BUILDING A BETTER FISHTRAP
An iterative performance project rooted in the vanishing fishing tradition of choreographer Paloma McGregor's father.
What do you take with you? Leave behind? Return to reclaim?
Paloma McGregor in A'we deh ya, a Building a Better Fishtrap performance ritual, Christiansted, St. Croix, October 15, 2016. Image by Quiana L Adams
Paloma McGregor in A’we deh ya at Loophole of Retreat as part of the 2022 Venice Biennale, Italy Image by Glorija.
Paloma McGregor in Building a Better Fishtrap - Phase 2 at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, June 2016 Image by Whitney Browne Photography
Paloma McGregor in A'we deh ya, a Building a Better Fishtrap performance ritual, Christiansted, St. Croix, October 15, 2016. Image by Quiana L Adams
I will never know what it would be like to go fishing with my father.
I will never sit with him at the calm waters of Gallows Bay, slowly crafting each trap. Nor do I have any of the last set of traps he built before his hands, now feeling this dry earth for 92 years, got too shaky.
But I do have this kaleidoscope of memories –
some experienced, some passed down, some imagined.
From this, I will have to build my own Fishtraps…
I doubt they will be better than his, but they will be mine.
- Paloma McGregor
Iterations
Building a Better Fishtrap - Part 1
Building a Better Fishtrap - from the river's mouth
Building a Better Fishtrap - Phase 2
Building a Better Fishtrap - A'we deh ya
Video credit: A'we deh ya performed by Paloma McGregor as part of the Dunham Legacy Project at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival on July 29, 2023. Video courtesy of Jacob’s Pillow.
Image credits: Paloma McGregor at Concrete Plant Park, August 16, 2013. Photo by Charles R. Berenguer Jr.