Portfolio: Cave Dogs

Cave Dogs will perform "Archeology of a Storm" in Hasbrouck Park on October 5.

by Beth E. Wilson, September 26, 2007

The name Cave Dogs summons all sorts of possible references—from the ancient Latin cave canem (beware of dog), to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave (especially since the group works extensively with shadow play), to some pack of feral canines holing up in a cave. In reality, this collaborative group of artists, musicians, writers, and performers began in 1991 with a shadow play performance in Rosendale’s Widow Jane Mine (the Cave), directed by the then recent SUNY New Paltz MFA graduate Suzanne Stokes. That first show premiered as Cave Core, but Stokes broke away from that group shortly thereafter to form Cave Dogs, generating six new productions in the years since.

Although the new moniker was chosen largely by chance, the felicitous layering of meanings and images that it carries with it aptly describes the group’s complex collaborative performances, which combine sculpture, painting, shadow puppetry, music, and video projections on a large theatrical scrim. An overload of sight and sound, their most recent piece, “Archeology of a Storm,” creates an elliptical, allusive journey through multiple generations of residents in a New York City apartment building, raising questions about history, legacy, and politics. This work will appear as part of the Kingston Sculpture Biennial 2007 in an open air performance in Hasbrouck Park on Friday, October 5 at 8pm. Bring a blanket or a lawn chair, and decide for yourself what it all means.