Ritual Performance Series: A Dance of Moon Water
All about this year-long ritual performance series to feed the wild.
Welcome to A Dance of Moon Water Ritual Performance
A Dance of Moon Water is a live, community-based ritual performance series created with the explicit intention of spiritually feeding four wild places, aligned with the four seasons, in the Four Corners region of Southwest Colorado.
This ritual play series is based on the adaptation of the yet-to-be-released magical surrealist novel A Dance of Moon Water by Deer Ryder. The four-acts over four-season performances blend oral storytelling, live music, dance, poetry, and ceremonial arts inspired by nature-based folktales from diverse traditions gathered over seven years. The project’s ethos aligns with the Ancient Greek belief that theatrical performance was healing for humans and extends that belief to other-than-humans. This belief is fused with Deer’s conservation experience working with the spiritual leaders of the Kogi Tribe–the Mamos– in northeast Colombia and bearing witness to how their spiritual offerings rehabilitated ravaged territories beyond the conception of contemporary science.
Along with being artists, nearly every human in this series is a current or former local wilderness guide and seeks to support the resilience of their local sacred ecology and help shift the paradigm that art only feeds the human.
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What is the Performance “About”
At its essence, A Dance of Moon Water is a love story for the slumbering magic of earth within us. It follows two religious refugees, Strange Eyes and Fox Pelt, who have been suspect disciples of the secretive Stone Order since they were mysteriously orphaned as babies. What they know about the world outside is only what the Master has told them: that it is a land of fear, famine, and godless despair. Yet one small act of defiance leads to an ancient darkness, a series of unfolding revelations, divine transgression, and a harrowing escape into an unknown world filled with breathing forests, river smugglers, shape-shifting medicine women, and mystical horse tribes–all who help the pair awaken their own mysterious, magical gifts . . . and love.
The four performances are adapted sections of the full-length novel. Act One, for example, will be performed in the Fall/Winter and is the beginning of the novel. Act Two will be performed in the Spring and is the subsequent section of the novel. Act Three in the Summer and Act Four complete the cycle of Fall/Winter.
Art to Feed the Holy Wild.
This series challenges the dominant Western narrative that humans are the only ones who delight in human artistry. We delight in the song and movements of many creatures, so can they not also delight in ours?
We will ritually perform at four wild sites. Each wild site will be ceremonially courted and asked for permission to be both the setting and recipient of our performance.
This will not simply be a performance for a human audience to simply "watch," but also be active participants in an intentional, safe, and ritualized container to feed the wild altars of each specific place, their other-than-human denizens, and the Mystery.
We hope that these performances, both their lived experience and the video recordings, inspire and invigorate a lineage of Western artists who dedicate and devote a portion of their artistry to feeding the wild. As locals rooted to this land, we also hope to flourish a vibrant animistic artistic culture.
Ritual Artists and Feral Humans
Here are some of the core ritual performers/artists. Each Act will be a shifting organism of 15-20 humans supporting with acting, music, song, dance, costume, technical, circus arts, and more.
Deer Ryder: Writer-Creator, Co-Director, Storyteller and Percussionist.
Deer Ryder is the author of the yet-to-be-released novel A Dance of Moon Water and a wilderness depth guide in the Southwest. The Honey Cave is his Substack of oral stories, dynamic essays, prayerful poetry, and feral love letters to the dark-honeyed mysteries of myth and mysticism. Read more about Deer and his work here.
Eli Rogers: Co-Director and Lead Role of Anima
Eli Rogers is an experienced, multidisciplinary wilderness guide who designs transformative experiences that help people realize who they are. They are a visionary artist painting with various mediums to communicate ideas and experiences that are difficult to put into words. Circus art has been a core part of their creative journey, performing in theatrical shows and community events, along with teaching. Applying artistry to the creation of meaningful experiences in wilderness settings is currently at the center of their work.
Watch Eli Dance with Fire in a Cave
Lucy Wild: Lead Role of Moon Water, Dancer, Singer
A somatic shape-shifter, a soulful singer of earth songs–one whose feet are fragranced with the musk of music and the Muses. Lucy Wild is a wilderness guide and artist, but more than that–she is a true lover of wild lands and tending souls with a tender heart.
Some of Lucy’s soulful sounds and somatic artistry . . .
Coulter Stone: Musician and Musical Director
To know Coulter is to know one of the most capable humans you have ever met. A multi-instrumentalist, ceremonialist, visionary artisan, builder of many things, badass Wilderness EMT instructor, wilderness and raft guide–amongst so much more. Coulter combines the music and storied spiritual lineages of his Scottish ancestry with his love of the deserts and mountains of the Four Corners.
Listen to Coulter play the handpan at a nature-based ceremony
Thylan: Musician and Multidisciplinary Roles
Thylan’s soulful and artistic talent, particularly with music, explores the mysteriousness of life, sacred love, finding home, and being in relationship to the Wild.
Listen to some of Thylan’s incredible music on Spotify.
Abigail Coughlin: Multidisciplinary Roles and Circus Performer
Affectionately referred to as “Ms. Woman of the Horse,” Abigail’s deep connection to the wild and the animal-ones informs her work with horses from traumatic backgrounds–from speaking prayers to EMDR bilateral stimulation. In addition to all this beautiful badassery, Abigail spins fire like a smiling demoness.
Watch Abigail spin fire and work and heal up horses.
Dr. Ellie Ellis: DJ and Electronic Effects
Ellie Ellis, aka “Specific Heat” is Four-Corners born and raised. When not digging her hands in the earth and data as a doctor of soil science, Ellie is a musician of wild and eclectic electronic compositions that have inspired many a barefoot to dance until dawn.
Listen to some of Specific Heat’s music on Soundcloud.
Jane Ferrara: Wild Altar Maker and Artist
Let’s face it, when those of us who know Jane hear some version of the phrase “Artist of the Wild"–we think of Jane. Multi-disciplined and eclectic in her talents, vast in her generosity to the human and other-than-human, there is no one better to bring beauty to the holy wild ones for this performance.
Chris Cottrell: Actor and Producer
How many former international NY Times writers turned wilderness guides do you know? Probably none. Add actor and all-around loyal servant of land and community to that and, well, that’s the exceptional dynamism of Chris Cottrell.