ELDRED, NY — NACL Theatre of Highland Lake will present The Carpetbag Brigade, an international stilt theatre company, in a special pop-up stilt show at The Corner in Eldred on Saturday, June 18 at 4 p.m. Inspired by the challenge of climate change, and speaking in transformational metaphors using the craft of acrobatic stilt walking, “Callings” is a poetic homage to the sirens of the sea. The ghost of a sea captain and the primal siren confront the sailors of commerce, seducing them into an awakening realization that the ocean is a living being.

Internationally renowned director and choreographer Jay Ruby cultivates spectacle drama “using principles of precarity practice.” He and the artists of the Carpetbag Brigade apply modalities of theater, circus and dance to address the inequities and wounds of our times. For those who enjoy the work of NACL’s resident Stilt Corps, this is an opportunity to experience raw physical power, sensuality and multidisciplinary pageantry on a (literally) grand visual scale, in service of a deep message: we are stewards of the ocean; the ocean is our planetary mother; if we are to survive, we must treat her with humble, loving, discerning respect.

San Francisco Weekly wrote, “Callings, a piece on superstition and then search for meaning, is lyrical, acrobatic and extreme, using ropes and oars to evoke the ocean as the dancers tower in the airy reaches of artificial height.”