Amelia Winger-Bearskin at AthFest

Square Dance/Round Dance - Amelia Winger-Bearskin from Lynn Boland on Vimeo.

Last Friday, GMOA hosted a performance artist at Hotel Indigo’s Rialto Room as part of the “Club Crawl” portion of this year’s AthFest music and arts festival. Amelia Winger-Bearskin performed Square Dance/Round Dance, which she debuted at the Frist Center for Visual Arts in Nashville, TN in April. We promised “an audience-interactive performance that references Winger-Bearskin’s unique cultural heritage with elements of traditional American square dancing and American Indian round dancing, combined with mysterious celestial lights and a dance club atmosphere.” Winger-Bearskin delivered. She shared the bill with a full lineup of female singer-songwriters (Wilma, Caroline Aiken, and Lera Lynn) and thankfully, their fans were good sports. Despite a bit of hesitancy at the start, everyone joined in with full aplomb once things got going. A video is a poor substitute for a performance piece, especially when I’m behind the camera, but if you’d like a sense of the work, here it is (see above).