I wonder if it’s a contest for “who can look the silliest and most colorful while not falling over.” Soon though, I notice imaginative costumes resembling zebras and peacocks. I’m in the University of Wisconsin School of Human Ecology’s newest exhibit, “Transcommunality,” housed in the Ruth Davis Design Gallery. Open now til Nov. 21, the exhibit focuses on the work of artist Laura Anderson Barbata. Her medium of design is familiar: cotton fabric, papier-mâché and glass. But the medium of performance is more unusual: stilt-dancing.
Based in New York, Anderson Barbata initiates projects that involve the public in her art. This exhibit focuses on her effort in reviving the “moko jumbie” stilt-dancing tradition. Though moko jumbie originates in West Africa, Anderson Barbata has worked with groups in Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico and Brooklyn. According to gallery curator Liese Pfeifer, the design and fabrication of the costumes, masks and stilts is a collaborative effort between Anderson Barbata and community members. Pfeifer hopes that “Transcommunality” will help people see art “as more than visual expression.” It’s a way to express political and cultural ideas through “making,” that is, creating pieces using multiple art disciplines.
Anderson Barbata’s project “demonstrates the possibility of using [moko jumbie] as a platform for social contemporary performance, group participation and protest,” according to the exhibit pamphlet. She organized such a protest in New York in 2011 in collaboration with the Brooklyn Jumbies. In suits and on stilts the performers ambled around the sidewalks of New York City, sometimes dancing. Not on stilts but still in character, adorned in an oversize suit, Anderson Barbata handed out coins to passersby. A two-minute movie of the event, “Intervention: Wall Street,” plays in the exhibit. Next to the screen stand the actual suits. They seem larger in person.
One gallery piece, “Máscaras (Masks),” holds my attention longer than the others do. Giraffe, frog and rooster heads pop out from the left stilt, among those of other animals. There’s only one human head, which to me looks like the creatures’ guardian, or zookeeper. The right pole features all human heads, carved and painted with piercing, straightforward gazes. After awhile I remember there’s the actual costume up atop the stilts so I tilt my head back to look. It’s much plainer, sporting muted stripes in maroon, purple and black.
Another costume resembles a Ku Klux Klan mask but the patterned cloth and wide-mouth opening suggest a more festive purpose as do the red feather boas attached around the neck and ankles. Then there’s the army of miniature stilt-walkers parading across a table. Though they do not move, they suggest lighthearted aura. As I leave the gallery I notice a display of zebra masks with little circular mirrors in place of eyes. The entire gallery exhibits this sort of infectious whimsy and proves that art can still convey vibrant motion.
Anderson Barbata will visit UW next week, speaking Sept. 28 and Oct. 2. Madison stilt walkers will perform at the opening fiesta along with an Afro-Peruvian jazz band.
