“An Experiment to Save South Louisiana”: Celebratory Grief and Place-Based Performance

Abstract Among the explicit goals of Cry You One (an interdisciplinary performance piece in New Orleans) was to get audiences to understand the vulnerability of the Louisiana coast and imaginatively engage with the possible futures of the region. To do so, Cry You One leveraged place-based performance as a means of communicating the region’s vulnerability by developing personal connections between audience members and the coast. Using music, folk art, oral interviews, drama, poetry, and dance, the piece featured a 2.5-mile procession that unfolded across 17 separate performance spaces along coastal Louisiana.