Medicine Wheel
Productions, a Cultural Partner of the Boston Center for
the Arts, Presents Fourteenth Installment of Medicine
Wheel
Annual World
AIDS Day Vigil Takes Place at the Boston Center for the
Arts’ Cyclorama Thursday, December 1st, 2005
Medicine Wheel
Productions, Inc., a Cultural Partner of the Boston Center
for the Arts (BCA), mounts its annual presentation of Medicine
Wheel for the fourteenth year in a row. Medicine
Wheel will be on view in the BCA’s Cyclorama Monday,
November 28th through Wednesday, November 30th between the
hours of 9 am and 5 pm. The annual twenty-four hour vigil
takes place Thursday, December 1st. A preview takes place
Tuesday, November 29th from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm.
Medicine Wheel
is a room-sized work of art created by Michael Dowling,
Artistic Director of Medicine Wheel Productions. Its primary
visual components are thirty-six pedestals and portable
shrines arranged in a circle. Designed in response to the
dramatic circular space of the 25,000 square-foot Cyclorama,
Medicine Wheel commands this grand interior with
understated power.
Dowling developed
Medicine Wheel to be a part of A Day Without Art,
the visual arts community’s annual response to the
AIDS crisis that flowered in the late 1980’s and early
1990’s in New York City and other artistic centers.
While nearly all other activities associated with A Day
Without Art no longer take place locally, Medicine
Wheel has grown in importance in the Boston area’s
annual observation of World AIDS Day. Medicine Wheel has embraced the pandemic’s shifts and turns that have
ravaged a range of communities locally and globally. Dowling
and his volunteers have extended a broad invitation to a
diverse mix of individuals and communities to help shape
and participate in Medicine Wheel.
“It is a
challenge to describe Medicine Wheel in just a few
words,” says Michael Dowling. “It is a series
of community events. It is a place both to mourn and to
rejoice. It provides a setting for solitary reflection and
also to be close with others. And it is a large-scale work
of art. In many ways, this recurring memorial event is as
complex as the AIDS pandemic itself.”
Libbie Shufro,
President and CEO of the Boston Center for the Arts adds,
“The BCA is proud to be the site of so many years’
worth of World AIDS Day commemorations.” She continues,
“Since 1992, Medicine Wheel has reached thousands
and thousands of souls in search of meaning and comfort
as a result of the AIDS pandemic.”
Vigil: Air
Medicine Wheel‘s
2005 vigil takes place during the twenty-four hours of Thursday,
December 1st, beginning at midnight Wednesday and concluding
at midnight Thursday.
Each year Dowling
emphasizes one of the four elements in Medicine Wheel‘s
physical installation and in the vigil. Air is the element
for 2005. The frequent use of voice, the sound of breath,
as well as flight and bird imagery, will weave throughout
the project this year.
Each hour of
the vigil will be marked by an offering of song, poetry,
dance, and various rituals rooted in sound. A schedule and
description of the plans for each hour will be available
at www.medicinewheelproductions.org from November
20 on. Contributors include: Reverend Daniel Smith; Michael
Brown, Ph. D.; vocalists Nancy Armstrong, Marshall Hughes,
Stephen Beaudoin, and Oen Kennedy; musicians Matt Samolis
and Sam Ou; and the dance companies of KinoDance and Bennett
Dance Company. A range of spiritual and faith traditions
will be represented in Medicine Wheel‘s vigil,
including the Pagan community (led by Bruce Baldwin), Jewish,
Christian, Native American, and others.
As in years past,
all are invited to leave personal mementos such as jewelry,
letters, poems, photos and other items in Medicine Wheel.
Objects left are placed within the Wheel’s pedestals
at the conclusion of the vigil, joining those left in previous
years.
2005 Schedule
of Events and Location Information (all events are free
and open to the general public)
Medicine
Wheel is on view Monday, November 28th through Wednesday,
November 30th between the hours of 9 am and 5 pm. Admission
is free
Medicine
Wheel vigil takes place Thursday, December 1st. Doors
open Wednesday, November 30th at 10 pm. Closing ritual begins
Thursday, December 1st at 11 pm. Schedule for 24 hour vigil
may be accessed at www.medicinewheelproductions.org
A preview with
the artist takes place Tuesday, November 29th from 5:30
pm to 7:30 pm
A Medicine
Wheel information center and shop will be open beginning
Monday, November 28th. Photos and information about previous
World AIDS Day vigils and other Medicine Wheel Productions
programs may be viewed. Visual art and books made by Medicine
Wheel Productions youth participants and others may be purchased.
Donations are gratefully accepted.
The Boston Center
for the Arts’ Cyclorama is located at 539 Tremont Street
in BostonŐs South End. It is wheelchair accessible and easily
reached by public transportation. For more information please
call (617) 426-5000 or visit www.bcaonline.org.
The mission of
Medicine Wheel Productions is to access the hidden world
by using the ritual of making art to re-mythologize people’s
lives, both individually and as members of a community.
The organization develops and implements sustainable public
art projects that speak to the needs of specific communities
and to the public at large in the greater Boston area.
The Boston Center
for the Arts supports the creation and presentation of work
by artists and seeks to connect artists to a large and diverse
audience. The BCA’s programs include exhibitions, performances,
concerts, poetry readings and special outreach. |
