Dakota Clearwater LaCroix

Curious Lightning presents

AWMI WayfinderandThe One Who Rises Up

A live, immersive show of sound, light, story and beyond. Coming to life.

Rediscovering nature, and our true nature.

The story, the cast, the journey, and an invitation to be part of it.

a flavor of the show

The lights go downWhat she wakes into is us

Somewhere in the dark, a boombox crackles and a tape starts to turn. All around us the feed is scrolling: headlines, notifications, blue light. Then a single star falls across the room, and an old wayfinder made of a boombox, a fax machine and a payphone begins to wake.

Fern follows her out past the blue screens, and so do we, guided by ancient wisdom and modern insight, by a crow, an owl, a fox, and by the oldest clue of all: we have always been made of the same stardust as the stars.

Who will look up first?

What do we remember, once we do?

the journey

Five movements

  1. Water · the forgetting · the headBlue screens, the noise of the feed, and a hit song that gets the whole room moving.In the room: headlines and visuals all around, and all of us moving to the same beat.
  2. Land · the awakening · the heartThe half world: screens flicker among the trees and data flows like rivers. A crow teaches Fern to see.In the room: the travelers step out among us, and the hidden frequencies rise up through the music.
  3. Air · the rising · the handMountains rise toward open sky. Spirit animals gather, and the specks on Fern’s skin begin to mirror the stars.In the room: hands join in. Rhythm, making, and all of us carrying the story forward.
  4. Cosmos · the embodimentA star bursts into a bath of light, and every frequency meets.In the room: we lie back for a sound bath, breathe together, feel the story in the body, and let it go.
  5. The returnSame island, new eyes. Another shooting star crosses the sky, and this time everyone looks up together.In the room: the lights come up slowly. The space we walked into has become a place.
the constellation

Everyone on the tape

FernWild hair that changes with every season, and a thumb that spirals the feed like a nautilus shell.The first to put the phone down and listen.
AWMIFax-machine head, boombox heart, payphone hips, worn hiking boots. She doesn’t roll. She walks.Part old robot, part something newer. Not evil, not a god, not perfect: a wayfinder, learning as we go.
Curious LightningYour host, keeping the tape turning.MC Eco Freq, mixing thunder, whale song and the room itself.
InkyA vegan mosquito with a notebook, chasing all the wrong stories.He finally writes the true one.
The WizardLives in a cave behind a waterfall, with a boat jacked up on land.Shows Fern the patterns hiding in everything: in stars, in seeds, in circuits.
DonnelliHalf elephant, half donkey. Runs the feed that never sleeps.A shooting star crosses his sky. This time, everyone looks up.

Also part of the live show: Algo the bot, Mi-AI, Auto Phil the galactic cowboy, Yin and Yang the dragonflies, Nar, Em and Frac, Wabisabi, and a crow, an owl, a fox, a coyote, a bee and a firefly or two.

And us.

beneath the story

What it touches

  • screens and attention
  • belonging
  • creating, not just consuming
  • nature, and our true nature
  • analog and AI, in harmony
  • the myths every place has always told

Which of these do we carry home with us?

Maybe the show is less an answer than a place where we get to ask.

the insert

Field notes

Every place has a name, a latitude and a longitude. Here are a few of ours.

Beneath the names and the numbers, every place has a frequency, alive and speaking long before any story was told.

AWMI WAYFINDER · FIELD NOTES
Her first words · Nantucket, 2022Head, Hand & Heart, a time-traveling sound walk with Cinema Wood. A global shortlist.Ten months of research on the island, its streets, archives and night skies, before a robot narrator spoke her first words.
Where she was born · the travel storiesStinky and the Android, travel stories typed on a plastic Safari typewriter after the long walk north.More than 300 days on foot, from Key West to the Gaspé. Every mile became a story.
Finding a voice · the podcastThe Curious Lightning podcast, where the questions kept walking.More than 20 interviews over ten months, some recorded high in fire lookout towers, where the questions had room to echo.
The first cassette · nowRecording at the headwaters, on the Adirondack High Peaks. The first show follows the water down: rain to rivers to the ocean, and back up again.Headwater soundscapes: rain on granite, running streams, summit wind and a Tibetan singing bowl. Nature’s own frequency, tuned into track one.
The next field note · ?Your place. Long before the headlines, every place had its myths. What story might yours be telling, if we listen?What three sounds are here right now: one near, one far, and one almost missed? Send a sound, a story or a shoreline, and your place could become the next note in the insert.
“…evoked a sense of wonder and awe.”
Felicity F.
“It was true poetry.”
Emily A.
“…stirred something in me to reach up and be more.”
Jean P.
the portal · an invitation

Come find yourself in it

This show is a meraki-filled collaboration with nature, and with our true nature. Every place adds its own sounds, and every audience adds its own story. Alma, analog: soul, and the real thing you can hold. We need our imagination, and we need to touch it: cassettes in your hand, sound you feel in your body, a robot built by hand. It never happens the way anyone plans. That's the good part.

Where it began: one walk, one island, one map. No blue dot, just a compass, a few marks, and the places where something answered.

N the long walk, 2001 the shooting star whaleswhale song Key West: where the walk beganKey West Adirondack High Peaks: mountain frequenciesHigh Peakssummit wind Nantucket: where AWMI first spokeNantucket,where it beganthe foghorn Stellwagen Bank: the whales The Gaspé: where the walk endedGaspé Your space: suggest one?your space? your place?

Where it goes: beyond the headlines, into our story, into nature’s story, and beyond, to nature and our true nature. The next mark could be yours.

the headlinesthe head · blue screens, the feed our storythe heart · the travelers nature’s storythe hand · the living world beyondspirit · the stars, within ? your place the map of the show
wayfinding

Guiding stars

Homeevery story has a song The path so farHead, Hand & Heart, and before Help it risesponsor, host, say hello
Side B

If something here stirs us, where might it lead? Home is where every story finds its song. The path so far is how a walk, a robot and a podcast led to this show. And just below, an invitation to help it rise.

HomeThe path so far

an invitation

Will you help it rise?

The pilot is being built now: one song, one place, and its B side, as a live show and a workshop. It starts small. Who knows where we go from there?

It travels light: cassettes, a robot with a boombox heart, and whatever your place wants to sing. A stage, a festival, a school, a library, a shoreline at dusk. Where might it land next?

  • Invest your timeHost a show, bring a workshop to your school or community, or lend your voice, your sounds or your skills.
  • Invest in the showSponsor the pilot, or talk with us about what it could become.

Help it riseTalk with us

play side B