Results tagged “floodlines”

One spring day every year for the past five years, a procession of white costumed individuals floats through Hyde Park repetitively performing short acts for the neighborhood's residents and a small audience. Part performance art, part conceptual theater, Jaclyn Pryor's site-specific exhibition floodlines is once again set to be performed in Hyde Park on April 5th. Pryor came up with the concept for floodlines as a performance memorial in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11th. Less a direct tribute to the specific casualties of 9/11, floodlines addresses the themes of loss and grief in broader strokes, encouraging its audience to contemplate the nature of permanence as performers appear and disappear in the familiar setting of one of Austin's most historic neighborhoods.

At 2:45 on a Sunday afternoon, Jaclyn Pryor is wearing a suit and a yalmulke, running down an avenue in Hyde Park. Eight white Volvos trail behind her. A squadron of brides—including at least one man—look to the sky and take off running from an adjacent front lawn, joining the procession. Passers-by stand and gawk. Inside each Volvo, Pachelbel’s Canon plays. It is a perfect moment.

This Sunday afternoon, residents of Hyde Park might come across something a little strange—a group of cars driving slowly through the neighborhood, the passengers watching as actors perform a series of vignettes along the route they're traveling. This is the annual production of floodlines, conceived by Jaclyn Pryor seven years ago, and in its fifth of seven years of annual production (2010 will be the last year it's performed).