Fall 2022 exhibition featuring an installation by Poramit Thantapalit with performance art by Art of Motion Dance Theatre and music by pianist Carolyn Enger.
(Click on this image to visit a virtual/3D version of the exhibition.)
During the fall of 2022, Gallery Bergen will be transformed into an aquatic installation by Thai artist Poramit Thantapalit. His medium is trash – as in found plastic bottles, plastic bags, and other refuse that might have as easily found its way into the Hackensack River, a landfill, or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Instead, Poramit breathes life into these materials, shaping luminous organic sculptures that undulate and pulse from the ceiling and wall. They make the viewer forget their origins in their newly aggregated forms.
There is a genre referred to as eco-art, or “trash art,” but this is something very different. “Jackson Pollock painted with house paint, but he wasn’t a house painter,” says Gallery Bergen director and curator Tim Blunk. “Poramit’s deft artistic hand and his understanding of transforming quantity into quality creates work that transcends its materials.” PULSE: Resonating Earth will be embellished with several performance events, including the scheduled opening gala on September 22 and its closing on December 8. Both will include dance performance pieces by BCC faculty member Lynn Needle and her Art of Motion Dance Theatre and Steinway pianist Carolyn Enger. The opening will include excerpts from Needle’s work, The Poseidon Project – An Aquatic Myth – a suite with live music and dance, including narrated choreographed sections, each connecting to aquatic myth, legend, and nature.
Renowned pianist Carolyn Enger will perform excerpts from her video enhanced program, Resonating Earth. From the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to coal burning plants in the Ruhr Valley of Germany, from the glorious heights of mountain ranges in Alaska to mountains of potassium waste in Eastern Germany, Resonating Earth was created in response to the climate crisis. With a wide range of ambient music, including Bach, Debussy, Philip Glass, among others alongside stunning imagery of the environment by Peabody Award-winning producer Elliott Forrest (WQXR), visual artist Myles Aronowitz, and internationally-exhibited environmental activist and photographer J Henry Fair, Resonating Earth creates a soundscape focusing on the beauty of nature, and inspires environmental activism in an artistic, musically immersive way. The program seeks to transport listeners to a still, meditative space, allowing them to decompress from their daily lives, inviting introspection about humanity’s place on the planet, and inspiring action to protect our beautiful, fragile world.
Poramit Thantapalit:
A native of Thailand, Poramit Thantapalit graduated with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. He worked as a video producer and in television for three years before he decided to continue studies in the US. He received his master’s degree in computer graphics from New York Institute of Technology. In the past ten years, Poramit has produced works in various media including recycled materials, mixed media, photography, cyanotype print and installation art. His works have been exhibited widely in New York, Jersey City, and internationally. His installation “Masked Arts,” created during the pandemic, was featured in the New York Times in May 2021.
Lynn Lesniak Needle:
Lynn Needle/RYT 500 Founder/Artistic Director of Art of Motion, Inc. a non-profit conservatory and home to the Art of Motion Dance Theatre, toured to 6 out of 7 continents and more than 40 United States as a soloist with the Nikolais Dance Theatre. Needle is the recipient of numerous grants including: an international Andrew W. Mellon Cultural Exchange Fund grant for a teaching residency in Mexico, the ACDFA National Dance Magazine Award for Choreography, The Harkness Foundation, Bergen County Division of Cultural and Historic Affairs, and the Northern New Jersey Community Foundation. Her work, presented internationally has been featured at the global TEDMED Conference at the Kennedy Center, Jacob’s Pillow, Art Festivals, Galas, Smithsonian Museums, Consulates, Zoos and sand dunes and recognized by foundations, universities and press including The New York Times, Women’s Wear Daily, Washington Post, WSJ, Daily News, PBS, Dance Magazine, Vanity Fair and the Village Voice. Lynn is a recipient of Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Ridgewood Arts Foundation, Dance in the Desert Festival, received the “Physical Theater Award” from UNITED SOLO/NYC and has been featured on PBS, podcasts, and VR film. A published author and environmental advocate, Needle recently presented and performed at the American Education Research Association/AERA Conference in San Diego. A proud recipient of The Coastal Art Project grant for her aquatic myth, “The Poseidon Project” Needle received a grant from NOAA, DEP, CMP, NJSCA and Monmouth Arts for her site-specific live music and dance immersive project which premiered in July/August 2021 in Asbury Park and Long Branch, NJ. Needle has performed on all terrains and thrives on adapting choreography in challenging spaces. As an Adjunct Professor of Modern Dance at Bergen Community College, Needle has had the honor of premiering many of her original works in the Ciccone Theater. PULSE: Resonating Earth is a collaborative project with the Art of Motion Dance Theatre, Steinway artist, Carolyn Enger and visual artist/sculptor, Poramit Thantapalit who hails from Thailand.
Carolyn Enger, pianist:
Pianist Carolyn Enger is renowned for her exquisite lyrical playing. Presenting engaging and unique programs, informed by a keen sense of identity, history, and personal connection, she leaves audiences feeling uplifted. An acclaimed recording artist, Carolyn’s Naxos recording of music by Ned Rorem, Piano Album I, was selected by Anthony Tommasini as one of The New York Times’ “Best in Classical Recordings.” A sought-after recitalist with an international itinerary, Carolyn has presented programs at numerous prestigious venues including Carnegie Hall, The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, the Felicja Blumental Center in Tel Aviv, Michaeliskirche in Erfurt, and The National Gallery in Oslo. Recent highlights include celebrating Leonard Bernstein’s centennial with ArtsRock, performances at the Bach-Festival in Arnstadt, the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam, the White Stork Synagogue in Wroclaw, Poland, The German Consulate in New York City, The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture, Rhode Island School of Design, University of Arizona-Tucson, University of Chicago, Jewish Federation of Greater Houston. Carolyn will be returning to premiere Native American composer JJ Hollingsworth’s Under The Blue Dome at Musica Sierra this fall and performing Resonating Earth at The Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art.
Conceived by Lynn Needle, Art of Motion Dance Theatre
Curated by Tim Blunk for Gallery Bergen