide. A tidal flow of love entering the water. For the day over 120 people stood in the water with Sarah

**Maggie Kaplan, Founder of invoking the Pause (far left) who has supported all of the different performance around the globe, stands in solidarity with Sarah**

Sarah and I faced time briefly during one of the dust storm towards the end of my stay at burning man. I told her of the work I have done with David Best building Temples, the habitat and garden design I do in my Contractor world and I explained the significance of my new job title–– Sacred Space Infrastructure Specialist. I explained how that building with intention is different than just building for building. Sarah, with exasperation and exhaustion, told me of all the bureaucratic and logistical issues she was facing, there was excitement about the project but there was also stress could it even be possible. We discussed ideas and possible solutions. At the end we were both excited to meet. After sixteen grueling but also breathtaking inspiring days at Black Rock City, I turned around and flew off to New York City, on the Friday Sept 9th’s redeye.

**At every marking of the hour by what Sarah has named the human clock a performance-- prayer, dance, song, or ceremony. Here a local from the community marks the four directions.**

**Another beautiful sign by the wonderful Frank Bloem.**

**Sarah's father and husband stand with her.**

**Wild geese keep us company during the day.**

**The afternoon golden light arrives with its long poetic shadows. It is a beacon of hope that we are beginning the downhill part of this journey with the water. It is always that metaphor.**

I had no idea what would be needed, I had ideas for labyrinths, altars and stairs for safe access but also I’d be happy to just stack chairs and greet people. what ever was needed to help create the event and help relieve the stress level of Sarah.

**More people arrive as the shadows get longer.**

**Poetry, prayers and thoughts written on pieces of shale found on the beach left as a offering on the altar that suddenly appears above the stairs. Hope becomes alive.**

I arrived 4 days before the event at the address of an old exotic three story mansion. I’m staying on a couch in the attic. A group of us will be staying here, they have come from all over the world from other international sites of 36.5 performances. Sarah and I leave directly to the cove (as the locals call it). Sarah wants to stand at the North end of the beach but there is no safe access from that side. I had told her from our dusty FaceTime call that I believed I could make a safe way down to the beach. A bold statement that added some calm to her world. Her trust and confidence in me gave me faith that we could make this happen. As I arrived at the cove I quickly realized there were a lot of things that needed to happen.

**Arriving closer to low tide. A beautiful sunset.**

The last shot of Sarah as she completed her full cycle between low tides, 7:27am to 8:06 pm, 12 hours and 39 minutes holding still, in thought, in prayer, in meditation, in tribute, in awe. Standing in solidarity with the people who walked here long before our culture took over, standing with the people who care about these waters who live here now and especially standing for the water itself, living and breathing and holding her during this Durational Performance.

**Sarah after her many hours climbs over the rail to take a hot shower and then return to talk to everyone. Yes everyone, her energy is unsurmountable.**

I made a promise, but I did not know what I would find at the beach. I know urban waters will have driftwood and trash that wash up, barnacled rip rap boulders, old chunks of concrete, water worn red bricks. It’s an awkward climb over a rail and a treacherous sandy slope to the beach. It is low tide and beside all the things I just mentioned there is something else that actually feels like divine intervention. Two inch thick blue-stone pavers, the most perfect material you could imagine for stairs. The eroding hillside has just recently uncovered this treasure of flat thick heavy stone. I look at Sarah laughing and I tell her— We can make these happen!

By the end of the day there were a unique set of (safe) stairs that looked like they had been there for many many years. I add a places for altars for the gifts and low tide treasures people will bring. Locals stopped and all thanked me with so much gratitude.

Nettie Norman is an activist for her Maori people from Aotearoa (New Zealand), her proud and beautiful voice singing songs from her traditional culture to bless the event. The human clock happened at 27 minutes after the hour base on the time that Sarah first stepped into the water

Shane Weaks, of the Shinnecock Indian Nation, plays drum and sings a traditional prayer several times during the human clock sequences. A beautiful, powerful voice that sings to the heart, his ancestors and the water.

Moving heavy stone too heavy to carry but just large enough to flip over and over using knees and fulcrum points, I was able to move up each stair and into place and was finished by sunset. The lights of the skyline came on and a group of youth who were friends of the cove and part of Sarah’s team all gathered at the south end of the cove. People shared poetry, dance, story telling, we gathered in a circle and introduced ourselves. I realized in this first moment that Sarah not only is creating a performance, she is creating a culture that allows those who participate to feel validated for who they are, and more importantly, who they want to be. I know this magical transformational place from the Temples we have built around the globe.

SOME BEHIND THE SCENES

Before and After for the North Side Stairs to give safe access to the beach. Beautiful 2" slabs of bluestone. In a million tries I would have never conjured up such a gift waiting on the tide line to make these happen. Secret powers somewhere.

Bella Gallo on the left was the event coordinator, her responsibilities took on a huge role. Chris Bisram center has a inspiring personality that always put a smile on your face. Fernanda a very talented poet always sending a heart felt smile. Many others helped from early morning to early evening. All these young adults are nineteen. It gives me faith in our future to know such inspiring talented youth are working so hard to make change in this world. Thank you for giving me hope.

**Chris-- is a young Hindu folkloric shamanic healer, poet, writer, dancer, fabulous dresser-- here he gets ready to begin a dance during one of the moments after the human clock**

What a gift it is to land in this world with Sarah Cameron Sunde. She has performed this durational performance in 8 other places around our globe. She has collected a wondrous group of collaborators from each country, Sarah has a way to mesh her self into the community and create a deep and lasting bond. There is a lot of love, honor and respect that is moving to make this all happen.

Audrey-- Storyteller, poet, activist and all around good friend and council to many in the community, helps Sarah add the waters she has collected from her global locations for her performance at the Astoria cove. Audrey gave two beautiful prayers at the human clock breaks. One was the powerful closing prayer as Sarah reached the moment of the final low tide. profoundly touching tears to my eyes.

Yes, this was one of the most beautiful, inspiring projects I have ever been a part of. Yes, this is a cry for help to save our planet, a moment in our world of monumental existential crisis, but it was also a world filled with gratitude, inspiration, hope and joy. Yes big words, but feel my goosebumps, they are real.

36.5- A Durational Performance by the Sea

36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea

SOME BEHIND THE SCENES

Some behind the scenes

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36.5- A Durational Performance with the Sea