Performance: Forest of Mononoke

In this performance taking place inside a room-scale installation by artist Saki Sonoda, choreographer and performer Peter Mercury embodies the story of one person who finds themselves invisible and between two worlds. After an encounter with a crystalline glitch in the boundary of realities, they are drawn into the world of mononoke: spirits of Japanese folklore that embody strong emotions and extraordinary experiences and remind us that the self is not entirely in control. The lost figure finds themselves face-to-face with the enormity of madness, desire, and death, to accept them and go on living. Forest of Mononoke, an environmental installation developed by Sonoda in collaboration with Mercury and technical artist Nozomu Shoji, calls these enigmatic presences into the gallery as glowing, vibrantly-colored sculptures of laser-cut acrylic, suspended in midair. They are illuminated through custom lighting elements to create projected shadows that flicker and warp along the walls, materializing the unseen things that lie within the forest.