CAROLYN GENNARI

Site/Sound: Revealing the Rail Park 

Together with Mural Arts Philadelphia, and American Composers Forum, Philadelphia Chapter, Site/Sound: Revealing the Rail Park is a free fall festival taking place October 5–19, 2019 that invites Philadelphians and visitors to envision together the past, present, and future of the city’s Rail Park, being developed along the historic terminus of the Reading Railroad. The festival combines large-scale art installations created through sound and light projection by three teams of Philadelphia artists, cutting-edge live performances of new music, discussions on the use of public art in creating great public spaces, and fun and engaging activities and experiences designed by community organizations from neighborhoods along the current and future Rail Park. Through soundscapes, music, spoken word, large-scale projections, pop-up experiences, films, live performances, special tours, and family programming, Site/Sound activated the Rail Park’s developed quarter-mile of elevated green space while inviting the public to envision the path of the future park and experience its unusual vantage both above and below the cityscape. Curated by Gene Coleman, Executive Director of ACF Philadelphia, the event featured site-specific art installations and performances over three curated days:

• Installation 1: Aspect 281, by Carolyn Healy & John JH Phillips

• Installation 2a/b/c: Soon/ Now/ Gone, by Erik Ruin & Rosie Langabeer, with Mary McCool, Carolyn Gennari & Jenna Horton.

• Installation 3: Moon Viewing Platform, by Nadia Hironaka, Matthew Suib, & Eugene Lew

Soon/ Now/ Gone engages with the Rail Park site’s history as a space for movement through a series of interactive installations and performances. Our point of departure is the Victorian era, where technologies such as the railroad and photography/cinema began to be used as a way to capture, collapse, and re-deploy time. In various tunnels and underpasses beneath the Viaduct section of the Rail Park, audiences will be invited to activate zoopraxiscopes—a pre-cinema device developed by Eadweard Muybridge in 1879—which will project hand-drawn images from rotating glass disks in rapid succession to create the illusion of motion. Each zoopraxiscope is fitted with a music device that visitors can use to activate an original soundtrack composed for the installation. By turning on and off different strains of the music and triggering sound effects, they will be able to create their own scores to the moving images on the tunnel wall. Thematically-linked performance programs each night feature everything from time-traveling storytellers to processional puppets to audio-visual improvisations.

The Reading Railroad: A Phantom Ride

Carolyn Gennari & Jenna Horton

The introduction of the railroad promised journeys to other places, foreshortening distance and time in ways society had never imagined before. This new mode of transportation began almost exactly at the same time as an equally revolutionary invention: photography. The two would radically change perceptions of time, space, and our experience of the world. Through travelogues, magic lantern shows, and phantom rides, the moving image became a substitute for this physical journey.  Using antique and contemporary glass slides,  this performance explores the history and legacy of the railroad through the format of a magic lantern show.

Jenna Horton (she/her), maverick freelance performer/creator vibrating between the ordinary and the absurd. Based in Philadelphia, she has collaborated with Annie Wilson (Lovertits), Team Sunshine (¡Bienvenidos Blancos!, The Sincerity Project), SwimPony, (The End), Headlong (The Quiet Circus) the Berserker Residents (The Giant Squid), Lightning Rod Special (Let the Dog See the Rabbit), and Applied Mechanics (Vainglorious).  She has acted with local companies including EgoPo, Shakespeare in Clark Park, Theatre Ariel, Inis Nua, and serves as a tour guide for Hidden City's Subterranean Philly: What Lies Beneath. Alumna of Headlong Performance Institute and has written for thINKingDance. www.jennahorton.com.