Cave Art
Native Wisconsinite brings techno art to an ancient cave he knew as a boy 
by Geri Parlin
The La Crosse Tribune, La Crosse, Wisconsin, Thursday, September 28, 1995
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Composer, artist, technologist.

All of that describes Dan Senn.

He's also a little afraid of going into a dark cave.

So how is it he finds himself his days with a pickax and shovel in a dark cave near Yucatan, Minn.?

For Senn it's about tying together his past present.

Senn grew up in Watertown, Wis., and spent summers on his aunt's farm near Yucatan. High on a ridge which overlooks Black Hammer, Yucatan and Rooster Valley, there's a cow pasture overgrown with tall grasses and trees. Almost hidden by the trees are the remains of an old dance hall. And a few hundred yards farther along the edge of the bluff is an old cave with a new doorway.

It is this cave and that old dance hall that drew the adult Senn back to Minnesota.

Senn has come a long way for this reunion, leaving his wife and baby in Tacoma, Wash., while he creates a fusion of art, history and music for one weekend in this secluded spot.

Senn says he is amazed to find himself back in this time and space. What got him here was a grant from the McKnight Foundation, which was looking for rural art projects.

Senn thought the juxtaposition of contemporary art and technology with the centuries old cave would be a unique way to introduce rural America to contemporary art.

"They would probably never have crossed that threshold into the contemporary art world," says Senn. But in bringing contemporary art to a familiar setting, he says, it makes the art more acceptable and accessible.

'If someone doesn't care about contemporary art, he can just come and see the cave,' says Senn. 'I'm working on many levels and making every level complete."

Before Senn could begin on the artistic portion of the project, he had to do some back-breaking manual labor. He had to rebuild the doorway and put a lock on the cave to protect his equipment. "In the city, I always worried about thieves. Here, I worry about the cows knocking over the equipment."

For years, cows had been wandering into the front portion of the cave and depositing cow pies. Senn had to shovel all of that out and then go to work with the pickax to level the floor.

Mostly, the cows aren't too curious about what he's doing, says Senn. "But I noticed some cow pies here one morning, like they were checking it out."

With the cave cleared out, Senn could once more explore the cave where he spent so much of his youth.

"The cave frightened me," says Senn. And because he was frightened, he forced himself to the end of the 100-yard cave without a light. "I would test myself."

Upon his return to the cave, some of that old fear returned, says Senn, so he tested himself in the same way, traveling the entire length of the cave again without a light. With that out of the way, he cheerfully spends entire days in the cave cleaning and clearing, and installing the video monitors, instruments and lights.

"I have to think of the cave as just another gallery environment."

Part of the installation will be Senn's sculptural instruments, such as the pendulyre, which combines his visual and audio art skills. The instrument will be plugged in and programmed to play as tours are going through the cave.

Another important part of the installation are the oral interviews with people who danced at the dance hall and worked on the cave in the 1930s.

The dance hall had a very short history. The retaining wall was built in 1932. The cave opened in 1934 and the dance hall in 1935. By 1938, says Senn, the dance hall had closed, another victim of the Depression when $1 a couple was too steep a price to pay.

"It was very short lived but intense," says Senn.

When the cave was cleared out and set up for tours in the '30s, little attention was paid to what was there before. Senn says the cave was a burial site for the Winnebago and that skeletons were not treated the way they would be today.

"They just dug up the bodies and chucked them over the cliff," says Senn. 'They didn't know about archaeology, they were just trying to make a living."

By the time the first tour goes through on Oct. 7, Senn will have brought together all of the history, music, visuals and computers into an art installation that will give people a taste of the past and a glimpse of the future.

In the process, the two sides of his life - country boy and technophile - are coming into sharper focus and living more happily together.

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