Visions From the Seventh Chapel
Visions from the Seventh Chapel was a collaborative performance and installation directed and performed by Patrick Michael Ballard and Nathan Bockelman. The piece revolved around a narrative through which the two performers utilize found and composed audio, objects, and choreography to animate three etherial effigies from the enigmatic "7th Chapel". The piece was installed at Loyola Marymount's Laband Art Gallery, and activated the threshold of the gallery into a proscenium theater on the night of the opening. The work was comissioned through the curatorial vision of Anthony Bodlović for an exhibition titled Psychopomp.
Nathan Bockelman presents Dwhule, a straw filled, burlap figure that cannot move on its own free will, and Patrick Michael Ballard presents the possible location of the 7th Chapel within the portal of Pumpkin Spice, a vessel of ancient wisdom that holds infinite worlds within its inner sanctum. Each of these entities draws the us closer to the summoning the activated spirit of the 7th Chapel.
ENTER-RE-ENTER (proscenium), A series of 5 fabric banners were built into the threshold of the site. A pattern of ascending gray coloring radiated from the white door, each banner adorned with the text ENTER alternating with the text RE-ENTER, radiating outward in a conversely sequenced gray scale so that the center banner has the same color grey for the text as it does for the background, rendering it nearly imperceptible.
Close-up as the glowing light of the 7th Chapel is revealed, cascading towards the audience from the door atop Pumpkin Spice. The 7th Chapel sits in quiet after its spirit became manifest, and it collapsed in ritual fervor to become a static monument of its short lived presence.
Nathan Bockelman animates the 7th Chapel’s manifest spirit to organ music composed by Patrick Michael Ballard. After emerging, it walks into the crowd where where the audience caressed the soft features of its form, eventually getting caught up in the increasing fervor of the music only to collapse into a static object during the final scene.
Documentation by Chris Wormald