Sibyl Kempson: 12 Shouts to the Ten Forgotten Heavens: Summer Solstice

This event will be presented at an offsite location aboard Empire Cruises’ Harbor Lights Ship located at Skyport Marina: 2430 FDR Drive, New York NY 10010. Boarding begins at 5:30 am, late arrivals will not be admitted.

The tenth Shout in this cycle of twelve rituals celebrates the Summer Solstice as it occurs at 6:07 am EDT. Also known as Midsummer Eve, this day holds the longest light and the shortest night of the year. The performance will begin promptly at 5:30 am at Skyport Marina (23rd Street and the East River), as we board the Harbor Lights Ship to set sail around the isle of Manhattan. The performance and voyage will conclude by 8:30 am.

On the final Summer Solstice of the 12 Shouts cycle, the audience can take part in rotating the medicine wheel, with 28 spokes representing each day of the moon's cycle, and in the Adonia, a mourning festival originally organized by women in ancient Greece. This ritual celebrates the life of anything beautiful that has been taken before its time. Seeds that were planted by audience members during the Spring Equinox performance have now blossomed, flowered, and will come to fruition in the Summer season.

Sybil Kempson writes:

“On this Summer Solstice, we have an opportunity to pierce through the everyday limits of our perceptions, to amplify/magnify them. We have an opportunity to see and hear more than usual. What has been forgotten or hidden can be revealed to us on this day.

Aboard the ship, we will view the island city of Manhattan from the water, framed as a maritime and water-bound existence.

Today we can access a re-vision (a re-seeing, or 'seeing-again'), of this island, as a lost city re-found, revised (re-seen) as advanced ancient civilization.

We take a journey for the chance to be able to see it.

To see Manhattan...as Atlantis: a hidden society that is not always visible or animate, but today comes into being and delivers us  mystical messages full of esoteric knowledge.

On the rivers surrounding the city, the currents of wind and water ask for the participation of our deeper thoughts and emotions. We answer by imbuing and contributing more seeds to their changing currents, continuing the lineage we have begun through an order we can only intuit, imagine.” 

This event has reached capacity. It will be presented at an offsite location aboard Harbor Lights Cruise Ship located at: Skyport Marina: 2430 FDR Drive, New York NY 10010. There will be no onsite ticketing or standby line at the Marina. Visitors are encouraged to print tickets at home or should have tickets viewable by phone. Tickets cannot be refunded or exchanged. Boarding will begin at 5:30 am. Late arrivals will not be admitted.

Food and beverage will be available for cash purchase aboard Harbor Lights. Visitors will be required to show ID if purchasing alcoholic beverages.

This event will take place rain or shine; dress for the weather.

If you are prone to seasickness, please prepare adequately to be aboard the ship for a duration of two hours.

Getting to Skyport Marina:
Take the #6 Train to 23rd Street; this positions you at 23rd Street & Park Ave. Then walk five blocks east to the Marina, or you can take the M23 crosstown bus going east on 23rd Street.

Or take the L Train to 1st Ave; this positions you at 14th Street & 1st Ave. Then walk north to 23rd Street and turn east going along 23rd Street until you arrive at the Marina.

Pay-For Parking Garage at Skyport Marina also available. 

About the Artists
Sibyl Kempson is a playwright, director, and performer, and is the 2018 recipient of the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for an American Playwright in Mid-career. She founded 7 Daughters of Eve Thtr. & Perf. Co. in 2015. Her plays have been presented in NYC, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Omaha, Bonn, and Austin, TX. She is a 2010 MacDowell Colony Fellow, a 2013–14 McKnight National Resident and Commissionee, a 2014 United States Artists Rockefeller Fellow, and a graduate of New Dramatists, Class of '17.

Performers
Tei Blow
Dee Dorcas Beasnael
Omie Johnson
Sibyl Kempson
Darlene Farris Labar
Sean McElroy
Jodi Melnick
Sarah Willis

Collaborators
Leonie Bell: stage management and video montage
Merche Blasco: instrument design and live performance
Tei Blow: sound design
Suzanne Bocanegra: costume design
Maria Camia: violet flame animation
Omie Johnson: astrological dramaturgy
Darlene Farris Labar: gardens designer
Jodi Melnick: choreography
Molly Zimmelman: stage management

Production Assistance
Nivalda Assunção: 3D printing artist assistant
Eric Dyer: nautical macramé
Stephen McGroarty: linguistic researcher

Special thanks to the Barnard College Department of Dance and to Hyphen Hub.