TERRA: Bodies and Territories

set design & props for
TERRA: BODIES AND TERRITORIES

2025
Envisioned, Choreographed, and Directed by Silvana Cardell

Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, Philadelphia PA

Assisted by Ji Sun Chong and Brenda Howell

Funded by
Pew Foundation

Sound Design: Devin Arne
Costume Design:Vasi Zivanic
Dramaturgy: Blanka Zizka
Core Dancers:
Meghan Frederick,
Chloe Marie,
Mackenzie Morris, Tammy Carrasco, Tamar Gutherz, Maria Urrutia

Thanks to:
Ilya Blender and Heather Moqtaderi, Steven Goin, Andrew, Matt Steuer

Photos
Ji Sun Chong, Michelle Smith, Taproot Photography, Silvana Cardell

I spent the first half of 2025 creating the set and props for Silvana Cardell’s TERRA: Bodies and Territories, an outdoor dance performance about the connections between feminine bodies and the natural world. Not only was it a joy to help someone else’s vision come to life, TERRA pushed my own work forward in ways I hadn’t anticipated.

Silvana and I both felt strongly that our set materials should be sourced as locally as possible. Some of the willow came from farms in Pennsylvania and Maryland. The carvings were large branches that had fallen on the performance site, and the vines and many of the willows were harvested from elsewhere on the Schuylkill Center property. The performance also incorporated mica rock dust that I gathered on-site and “mined”.

In the end, three main pieces define the set - two carvings (Remains of the Matriarchy and Exit Interview) and the pair of woven willow trumpet dresses.

Read more about the work and my process in this interview by Schuylkill Center art program curator Heather Moqtaderi.

Remains of the Matriarchy (click to enter slideshow mode)