1708 Gallery/ InLight 2025 spotlight:

SUPER!GIANT!JUMP!STAR

Friday, October 17 & Saturday, October 18, 2025

7-11 pm

Abner Clay Park, Richmond, VA

1708 Gallery’s InLight, the annual public exhibition of contemporary art experienced at night, will shine a singular spotlight this fall on Super!Giant!Jump!Star!, the long-awaited grand premiere of artist George Ferrandi’s multidisciplinary project: Jump!Star. In a first for InLight, the 2025 edition will feature Jump!Star as the sole artistic focus—transforming Abner Clay Park into a dreamlike cosmos of light, sound, and ceremony.

Conceived to commemorate the eventual celestial shift from our current North Star to our next, Jump!Star is an ongoing, international collaboration inviting communities to invent the cultural traditions that future generations can use to ritualize saying goodbye to Polaris. Over the years, these collaborations have yielded original songs, dances, and giant illuminated paper sculptures representing the stars that will eventually take Polaris’s place in the night sky. All of these luminous sculptures and lush traditions will premiere at InLight this fall.

Join us October 17th and 18th as Richmond becomes a site of interstellar celebration.

Meet our future north stars

⭐

say goodbye to polaris

⭐

Meet our future north stars ⭐ say goodbye to polaris ⭐

become dark matter!

Communities across the country have been working with Jump!Star's creative director, George Ferrandi, for the past several years to build large, lightweight illuminated sculptures made of wire and paper. We are seeking over 100 participants to carry (“dance”) eleven sculptures in a procession at Abner Clay Park during InLight. Participants are referred to as "Dark Matter" since the sculptures represent stars, and dark matter is what keeps the actual stars in space....

Do you want to be Dark Matter for an amazing, otherworldly evening experience at InLight in October?

OF COURSE YOU DO!

This Jump!Star performance will happen on October 17th and 18th at this InLight at Abner Clay Park. Performers will receive a commemorative T-shirt, souvenirs and eternal gratitude!

• You’ll be required to attend one full dress rehearsal on October 16th on site in Abner Clay Park.

• The live performance involves two 20 - 30 minute sessions of processing with the sculptures after dark. One on October 17th and one on October 18th.

The sculptures are very lightweight illuminated constructions, so not heavy to lift, but there may be a breeze to deal with in addition to gravity. We’ll be carrying them mainly on a flat, grassy field, but we do have to enter the park down a short incline.

Become a Dark Mater VOlunteer

Name

First Name

Last Name

T-Shirt Size

Dietary Restrictions

Snacks will be provided!

Event Schedule***

Friday, October 17

7:00 PM Richmond Symphony

7:15 PM Future North Stars arrive

7:30 PM Goodbye Ritual Writing

8:30 PM Mirah and Ebenezer Baptist Choir

0:00 PM Procession and Lantern Parade

00:00 PM Polaris Procession

Saturday, October 18

7:00 PM Future Love from Stage

7:15 PM Mirah performance and Sculpture Procession

Hello Ritual Writing

8:15 PM Ceph Ceremony

8:30 PM Traditional Barn Dance

9:30 PM People’s Dance

Performers

Jherek Bischoff is an American composer, songwriter, arranger, producer, and multi-instrumentalist. His credits include over a dozen albums as a solo artist or band member (The Dead Science, Parenthetical Girls, Shudder To Think), over sixty albums as a musician, arranger, producer, or engineer (Andra Day, Regina Spektor, David Byrne), music for symphony orchestra, opera, film, theater, and ballet (So Fragile, So Blue; Exhibiting Forgiveness; The Ocean at the End of the Lane); and concert performances around the world (Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Glastonbury Festival). Utilizing orchestral, electronic, and rock instrumentation, Bischoff blends contemporary classical, ambient, and experimental rock music.

The Richmond Symphony performs, teaches, and champions music to inspire and unite our communities. Founded in 1957, the Richmond Symphony is the largest performing arts organization in Central Virginia. The organization includes an orchestra of more than 70 professional musicians, the 150-voice Richmond Symphony Chorus, and 150 students in the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra Programs.

The Ebenezer Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia exists to love people and empower our community through the gospel of Jesus the Christ. Organized in 1858, the church has been an anchor in the city's historic Jackson Ward community.

Brooklyn-based Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn (b. 1974, Philadelphia) creates incorruptible independent pop music defined by her graceful songwriting and adventuresome recordings. Mirah has released over a dozen solo and collaborative recordings on K Records, Kill Rock Stars and various US domestic and foreign independent labels while touring the United States, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand many times since 1998.

Floorplay is a contradance band from Charlottesville, VA playing an eclectic mix of French Canadian, Old-time, Klezmer, Rags, Swing, and original tunes. They formed in the spring of ’07 and have been delighting dancers ever since.

Jee Sim works within the fields of drawing, sound, and performance. Sim’s visual and sound works and performances were featured at institutions including SeMA Nanji in Seoul; Museum of Fine Arts Galerija Umjetnina in Split; panke.gallery and HAU 2 in Berlin; Arti et Amicitae and Steim in Amsterdam; The 4th Anyang Public Art Project in Anyang; Agape Enterprise, Real Fine Arts, Park Ave Armory, and Brooklyn Museum in New York; Overgaden Institut in Copenhagen; The Center of Contemporary Art in Lagos; Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland, Hosfelt Gallery in San Francisco; Orange County Museum of Art; and Machine Gallery in Los Angeles. Sim’s music has been released with Care of Editions, DFA records, and Beats in Space records.

Aviva Jaye (she/they) is a performing artist & composer primarily wielding voice, piano, harp, guitar & ukulele. She often combines acoustic & electronic elements to unlock a portal for listeners to venture, exploring the dimensions of empathy, self-awareness, social justice & futurism. Her interdisciplinary work includes theatre, dance, paper arts & poetry.

Virginia Varland loves to dance— she also loves calling dances. She believes community dance is for all people, and supports local Virginia folk dance communities as a caller, organizer, ardent dancer and broom pusher. She values variety in a barn dance program, and selects dances she has enjoyed dancing herself. Her barn dance programs may include circle dances, Appalachian squares, scatter mixers, traditional contras like the Virginia Reel, and more! Virginia is recognized by her friendly demeanor on the mic, as well as her attentive care for dancer experiences.

Curt Sydnor is a composer and keyboardist living in Richmond, VA. Sydnor plays organ at historic St. John's Church in Richmond and plays keyboards for Javanese composer/singer Peni Candra Rini. He has released six albums under his own name of mostly original music. He is currently writing for and performing with his Richmond-based band, Sydnorigami, and preparing an album of canons by JS Bach arranged for synthesizers and drums (played by Deerhoof's Greg Saunier).