the creek between us
August 2020
the creek between us, a temporal public project, in three scenes, provided an opportunity to learn about and develop new relationships with Bozeman Creek, while deepening understandings of what it means for our diverse communities to recreate outdoors. The project explored creative expressions of having fun, getting serious, negotiating survival, establishing reciprocal relationships with nature, and securing identity/ies in relation to water.
The creek between us was Co-Directed by Mary Ellen Strom and Laine Rettmer. The project was realized by a collaborative team of artists, designers and scholars including Apsáalooke scholar and musician Shane Doyle; architect Ben Lloyd; aerial choreographer Michael O’Reily; costume designer Alayna Rasile; music by Andrea Merkx, Walter Kitundu, Rettmer and Strom, art historian Rachel Tang (Diné) and geomorphologist Karin Boyd.