BRATTLEBORO — The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) presents “Regenerations: Reckoning with Radioactivity” on Friday, Jan. 27, and Saturday, Jan. 28, at 6 p.m.
An interdisciplinary performance project created by Megan Buchanan and a team of collaborators, “Regenerations” draws inspiration from the exhibition “Renate Aller: The Space Between Memory and Expectation” and includes poetry, dance, projection, installation, and live music.
“Regenerations” focuses on the spent radioactive fuel, radioactive water, and soil left behind by Vermont Yankee, the decommissioned nuclear power plant in Vernon. The performance explores impacts of nuclear energy throughout the world as well as the questions “What have we done?” and “What can we do now?”
Buchanan created and directed the project. Performers include Grainne Buchanan, Liza Cassidy, Marcella Eversole, Jake Klar, Sarah LaPlante, Hannah Mohan, Nellie Prior, Dana Renault, and Rachel Yoder.
The second iteration of a project originally developed by Buchanan in 2016, the upcoming performance was created in connection with and will take place amid “The Space Between Memory and Expectation,” a site-specific installation by Renate Aller on view in BMAC’s Wolf Kahn & Emily Mason Gallery through Sunday, February 12.
The current version of “Regenerations” was developed during a series of Sunday creation sessions that took place at BMAC from October 2022 through January 2023.
Buchanan is a poet, contemporary dancemaker, educator, and activist. Her poetry collection Clothesline Religion was (1)nominated for the 2018 Vermont Book Award. Her work has been published in journals and anthologies, was featured at Art at the Kent in 2021, and is currently part of the collaborative poetry and land trust project Writing the Land.
Last summer, the gallery at Next Stage Arts Project hosted an exhibition of Buchanan’s poems alongside paintings by Nathan Shepard. Her work has been supported by the Arts Council of Windham County, the Vermont Arts Council, Vermont Performance Lab, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Arizona Commission on the Arts.
Born in Laguna Beach, California, a few miles north of the now-decommissioned San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, Buchanan started a nuclear freeze club in middle school and was arrested at the Nevada Test Site (on unceded Southern Paiute and Western Shoshone land known as Newe Sogobia) along with hundreds of other activists.
These early experiences sparked a lifelong dedication to sacred sites and environmental justice activism. She moved to Vermont with her two children in 2010. In addition to her work as a poet and performer, she currently works as a teacher at three area schools.
Admission is $10 ($5 for BMAC members, free for students). Tickets may be booked at brattleboromuseum.org or by calling 802-257-0124, ext. 101. Audience members are required to wear masks during this event. Masks will be made available to those who need them.