'Accumulation of Acts' Advocates for Culture, Justice and the Environment

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Photo credit: Christa Wagner

Accumulation Of Acts

Something remarkable—even heroic—is happening every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday from noon to 3 p.m. at Alfons Gallery (1501 S. Layton Blvd.) through Aug. 5. Andrea and Daniel Burkholder’s live performance and video installation, “The Accumulation of Acts,” occupies two small rooms in the gallery whose mission is to “explore culture and advocate for social justice, peace and the environment.” Admission is free. Use the main doors at the St. Joseph Center/School Sisters of St. Francis, sign in at the desk, take the stairs to the second floor and there it is. You can sit or stand, move back and forth between the rooms and let this almost over-stimulating collage inspire ideas, memories, aspirations and questions about life; in particular, life in Milwaukee.

The Burkholders moved here in 2014 when Daniel was hired to UW-Milwaukee’s dance faculty. The married couple, both dancer/choreographers, proved themselves committed to artistic experiment and to meeting their neighbors. Every month for two years, under the title “Real Time,” they presented risky interdisciplinary shows with different Milwaukee artists at different sites in different neighborhoods while also teaching, choreographing and performing at UWM and elsewhere. Their passion to know the living city, belong to it and somehow give it back to Milwaukeeans as a gift is evident in “The Accumulation of Acts.” On another level, it’s about life in art; on another, marriage; on another, change.

The Burkholders are such seasoned performers it’s easy to inhabit the room with them. Each day’s three-hour improvisation starts with the room as it was left. Husband and wife build idiosyncratic spaces for themselves on separate small, bare wood stages separated by a winding river of erosion cloth, water in bowls, vases with greenery, dead leaves and twigs. The stages are several feet high and modular: They open, change shape, hide tools and materials like paper, poles, twine, masking tape, plywood, jars and crates. The artists build and remodel, improvising in different rhythms and styles, closely aware of one other and sometimes interacting. A water-blue backdrop serves as a screen for a video taken from a car window while traversing Milwaukee’s entire perimeter.

The second room holds multiple simultaneous short videos of individuals from across Milwaukee reflecting on their lives and neighborhoods. A computer program randomly changes sequences and combinations so you can watch for hours without repeats. Every interviewee is likeable and interesting.