SUMMER FUN

House of the setting sun

By Chris Thompson

Maybe the idea of a night of performance art, combined with the request not to bring alcohol, kept you from making the trek to far-away Yarmouth for Susan Bickford’s “In My Backyard.” Those who did brave the bugs and the threat of a lukewarm cultural experience were richly rewarded.

Starting at dusk, DJ Todd Dadaleares started pumping sounds out of an old mobile puppet stage. In the front yard, Joanne Steinhardt read T.S. Eliot’s “The Cocktail Party” aloud to anyone who wanted to listen to its characters’ chit-chat about life and love. As if in response, Sue Berg squeezed visitors into the backseat of a Volkswagen Rabbit where they were surrounded by the groping attentions of a half-dozen video monitors. Jeff Barnum began methodically building an enormous compost heap next to Bickford’s garden, making an olfactory monument to the farm that would once have been here. With Bickford’s video projection “Proverbial Creek” covering the entire side of her barn, the sun set and the backyard came to life.

Within earshot of Dadaleares’ tunes, just down the path from Rachel Katz’s installation of mirrors and lights reflecting the heavens above, Catey Draper provided a Boy-Scout-worthy fire ring, marshmallows and toasting sticks.

In the gulley behind Bickford’s house, Aaron Stephan’s specially-built speakeasy, complete with a rickety bridge over the creek, housed a two-man band, booze aplenty and, therefore, most of the evening’s visitors.

About 20 artists took part in this one-time event, a party good enough that the word ‘art’ was lucky to be associated with it.