Shoreline Project with a thousand cast members and just as many spectators met its hype as the highlight of the 2018 Art and Nature event of Laguna Art Museum. The preview for the event from OC Weekly’s Lisa Black contributed to its high expectations. People expected the Shoreline Project to be a mythic experience and an antidote to those darkly divisive times. It was not a letdown at all. Except that Black wished that she had committed herself to dance in visual artist Elizabeth Turk’s spontaneous and well-prepared work. For your information, Turk is an artist and sculptor from California.
Laguna Main Beach had a great location to enjoy the whole experience, which included participants clad in black clothing and their parasols; the drones that filmed everything; and the continually growing crowd.
A big group came together for Lara Wilson’s The Assembly piece, which kicked everything off. Black recalled the sight of the dancers doing a pose similar to an archer. The dancers grooved on the sand and moved their umbrellas in many different ways, providing volunteers with ideas of the coming improvisation.
The strong percussion from the Laguna Drum Circle blended with the oceanic sounds and energized everybody to brighten their mandala umbrellas with LED effects. Hundreds of community volunteers gathered in the dusk, similar to jellyfish that would dance on bioluminescent shores. The Shoreline Project website had a short video that offered a brief look at the event, largely with the stunning drone film.
The drumming did not become less intense as those umbrellas just came together, forced one another back, blinked, twirled, spun and swept as dusk transformed into the dark. When there were glimpses of people of all ages brightened by those LED lights by the shafts or below the canopies, one could see that they were smiling. Later, as they rolled up their umbrellas, people fortunate enough to find pieces of art from Turk were joyful.
The visual artist and her artistic collaborators dreamt up a great spectacle, which reminded everyone to head toward the bright path while keeping their expectations in check.