Lighthouse as Muse and Metaphor in The Farallonites from Dana Lawton Dances Comes to Bangkok!

The Farallons, 26 miles off the coast of San Francisco in the mid-to-late 1800s as they went about their daily lives collecting water, climbing the steep hill (often while carrying heavy whale oil) surrounded only by water, waves, rain, wind, and birds as they sought purpose and worked to keep the lamp lit. With the themes of the work much more topical now in 2022, the performance will feature ambient sounds, an original score containing music reconstructed from popular late 1850's sheet music and an on-site gallery exhibit of both historic and interpretive artifacts, including photographs, poetry, news clippings, visual art and other ephemera.
 

This multi-disciplinary enterprise was originally inspired by a poem from Jennifer Kulbeck about children being teathered to boulders as they played hide and seek in the dense fog in order to not accidentally fall into the ocean. It will feature original musical scores, ambient sounds, spoken word, and other stagecraft to palpably transport the audience to a place and time much different from our own. A major part of the piece is about the dancers exploring the harsh physical conditions, repetitive labor, and isolation the families who lived on the Farallons and took care of the Lighthouse, endured. “Tasks such as collecting water and the arduous journey on a daily basis to climb the steep hill in order to get to the lighthouse will define the dance,” says Lawton. “Not to mention the labor involved with carrying heavy whale oil to keep the lamp itself lit, all while dealing with the elements, the water, the waves, birds and stars. Also the toll taken on their emotions by the isolation, the duty, and the boredom will come into play.”

Lawton describes herself as “obsessed” with the Farallons and the lives that those who chose to live there led – and who in a way have become a muse. “What drew them to such inhospitable place as the Farallons? I think it was about practicality,” she says. “It was a job and a chance to have stability when the Bay Area was going crazy with the gold rush. And perhaps some thought of it as a higher duty to serve others as a way of meeting a need, but in Victorian times things were not very romanticized so there’s a good chance that it may well have been a ‘just what people do’ situation, all of which I find to be very compelling tells about tenacity, resilience and human nature.”

After the delay of two years, the piece feels more personal to Lawton and the dancers than ever. When asked if the pandemic that has made conceptions of isolation very much more real to everyone had changed her ideas about life on the Farallons, she responded: "No, it has confirmed them. Especially of the importance of ritual in everyday tasks, the fragility of life and the utter importance of tenacity."
The length of the postponement was much longer than Lawton and her crew anticipated. "Some might use the word 'interminable,” says Lawton. "But we loved dancing outside, especially at the beach, recreating water and waves, two distinct sections originally choreographed in the studio. Working with the element of water informed the movement in new ways, as did dancing in strong winds and the rain."

 Ultimately The Farallonites is about the lighthouse and living in close quarters cut off from the rest of world on an otherworldly landscape surrounded by fog, water, diving birds and sharks.
  
Collaborators include set designer Jon Altemus whose research about the island has been key and poet Jennifer Kulbeck whose extensive research resulted in her poems becoming a primary creative source for the production.
 

Production Credits:
Choreography: Dana Lawton
Poetry: Jennifer Kulbeck
Lighting Design: Walter Holden
Composers: Thomas Edler and Jon Lawton
Visual Artist & Exhibit Designer: Jon Altemus