Desert Dreamscape
A musical program exploring the myth of “the West” in folk and popular music.
“Oars at rest, we drift for a while. The Riverine String Band take up their instruments and play. The antique, rowdy, vibrant music from England and Ireland by way of Appalachia and the Rocky Mountains floats on the air, rises like smoke toward the high rimrock of the canyon walls, fades by infinitesimal gradations into the stillness of eternity…” —Edward Abbey
Drawing on over 200 years of music history, members of musical groups Cicada Song and Max’s Midnight Kitchen perform a suite of songs that explore images of the West through Appalachian ballads, Southwestern fiddle tunes, contemporary cowboy songs, and original compositions inspired by the musicians’ many travels. An accompanying publication, designed by Lauren Rose and Deborah
Kinney, shares notes on the songs performed.
The event takes place in the unique acoustic environment of Black Dragon Canyon. Here the vertical rock wall faces create a natural reverberation, bringing to mind the voices of the lonesome explorers who first wandered the desolate landscape of Southeastern Utah.
Site: Black Dragon Canyon
OCTOBER 9, 2015 - OCTOBER 12, 2015
High Desert Test Sites heads to Green River, Utah for our next “big” event, HDTS: Epicenter.
Following the epic HDTS 2013 event, which took us on the road to Albuquerque, New Mexico, we are turning our focus in 2015 to the communities and contemporary art programs in rural Utah. For our next event we will be partnering with Epicenter, a Green River-based organization founded in 2009 by a group of architectural designers, in the spirit of Samuel Mockbee’s visionary Rural Studio. We are inspired by the energy and vision at Epicenter, and by the ways in which they provide resources to local residents through active involvement in their intimate community.
HDTS: Epicenter is a collaborative curation of artists’ projects, along with many regional points of interest and programs in diverse locations in and around the rural Utah community of Green River. Participating artists include:
Steve Badgett
Cabin-Time
Alyse Emdur & Michael Parker
Butchy Fuego & the Seeing Trails DFA (Division of Fine Art)
Kathleen Johnson & Mark So
Alison Kinney, Daniel Nickerson, Cyrus Smith & Matt Takiff
Nicole Lavelle
Charlie Macquarie
Allan McCollum
Jordan Topiel Paul & J. Gordon Faylor
Ephraim Puusemp, Kiersten Puusemp & Raivo Puusemp
Bennett Williamson
