Aria for an Endangered Species
Callanwolde Fine Arts Center
Choreographed by Ellen Bromberg in collaboration with Core Dance artists and inspired by Yoko Ono, this work is a haunting reflection on humanity and loss through movement and sound.
Aria for an Endangered Species, choreographed by Ellen Bromberg with an original sound score by Yoko Ono, was inspired by Ono’s installation Endangered Species 2319–2322, created after her visit to the ruins of Pompeii.
Ono’s installation occupies a single room: at its center, a stark sculpture of a naked family of four sits on a park bench, mother, father, son, and daughter, each marked only by a numbered tag. Devoid of hair and stripped of all identifiers, they appear as artifacts from an imagined future excavation. Their bowed heads and folded bodies evoke the immense weight of grief, loss, and human vulnerability. Surrounding them, images on the walls represent the fleeting thoughts that passed through each family member’s mind in their final moments, capturing the fragility and resilience of human emotion. The installation creates a haunting dialogue between presence and absence, stillness and memory.
In Aria for an Endangered Species, Bromberg transforms this vision into movement, collaborating with Core Dance artists and Sue Schroeder to embody the emotional intensity of Ono’s work. Through their artistry, the dancers give breath, nuance, and depth to the stillness of the sculptures, translating the despair, hope, and vulnerability of the family into living, moving forms. Every gesture, pause, and interaction illuminates the human stories embedded in the original installation, inviting audiences to connect viscerally with the fragility of existence.
The collaboration between Bromberg, Schroeder, and the Core Dance artists creates a layered experience of sound, sculpture, and movement, showing how dance can animate memory and empathy. The work becomes a living meditation on endurance, loss, and the power of art to bridge time and human experience.
