Project Description

For this outdoor site-specific performance, Julia Mandle was inspired by the history of the Collect Pond in Lower Manhattan, a five-acre natural pond that lay just north of what is now City Hall Park. Choked with pollution from the growing city, the Collect was buried under landfill in 1803. Its former presence is still marked by a small concrete park that is slowly collapsing due to an invisible layer of waterlogged soil below the surface. KALCH took place around the area of the Collect Pond Park and added new meaning by bringing Manhattan’s lost pre-urban landscape back to life.

KALCH is Dutch for ‘chalk’ and the name given by the early settlers to describe this area where mounds of shimmering dust from oyster shells had been left by Native Americans.
The performance literally drew attention to the pond by outlining its former perimeter. Eleven performers wearing yellow chalk shoes, scuffed yellow outlines during their hour-long performance procession. They intervened in the daily routines of pedestrians and tourists in this busy urban neighborhood. Thousands stopped and followed the performers. The audiences read a map and text written by urban historian Christopher Neville that illustrated the pond’s original location in relation to the outline of the current city streets.