I'm always heaping praise on Cedar Lake, especially for how they've embraced the Internet and reached out to dance bloggers. But this time, I think that Cedar Lake has missed an opportunity to connect the themes and explorations of this new work, choreographed by Jill Johnson, to the participatory nature of the Internet and the desire of audiences (at least some) to be more directly involved in the creative process.
I expand on this disconnect below. But first here are two videos about this upcoming installation:
"The Copier" explores basic ideas of copying, following and replication by using the traditional photocopier as a springboard for their investigations.
But what I've learned so far about this upcoming installation leaves me wanting more.
First, why am I not being asked to participate in a creative fashion in The Copier? I stand on-line in Starbucks. I forward emails. I see examples everyday of replicated patterns. Do I and others have nothing to contribute to these explorations?
Here's Evan's description of a movement-generation exercise led by Jill Johnson:
The studio was silent on Monday afternoon as four clusters of Cedar Lake dancers were weaving their arms together, paying attention to the way their wrists, elbows, and shoulders folded into or retracted out of the others. The complexity of the movement and resulting image would come from the layering of the limbs. "Don't move until you're moved", instructed Jill Johnson, the Canadian choreographer of Cedar Lake's upcoming installation The Copier. "Think of all sides of your arm, not just the inside and outside." This exercise, which later Jill told me was informally called "spider-hands", was one of several tasks that Jill gave the dancers on the first day of rehearsal.
Well, why doesn't Cedar Lake and Johnson invite the Internet audience to create their own "spider-hands" videos and upload them? It would be fun to participate in a project of creating improvisational snippets of interwoven hands and arms.
Second, Evan highlights how Cedar Lake wants to cultivate a new type of audience that is engaged in a non-traditional setting with a dance work:
Additionally, the installation is an interactive piece between the audience and the dancers. Without a defined boundary between stage and seats, the audience - collectively and individually - will become part of the composition, resulting in a slightly different performance each time. "I'm curious to see how the public will circulate. Hopefully I've designed a space where people will do that."
Clearly, Cedar Lake is not the only dance company to explore non-traditional environments for showcasing dance. In addition, I don't understand how specifically the audience will become part of the composition. Simply by standing in one location instead of another the flow of the work will change?
I want more. I want to be involved. I want to be part of the action.
For me, the ideas and themes that are being explored in conjunction with how the Internet is being used to promote this piece, simply call out for a more proactive way to engage the audience.
"Body Navigation" Dance Installation and Danish Dance Theatre's "Labyrinth"
"Body Navigation," from the Recoil Performance Group, is an interactive dance installation that was part of Danish Dance Theatre's "Labyrinth" performance, which premiered this past May in Copenhagen:
Body Navigation is based on responsive digital media that allows for the dancers to create graphics with their movements in the stage environment around them.
Based on rules and structured in a game-like manner, the installation makes way for a playful dialog between the video artist and the dancers.
Ole Kristensen, one of the installation's video designers, provides a brief technical overview of the tools used to create the infrared tracking and interactive video projection:
We used Processing for the infrared blobtracking of the dancers and drawing the open gl graphics. During the performance video designer Tina Tarpgaard controlled the whole thing live from an Isadora-based interface via osc.
Danish Dance Theatre's Labyrinth
New York City-based Chris Elam, artistic director, Misnomer Dance Theatre, was one of the choreographers participating in the creation of Danish Dance Theatre's "Labyrinth."
Karl Cronin's "Human Geography" and Picture Tour on Ikea Water Taxi
Yesterday evening I attended Karl Cronin's "Human Geography and the Practice of Presence" program in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
Karl is an iLAB 2008 Artist in Residence. iLand is an interdisciplinary arts project created by Jennifer Monson.
Below you'll find pictures of my trip on the Ikea taxi boat that I took from the East River just south of Wall Street to Red Hook. The weather was spectacular and the program was fun and engaging. As you'll see below I only have a few performance pictures of Karl. I'm not usually big on interrupting performances with lots of pictures, but I do wish I at least took a couple of pictures of Maggie Bennett who also performed.
Karl described last night's program:
An evening of movement and experiences and experiments -- through a series of guided practices led by the collaborators, participants will have the opportunity to explore different ways of relating to space using their kinetic experience as a starting point.
And a summary of this research project:
The collaborators will conduct movement research based on two leading theories from the field of Human Geography: Action Network Theory (ANT) and Non-Representational Theory. These two theories have been widely debated within the field of geography, and in their own ways postulate a manner of being in space that involves interacting directly with one's environment--moving beyond layers of semiotics and abstracted representations.
I'll probably be meeting with Karl next week and I'll write more about last night's program and the focus of his project about human mapping.
You can click on each of the following pictures to see larger images:
