Art Vs. Destruction: David Gonzalez

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SOMETIMES WE ALL need a little encouragement to recycle. Storyteller, musician and poet David Gonzalez is working on a multimedia piece, "Wounded Splendor," for the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center about the way people treat the world. The piece, which will include work-in-progress showings this weekend, includes monologues, poems, video and imagery, which Gonzalez and his collaborators will "sculpt into a suite." Composer-jazz pianist Daniel Kelly created the music.

Gonzalez said the idea for "Wounded Splendor" came from "years of visiting places of natural beauty and visiting places of tremendous man-made disasters."

"I've climbed to the top of Kilimanjaro," says Gonzalez. "I've been to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and I've seen the horrible things we've done to the planet. When you see something beautiful being hurt, it's a call to arms."

Gonzalez has written epic poems about the Hudson River Valley, but this is the first time he's looked at environmental destruction and ways to combat it.

One monologue has a local slant. Gonzalez talks about people who clean dirty bodies of water, like the Anacostia River.

"Wounded Splendor," which will culminate in a 2010 world premiere, is part of an April series at the center called "Living in Our Landscape," with discussions and performances about the natural world.

» Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, corner of University Boulevard and Stadium Drive, College Park; Sat., April 4, 3 p.m. and 8 p.m., $25; 301-405-2787. (College Park)

Written by Express contributor Amy Cavanaugh
Photo courtesy Enid Farber