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“Plastic Harvest” is a Covid-era dance film directed by choreographer Jody Sperling with music by acclaimed environmental composer Matthew Burtner that explores the scourge of plastic pollution. Ironically, plastic is something we all share and that connects us across virtual spaces. We wear it, we bathe in it, we even breathe it.

In Covid’s wake, Sperling began rehearsing remotely with the dancers who were newly dispersed across the country. Each dancer fashioned a unique costume for herself from plastic bags and investigated a different relationship to the material. One dancer luxuriates in a bathtub filled with plastic bags. Another glides, ghostlike, in a plastic-bag kimono through a church sanctuary. Sporting a plastic tutu emblazoned with yellow-smiley face, a third frolics amid traffic on a busy avenue.

The film features dancers Frances Barker, Morgan Bontz, Carly Cerasuolo, Anika Hunter, Maki Kitahara, and Andrea Pugliese-Trager. This virtual work-in-progress screening will be followed by a livestream artist talkback with Sperling, Burtner and the dancers.

An artist residency at The Center at West Park has supported the development of Plastic Harvest. This work is also made possible in part by funds with Dance/NYC’s Coronavirus Relief Fund.