Our Beloved Root Beer

Rah Gerg + Kira Saks

Root Beer transformed along the bank of the Woonasquatucket, where a tired eddy washed ashore all sorts of disparate lineages– here, in the early dawn, a dog limped– containing its surroundings, its history, and its hunger. A being, beautiful and terrible, a map running through her skin, a Memory Beast, deserving of love and evocative of fear, rejoicing in the carnage of revenge, a lost dog who has forgotten how to be human, refuses to be human: hunter, hunted, our precious baby, just an animal goddamnit. Lycanthropy can be a disease, a gift, a tragedy or just a truth (a mythological beauty, transformation and transition, the empowering nature of being horrific, unsightly, and unknowable).

Materials: Cardboard, paper pulp, newspaper, acrylic, gouache, yarn, clay, engraved copper, bog bone, bog crab, lace, ribbon, shells (snail and other) from Barrington Beach, snail shell from Topanga Canyon, The Two-Year Stick, Scottish crab arm, light of the full moon, acorn hats, love and affection, glass, glue, wire, pinecone, dried flowers, felt, precious stones, clear varnish, retribution.

The Proto-Animal (affectionately referred to as Andrewsarchus)

Performance concept developed by Rah Gerg, Kira Saks, and Steph McCullough

Built and puppeteered by Rah Gerg and Kira Saks, photographed by Steph McCullough and Shirai Kang