Meredith Drum

Mar Sea Sol, supported by iLand, was a collaboration between artist/choreographer Grisha Coleman, artist Estrella Payton and Meredith Drum. Mar Sea Sol happened on two Sundays in June in 2015, along Orchard Beach in the Bronx as part of iLand’s 2015 Laboratories. Participants and leaders of Mar Sea Sol meet at 4pm at the Salsa Sunday dance floor at Orchard Beach. Employing a movement score collaboratively developed by Drum, Coleman and Payton, the group walked along and explored the famous shoreline built by Robert Moses in the 1930s, engaging in place-centering exercises at points along the way. We tuned ourselves to the unique location, mapping first our own bodies and then the phenomena around us: colors (bathing suits, beach toys, birds, flowers, waves); sounds (radios, cooking, playing); smells (suntan lotion, salty water, cooking); and sensations (temperature, heat, cool, wind, damp, dry). We drew en plein air, observing human and non-human life, and the interchange between the two. We held mid and post activity discussions regarding personal, political and social representations of this location and correlations to other seaside spots, and considered the importance of public access to parks and nature preserves for citizens nationally and internationally.