Taking Alice Notley’s Descent of Alette as catalyst, Dani and Sheilah ReStack invited community members to join them for a collective reading on the longest day of the year - solstice - June 21, 2026 - as part of Solar Flare, curated by Rebecca Arp.
Notley’s epic poem verges into, and is informed by, dreams. Dreams are a place of curiosity and potential empowerment. They offer a place where the unconscious can be heard and translated. Dreams defy sense. Dreams are the bridge between waking and sleeping life. The ReStacks’ propose the longest day of the year as preparation of the descent into dreaming time – shorter days and longer nights. Dreamtime allows for new ways to imagine ourselves and the world – a crucial capacity for unrecognizable forms to offer into our current social and political landscapes.
Starting with a garden planted with herbs to aid in dreaming at the Broad St. Church, followed by construction of a dream machine (Brian Gysin 1959) out of ceramics and fabric photograms generated from dream machine patterns. The reading took place from 1PM until 10:15PM, when the tyrant was slain. Thank you to the readers, and to Onni Estabrook for dream machine fabrication.
Vimeo link to documentation of Dream as Dissent performance on solstice 2026.
