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The word Schuylkill means "hidden river." For the earliest settlers, the entrance to the waterway from the Delaware was hidden by brush, making this Philly water source seemingly invisible. While its name came to be from natural forms and geographic location, the hidden river has hidden more than just itself. Myriad stories throughout history have transpired here, even if those stories never made it into history books. The Movement Brigade, a young dance-theater company, brings these tales to life in its daring performance piece, Constants.
Unlike traditional interactive theater, Constants does more than interpret. The group uses the river as its stage, taking you through woods, into three canoes and across the Schuylkill to various “stages.” The piece, set in twilight or pure night, follows the story of four crows, the first of which asks you to “come with me, fly with me.” You soon do so, following a woman through a wooded path where you spot a deer and other woodland creatures who soon turn out to be your guides across the water. Taking you in hand, the creatures help you into your canoe and push you off into the still waters of the Schuylkill. After being serenaded for 10 minutes, the utter silence on the water seems deafening. Then, it’s peaceful and suddenly you no longer feel part of the city circus. You can even see the stars.
When your guide speaks, he or she echoes the sentiments of the river’s first human inhabitants — the Lenape tribe. When the boats turn shoreward, two white ghosts stand in a clearing. They are the victims of typhoid, a disease brought on by taking in filthy water. As the piece goes on, you encounter the stories of two other crows as well as geese who dance in the water near the canoes. Finally, you are privy to the haunting loneliness of a slave girl traveling the Underground Railroad, afraid in the pitch dark of Peter’s Island. As the piece comes to a close, you are again on land, hand in hand with the crow, the ghosts, the slave, and the forest creatures. They bring you a hand cupped with water from the Schuylkill, let it sit in your hand, and leave you with the remembrance that we are all creatures of the river.
The piece is both surreal and vivid, haunting and hopeful, captivating and intimate. The players are highly talented bringing to life the forgotten history through their voice and movement. Their movements were the perfect mixture of grace and instability while their verse and song were unitedly steady. Almost more impressive, however, was the logistics of their work. All performers had to place themselves in precarious and dark spaces along the Schuylkill banks, many of them submerging themselves partially into the water. Guides kept perfect verse and theatrics as they had to steer you to your destination in the dark of night. And it was all so seamless that you felt you were there, in the stories long forgotten.
Through Sept. 4, 8:15 and 10:30 p.m., $15-$20, West Fairmount Park, movementbrigade.org.
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