C. Ryder Cooley has been Nippertown’s most talked-about performance artist since, well, forever?

A while back she did “Singing Tree” on the lovely Troy campus of RPI – right next to West Hall. Cooley was perched on a swing dangling from a tree branch high above the ground playing musical saw. Other musicians – and some just plain old normal people – gathered around on the ground around the tree and began harmonizing with her with their voices or musical instruments that they had brought.

Not necessarily harmonizing in any traditional sense, but rather in the most primitive, most basic fashion.

It was beautiful.

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