darkness/light

This past weekend was the big performance of "Collaborations: a dance concert." It turned out to be a really great show all-around. The piece I worked on, "Darkness/light," ended the show with a bang. I was wildly impressed with the lighting, the costuming, the choreography, and especially the dancers! Those girls were fearless! They climbed on and in and through my sculpture with such grace, despite the fact that they had only gotten to practice with the structures a small number of times.

I'm hoping to get some video clips soon, but for now I have some photos to share. These are shown in order of their appearance on stage. As you can see, the stage starts out dark, and the dancers are in silhouette. Next they move behind the screen (or "wave" as they like to call it), and gradually, the light comes up and the audience can see them full light.

Did I mention how incredibly awesome these girls are?!

thanks to Arianna Megaro for the photos!

Collaborations: a dance concert

This weekend will be the debut of a project I've been working on for the past few months. For part of this dance performance, centered upon the theme of collaboration, I have been working collaboratively with choreographer and CofC dance faculty, Gretchen McLaine, to develop an interactive sculpture/set for her dancers. The entire set is composed of three pieces... an object on which the dancers will climb (as seen in the image above), a screen behind which the dancers will be making shadows, and an overhead piece that will be flown in (mainly for visual effect).

It's been a truly collaborative process. My design was inspired by Gretchen's concept for the piece, which we've titled Darkness/Light, as well as my own aesthetic and interest in interaction. Gretchen's choreography was built upon the elements that I designed. The choreography is also designed with costuming and lighting in mind. When all the elements come together, it is quite an incredible production. Definitely worth checking out, if I do say so myself...
If you can't make it to the show this weekend, we will be performing an excerpt at Kulture Klash on April 9th... more on that to come!