Clare Byrne’s "To The Tree"

by Eva Yaa Asantewaa

On April 5th, the International Students Caucus of Union Theological Seminary hosted an unorthodox Holy Thursday service in its James Chapel. It was led by seminarian Claudio Carvalhaes and performed by Clare Byrne, a dance artist noted for her bold choreographic signature and experimental engagement with religious ritual. The forty-minute event drew a modest congregation of sorts, seated in a large circle around the focus of Byrne’s endeavor–a plain, rough-hewn wooden cross, thirteen-feet high.

Carvalhaes introduced Byrne’s dance, To The Tree, by reminding us that our habits and preconceived ideas can restrict our view of reality. If we free ourselves of these notions, “reality might turn itself upside down,” he said. “And this chapel, perhaps it is only a chapel, but perhaps it is capable of being other things, too.” The cross, Christianity’s most-exalted symbol, might be an anchor, he suggested. “Or a tree, or a hollow space filled with both the holy and the mundane.”

To The Tree evoked both Christianity’s cross of Jesus--the cross of sacrifice--and the pre-Christian, ancient and universal cross of opposites, a kind of schematic altar where worlds of matter and spirit intersect. The image of a tree has resonance for pagans and Kabbalists, too, and the wondrous hollow space, of which Carvalhaes spoke, is an important feature of numerous mystic and mythic traditions.

But what was most clear was Byrne’s guileless claiming of the cross for herself. With a long, wooden pole balanced across her shoulders, the petite, sinewy dancer approached the cross, regarding it for a lengthy moment, then simply made it her home. Over the next half-hour or so, she closely engaged with it, softly running her hands along the wood, embracing it, twirling before it like a dervish, running the pole through a hole in its vertical beam–an image that oddly conflated the piercing of Jesus’s flesh, an act of sexual intercourse, and the cleaning out of one’s pockets. The advancing pole noisily displaced a cache of coins and other items, including the plastic shards of a broken lipstick case.

With a congregant’s assist, Byrne climbed to the top of the cross and stretched out atop the crossbeam like a sleepy cat, perfectly comfortable. After more calm, simple maneuvers, she returned to the floor with no further help needed.

This cross, she seemed to say, it’s all good. I have loved it and healed it.

Her dance reminded me of something a metaphysical teacher said recently: that places that have seen great violence are like bodies in need of healing. I could offer examples, but they are legion; you could name them just as well.

After Byrne exited the chapel, Carvalhaes invited us to join together in singing a Christian hymn, write a few words about our experience of the dance and tape these slips of paper to the cross. As I circled the cross, I was surprised to see that a number of people had expressed feelings of anxiety. I wondered: Could it have been the physical risk? Byrne--very carefully, I thought–had swirled the pole near us, like a priest swinging incense smoke above our heads, as she moved in and out of our circle. Was it the way she scrambled to the height of the cross and balanced there? Or did something else trigger dis-ease and apprehension?

To The Tree made me feel anything but anxious. I felt the healing.

Byrne’s spring project continues with an evening performance of Letter to the Church at UTS’s Lampman Chapel on the evening of April 23rd and Kneelings in numerous locations around the city from April 22nd through May 6th. Visit www.clarebyrnedance.org.

(c)2007, Eva Yaa Asantewaa