In anticipation of this year’s Earth Day celebrations, Wallkill Valley Land Trust joins The Muse to present Frederica Chapman and hilary melcher chapman, a lively mother-daughter duo, who bring to life songs, poetry and embodiment of their animal guides in Wolf Water Owl. Singing to the rivers, springs, and ocean bays, making prayers of their bodies in motion, they embrace their hearts’ desires for the health of the waters and respect for all beings. Frederica and hilary’s performance is influenced by their journeys to the Scottish Highlands to deepen their ancestral roots and their sense of belonging. A production of Theater for the Earth, Wolf Water Owl celebrates the wisdom of the Divine Feminine, with deep honoring of the Earth.

In Wolf Water Owl, hilary brings her language craft, expressive body and wolf nature, while Frederica calls on her soulful writing and shamanic channeling of spirit and owl for this luminous piece. Together, they reveal their longing to belong on this earth and with each other.

This special evening is a soul journey, drawing together these two venerable women, 40 years apart in age, who weave their voices into a personal story of the human-nature connection. The duo’s previous performances include Motherland Belonging (2024), a piece cultivated in Scotland, directed by Quebecoise director Suzanne Lafontaine, and performed in Aberfeldy, Perthshire and Tamworth, NH.

A portion of this evening's proceeds will be donated to the Wallkill Valley Land Trust.

Artists' Bios

In 1986, led by her dreams, Frederica Chapman, a Masters-prepared, psychiatric nurse, left a 15-year therapeutic practice to study Jungian dream analysis in London. The dreams instructed her to perform for the Feminine in churches and cathedrals. When in a second dream, a frog appeared to say that his pond was polluted, she wrote a revised fairytale out of The Frog Prince, giving the Princess claim to her own power. Frederica’s life path became storytelling, mask-making, gathering women performers, and directing. With her deep care for Nature, she founded a non-profit theater company in 1996, Veronica Women’s Theater, later renamed Theater for the Earth. Frederica began storytelling with her Masks of Nature at the 1992 Earth Day Conference in Rio de Janeiro. Frederica holds a Sound healing practice in Sandwich, New Hampshire.

hilary melcher chapman (she/they), in collaboration with their mum, have performed embodied poetry in Theater for the Earth’s recent show, Motherland Belonging, in Scotland and New Hampshire. They have been creating performances local to Brooklyn and the Catskill Mountains since 2011. She has performed and taught with LAVA from 2012-2025, received a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, and recently created aerial silks shows as RAVEN. Born in Maine and living internationally since she was a child, hilary has always been reverent and wild. IG @shinybreathing, @howlwalks; Substack: @hilarychapm

Contact the host of Wolf Owl Water

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