On the banks of the Hoosac River sits one of the old mills of New England—built of brick and walkways, and nearly organic in the way it has evolved. The mill is home to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Its galleries sprawl through the old factory’s many buildings, joined by catwalks, corridors, and what feel like secret passages. One can easily walk miles in a single visit, if fit enough.
I found myself there as I often find myself in other places: not so much mindfully or intentionally, but as a result of flowing along, guided either by intuition or the wishes of those with whom I am spending time. I have been to many places as a result of this somewhat passive habit. I spent six years among the Yup’ik people of Alaska because of it. And once, fifteen months in Morocco. Long ago. I am an old man now.
I wandered away from my two friends, who were responsible for my presence this time, and entered a large space hosting an exhibit of work by Jeffrey Gibson. I heard it before I saw it—a familiar, deep beat that resonated somewhere in my chest. Native American drums. I had heard them in Alaska, where I watched women dance with their fur and woven-grass fans to the cadence of men striking driftwood sticks on stretched-skin drums. It was thrilling.
I entered a large, dark space illuminated by three platforms, with light glowing from beneath complicated, geometrically designed, and brilliantly colored floors that somehow managed to be both solid and translucent. Suspended over them were three immense figures in costumes that were at once echoic of Native dancers of the Southwest and Eastern samurai. They were striking, lovely, and powerful. That word came up later as I read a small printout provided by Mass MoCA. POWER FULL, wrote Jeffrey Gibson. He didn’t need to write it; I had arrived there instantly.
There was a guard to the left. He walked away and a woman, also a guard, replaced him. Yup’ik women, not men, had done the dancing I had witnessed, but I remembered the steps, the arms, and the body filled with the rhythm of the drums. I bent my legs, shook my hands with my imaginary fur and grass fans, and danced as Jeffrey beat his skin drums.
