Emily Lacy: "Ice Music" @ Cabinet

(I reserved a spot in the Ice Music tent after getting this description via email from Cabinet):

"Working with time, music, color, and, temperature, "Ice Music" allows for fantasies of intimate visceral mischief with folk and electronic sound patterns. Performances made for 1-2 people will be available by Emily Lacy inside a small, freshly cooled homemade music environment, similar to an igloo or personal camping tent."

She led me into a tiny little igloo structure set up in a larger gallery space. The floors were sparkly felt, and the white cloth walls were built around a chickenwire frame. There are two fans blowing ice-patterned streamers. I was sortof expecting to be nervous in an ice tent with a stranger, but there was none of that. She went to work with her sampler and mic and built up beautiful layers until words came overflowing out. Have you ever had that experience (at a concert or otherwise) where you feel like a performer is playing just for you? It was exactly like that in the quality of the music, and then I had to remind myself that I was the only person that she was performing to. The space was tiny, and after feeling that perhaps I shouldn't map out the moles on her bare arms, I focus on the inlay on her guitar. After the sampler singing piece she played a sweet folk song on the guitar. The words are about the sea and color: universal. An alarm goes off in her pocket and our time is up. I thank her, and when I peek outside someone is there, cued up for the next session. I collect a cold seltzer, and then walk back out into the heat.

Crossing the Gowanus canal, there is a rave or something going on at the next bridge down. There are fish in the water, and up the way a man is assembling his bottle collection for recycling. I passed a crowded swimming pool on the way to the Cabinet performance space, and everywhere there are giant flowers blooming.

Link to her site here.