If you’re headed out of San Diego International Airport over the next week, you may encounter some unexpected sights and sounds that could bring your travel experience to life in a whole new way.
This week, San Diego-and Boston-based dance and percussion group, DrumatiX began live performances in Terminal 2 as part of the airport’s Performing Arts Residency Program.
“It's a way that we can enhance our travelers’ experience while also uplifting local artists who are creating new site-specific work for our airport,” said Daniel Dennert, curator for the arts program at SAN.
This is the first performing arts residency since the start of the pandemic.
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Dennert said one of the things that made DrumatiX stand out from the other 12 applicants was how the group planned to engage travelers in the creation of the work.
Noa Barankin is the artistic director and choreographer of DrumatiX. She said the airport environment inspires her.
“This is an ideal place for me because of the abundance of sounds and movement that we have here, from TSA bins and the way we move them and what we do with them and the sounds that they make, as well as suitcases being drawn, and then different announcements on the radio, people's languages that they speak around us and all that,” she said.
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Barankin and the DrumatiX crew spent several weeks at the airport, listening and interpreting the various sounds and movements into five different performance pieces.
“One of them is with actual TSA bins. We'll be moving and drumming with them,” Noa said.
They also created a dining hall experience, where “we're going to be sitting around a table, creating different percussion segments with items that we find in the dining hall or that we pack with us in our travel bag,” she said.
The team even incorporated passenger interviews into their creative process, recording their answers then using them to create a soundtrack accompanied by a tap dance beat.
“It's bringing people into our experience as percussionists and dancers, as well as showcasing to travelers, as an artist, what travel looks like to me,” Noa said.
Dennert said the program is also designed to bring positive energy into the airport terminals.
“Creating this unexpected moment that people might not think they would even come across in the airport could be relaxing. It could be fun. It could provide entertainment, especially as we've seen our young people traveling with adults to stop and participate and see something new,” Dennert said. “But the other thing that it does, is it tells people when they land exactly what the creators of San Diego are doing in this moment.” DrumatiX will be performing live in Terminal 2 through May 10. For a list of dates and times and to learn more about SAN’s Performing Arts Residency Program, click here.
