"Toward the end of Tahni Holt and Emma Lutz-Higgins' Time-Based Art Festival performance Horizon, something clicked. Eurythmics' "Love is a Stranger" swelled from the warehouse speakers at Portland Institute for Contemporary Art as Holt scooted across the stage, hidden beneath a hollow sculpture of a boulder. (Imagine a rock crawling across the ground in slow-motion.) She tugged at a metallic space blanket, revealing Lutz-Higgins curled beneath."
"The scene brought the ever-shifting work into focus. It felt earthy yet synthetic, high-gloss yet grounded in tenderness. Eurythmics' lyrics echoed like a secret thesis statement: "And I want you so/It's an obsession..." Horizon was a performance obsessed with transformation. Directed by local dance artist Holt in collaboration with Lutz-Higgins, the piece was a collective effort: Costumer Kate Smith Claudel sewed the dancers' airy, neon orange-accented outfits, and dramaturg Kate Bredeson (a Reed College theater professor) helped shape the work's conceptual terrain."
Horizon staged Holt and Lutz-Higgins atop Jess Perlitz's boulder sculptures, emerging as multipart performers who peel from props and stumble like newborns learning terrain. Luke Wyland's live ambient soundscape layered field recordings with glassy synth drones, mixing lapping waves and wind chimes with audience sounds. Dancers wore airy, neon orange-accented costumes by Kate Smith Claudel; lighting by Al Knight Blaine and James Mapes cast long shadows across the warehouse. Movement emphasized mirroring, loose spiraling phrases, and tender, open facial expression alongside intricate technique. Rocks functioned as porous symbols of change while performance foregrounded transformation through material, motion, and collaborative craft.
Read at Portland Mercury
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