Dithyrambalina

Soon after we first moved to Brooklyn, back in the early aughts, Katie + I started noticing these bizarrely beautiful, elegantly delicate paper cuts being pasted all around North + South Brooklyn—intricately illustrated figures locked in various states of action cut out and pasted to the sides of abandoned buildings, water towers, derelict walls. At the time, we had no idea who was creating the pieces, but I especially treasured finding new ones around town and mourned their loss as they fell victim to the elements over time. Without a source for the pieces, I even dreamt up some elaborate fairy tale of their origin; some invisible urban witch who spun out these artworks in the dead of night when the rest of us dreamt scenes far less fantastic than what she was creating for all to see.

As it turns out, the Brooklyn-based artist known as Swoon (Connecticut-born, Daytona Beach-raised Caledonia Dance Curry) isn’t—to my knowledge—a witch or practitioner of any sort of dark arts, though, still to this day, her works draw me in with a seemingly mystic pull. Swoon continues to paste up similar works in cities around the world but, of late, she’s also been turning her eyes to more collaborative creations, like the Swimming Cities of Serenissima that she helped create and then piloted directly into the 2009 Venice Biennale.

Two years ago, she continued to cultivate her collaborative tendencies, teaming up with New Orleans Airlift—a group that encourages collaboration with New Orleans-based artists—to create The Music Box, an experiment to create musical architecture. That experiment, declared a run-away success, has now grown into a larger project named Dithyrambalina. And no, I have no idea how to say that. As they explain:

“Two years ago New Orleans Airlift and the artist Swoon launched the Kickstarter campaign that funded The Music Box, our prototype for an ongoing musical architecture project we call Dithyrambalina. That proof-of-concept was more successful than we ever believed possible!  We transformed a blighted 150-year-old house into a temporary village of playable musical houses with interactive instruments embedded into the walls, floors and ceilings of structures. The Music Box welcomed over 15,000 visitors for days of interactive public exploration and nights of ground-breaking concerts, as well as over 500 students for engaging workshops.”

Now, the group is raising funds for an expansion of five more musical structures that will act as the first of Dithyrambalina’s ‘growing musical village’ and, as they travel across the country, brand ambassadors of sorts, “sharing the wonder and possibility of musical architecture with new audiences as we continue to grow our village and work towards securing a perfect and permanent site for Dithyrambalina in New Orleans.”

Cool, right? Watch the video below to find out more and visit Dithyrambalina’s Kickstarter page to support them + check out their very donation-worthy rewards.