By Karen Butler
for The Brooklyn Papers
Eight years ago, long-time Williamsburg
resident Noemie Lafrance happened upon the ruins that were once
the neighborhood’s glorious McCarren Park Pool. Seeing the incredible
potential there, the renowned artist and choreographer was moved
to create "Agora," a site-specific, performance-art
piece.
"I was inspired right away to do something there,"
Lafrance told GO Brooklyn. "And I think that the time has
just come for me to do it. I don’t know if I would have been
able to do it on that scale eight years ago. I probably knew
that because the site demands something really grandiose to happen.
It’s so big, it’s hard to fill it even with 30 people.
"And I knew, also, how difficult it would be to get through
the bureaucracy that’s involved," said the native Canadian.
"And it’s not even only the bureaucracy, it’s really community
outreach. It’s working with government. It’s working with everyone."
A celebration of the gathering of people and exchange of ideas
in an open space, "Agora" is a performance piece combining
dance and a recorded multi-channel sound installation, composed
by Brooks Williams with Norm Scott. The performances on Sept
13-18 and Sept. 20-24 – at 8 pm – are scheduled to herald the
re-purposing of the pool on Lorimer Street, between Driggs Avenue
and Bayard Street.
Along with the New York City Parks Department, local community
boards and various other organizations, donors and helpers, Lafrance
and her non-profit, experimental arts production company, SENS
(the French word for the senses), have been working to restore
the historic pool and its surrounding structure as a cultural
meeting place for the community, all the while fine-tuning the
original performance-art piece they will stage there next month.
The estimated cost of the entire project is about $500,000, funded
by federal and state grants, as well as private and corporate
sponsors and various arts foundations.
"We are putting in some of our own money that we fund-raised,
with a lot of sweat, to actually make that site possible for
public access," explained Lafrance, an artist and entrepreneur
active in the Williamsburg-Greenpoint neighborhoods for the past
decade. "So, in that sense, we’re working with the Parks
Department, because we are investing in the park, but also we’re
thinking about it as something of a long-term investment. Because
if you are going to put so much money into making the site available
for the public and available for the performance, we’d like to
spread the investment over time. I have many, many ideas about
what the site can be, but right now, we’re really trying to get
everyone together to see the site for both recreation and culture."
One of 10 pools built by the City of New York in 1936 in an effort
to provide spaces for public gathering, leisure and to generate
employment, the swimming hole, which is larger than three Olympic-size
pools combined, was closed for renovations in 1984, but has never
reopened. While some saw the vacant pool as an eyesore, Lafrance
looked at it and decided she wanted to transform it into a 50,000
square-foot, multi-layered performance venue.
The NYC Parks Department has not only granted Lafrance and SENS
permission to produce "Agora" there, but it offered
to help find sponsors to support the repairs needed in order
to make the site ready for the performances.
"There are many themes, but basically, it’s called ’Agora,’
and it’s about agoraphobia," explained Lafrance. "Agoraphobia
is kind of the contrary of claustrophobia. It’s the fear of large
spaces. There are people who can’t enter open spaces or can’t
deal with crossing a large space. Usually, a symptom is movement
inhibition, so it freezes you. And there is also another definition
that has to do with social behaviors where people just never
leave home because they are afraid of being out there in the
world and something may happen. Something may change the course
of their lives so they wouldn’t want to go outside.
"The [other] idea [behind the piece], is ’agora,’ the marketplace
or the center of town, the place where people gather and meet.
And a lot of my inspiration is to question, ’What is the meaning
of public space?’"
Lafrance pointed out that McCarren Pool is the ideal spot to
perform a piece with these themes since it was originally designed
to hold 6,800 people looking for an escape during the Great Depression.
"The image of the public space is the plaza, which is kind
of like the Greek ’agora,’" she said. "I was thinking
the plaza might be a place you go to eat your sandwich, but it’s
really a public space and a place to go where people go and exchange
ideas. The reality of the performance and of the work that I
do is people still have to gather to do that to really share
ideas."
Lafrance said she chose 30 dancers from 250 people who auditioned
for the piece last October. Six performers have been practicing
in the studio since January.
"I’ve been working with six dancers that inspire me and
that I feel really connected to," she confided. "And
we’ve been making the material both in studio and outdoorsI really
like to make the piece in the site. We’re going to work there
all the way until September."
Acknowledging that other people and organizations have tried
to revitalize the historic site in the past, only to be thwarted
by the enormity of the space or the expense of the necessary
repairs, Lafrance said she thinks a special event that demonstrates
the space’s potential might just be the key to a new life for
the pool.
"A lot of things are happening right now because this project
is – I don’t want to say, ’like opening up a can of worms’ because
there are a lot of beautiful things about it, too – but there
are just a lot of contingencies with this project. And, I think,
a lot of them are in regard to the future of this site, which
is something really exciting to me," said the woman who
staged the performance piece, "Migrations," at Manhattan’s
Whitney Museum in May.
"I have worked in sites before, obviously," she said.
"But I would come into sites, make something, love the site
and then leave. In this case, that’s not what’s going onThis
is an abandoned space, and it can become a functional space in
the future. And it’s a space that sort of needs the attention
and needs something to happen there And the community and everybody
is really anxious and ready to see it happen."
Like Christo’s temporary installation of "The Gates"
in Central Park last winter and the transitory Gregory Colbert’s
Nomadic Museum, which attracted legions of visitors to Pier 54
last spring, Lafrance promised "Agora" will allow audiences
to experience art outside of the traditional settings of museums,
theaters and concert halls.
"I think more and more, not just in dance, but in all different
art forms, I think we’re moving into the understanding that things
exist inside a context and that context is part of the experience
of the artwork itself," Lafrance said. "So a lot of
contemporary artists are making works that don’t hang on a white
wall anymore but that are about the wall itself. Or the gallery
is the space, you know? It IS the experience."
The SENS production of "Agora"
will be performed at the McCarren Park Pool (Lorimer Street,
between Driggs Avenue and Bayard Street in Williamsburg) from
Sept 13 through 18 and from Sept. 20 through 24 at 8 pm. Tickets
are $40 and $25 for adults, $5 for children under age 12 and
can be bought at the McCarren Park Pool box office (open Tuesday
through Friday from Aug. 30 to Sept. 30, from 4 pm to 7 pm) and
online at http://www.tix.com/Event.asp?Event=27688. Group discounts
available.
For information about volunteering for the restoration effort,
e-mail SENS at info@sensproduction.org or call (718) 302-5024.
