Every Ocean Hughes: River
Mar 24–25, 2023
Every Ocean Hughes, concept drawing for River, 2023
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Floor 3, Theater
River, 2023
Live performance; 30 minutes
March 24, 7 pm
March 25, 4 pm & 7 pm
March 26, 4 pm
River (2023), a newly commissioned performance by Every Ocean Hughes (b. 1977), reimagines mythological crossings through song, text, choreographed movement, and set design. Hughes merges the trope of descending into the underworld—a recurring motif in ancient mythologies—with the porous, transcultural frame of the “crossing.” She emphasizes the term’s dual meanings, the ability to travel between one world and another and the thresholds that permit entry and return. To situate this thinking, the artist turns to a longstanding interest: the piers that lined the West Side of Manhattan, a gathering spot for queer and other marginalized communities, and the pilings that remain of them today. Within this multivalent context, this performance addresses the closely entwined themes of legacy, loss, and inheritance through its cast of characters, which includes two protagonists, chorus-like figures, and a banjo player. River is the third and most recent installment in Hughes’s multidisciplinary series inspired by death care.
