FROM HIGH LIFE TO HIGH LINE: FULL MOON

Detail Laleh Khorramian: Atom Fables from the performance
with Shahzad Ismaily

Detail Laleh Khorramian: Atom Fables from the performance
with Shahzad Ismaily

 Names for tonight's full moon:

October

Harvest Moon

Hunter's Moon

Travel Moon, Dying Grass Moon, Blood Moon

Kojagiri or Sharad Purnima,lakshmi puja

Vap Poya

Introduction on NYC High Line for Atom Fables curated by Ballroom Marfa

 Shahzad Ismaily performs

Each Frontier Airlines tail fin is emblazoned with an animal. At the end of each flight the pilot asks the passengers to thank the _____ animal for getting us to our destination safely. On my most recent trip from the Midwest to New York our pilot announced "And let's thank Woody this morning for getting us here unharmed. Woody of course is the Wood Duck." Of course. 

From the High Life* to the High Line Woody and his pals on Frontier delivered me from  Milwaukee to NYC. I landed on the Highline in Chelsea tonight in perfect October weather, where under a full hunter's moon the artists Laleh Khorramian and Shahzad Ismaily performed their collaborative work Atom Fables. This was a galactic visual journey by Khorramian set by way of a five part film. Sprawling screens of liquid abstractions are interrupted by distinctively figurative and literal characters.  Ismaily improvised live on multiple instruments and synthesizers to create a nuanced (and literal if music can be called so) musical interpretation. There was a feeling of reserve about the whole thing but maybe the reserve was actually anticipation of deliverance. But instead of the relief of arriving at a final destination (or chapter as the artists referred to them) the audience was left midway or someway through an evolution. It did not seem so much a work in progress as a did a piece of a greater whole. It was introduced as a sort of lab and it was.

I would like to thank whatever animal landed us safely tonight through Atom Fables. The crowd of around 200 or so people were rewarded with a special event in a unique venue slightly above street level. 

The event was curated by Ballroom Marfa.

 Atom Fables performance

Detail Laleh Khorramian: Atom Fables from the performance
with Shahzad Ismaily

*(Miller Brewery is the epicenter of Wisconsin brewing.)