The Goddard College MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts Program presents the premier of MYCELIA MÚSICA: Dancing Fungi and the Entanglement of Sculpture, Somatics and Sound, a multimedia installation and performance by Iván Daniel Espinosa.

In a remarkable integration of mycology, bio-design, electroacoustic sound art and live performance, choreographer and multimedia artist Iván Daniel Espinosa has designed an immersive installation that brings to life the enchanting world of the mycelia: vast underground fungal networks that connect the roots of thousands of plants and trees.  Once thought to be a simple means of nutrient exchange, the mycelia are actually complex systems of inter-plant communication and are now being regarded by Paul Stamets and other top mycologists “as the Earth’s natural Internet, a consciousness with which we might be able to communicate.”

To commune with this fungal consciousness, Iván Daniel Espinosa presents his new cross-disciplinary art installation called MYCELIA MÚSICA, which incorporates three innovative and vibrant elements:

• 8-foot tall MYCO-tecture (“myco” from the Greek for fungus) sculptures made up of actual colonies of fruiting fungi and LIVING, breathing mycelia
• Live electroacoustic music created on-site and in real time by hooking up the fungi to piezoelectric microphones, bio-sensors and MYCO-sonification devices that convert the mycelia’s bio-electricity and mushroom textures into soundscapes
• Human dancers weaving and wandering amid and throughout the living, breathing landscapes of fruiting fungal organisms

Interacting continuously with the mycelia, the musicians and dancers exchange possibilities with every cap and stem, with each textured surface and vibrating entity that emanate songs from the worlds of soil and stone.  And by experiencing the entanglement of mycology and sculpture with dance and live sound, we too are invited to meditate deeply on our interconnectedness with other humans, other species, other ecosystems, other intelligences and the Earth at large.

The performance will be on Tuesday, March 24, 7:00 – 8:50 pm, at Fort Worden in the Reading Room, Building 204, 2nd floor; a public talk will be given on Wednesday, March 25, 11:15 am – 12:15 pm in the same location.