Conceived as a “biotech fiction” by Australian choreographer Gideon Obarzanek and interactive software creator Frieder Weiss, Glow transforms a solo dancer into a mutant figure both sensual and grotesque. As she slides and thrashes across a white floor, her form generates a constantly shifting digital habitat of projected light. Her smallest gestures are captured by an overhead tracking system, while interactive video technology creates motion graphics that shift in real time in response to her movement. The Sydney Morning Herald called the piece “lasting in its eerie intrigue.” The Age praised the dancing as “flailing, joint-crunching action... a high-velocity missile, with only occasional respite.”

The official premiere of four new projects created through the DANCE MOViES Commission, the only major program in the U.S. to support new works that fuse dance with the technologies of the moving image. These projects represent the second round of this commission and encompass a single-channel video installation made from animated 3D scans of a dancer and three dance films spanning the gamut from Depression-era musical, to love story, to dancing full throttle through city streets. The screening is followed by a presentation and open discussion with the artists and filmmakers. Afterwards, all are invited to a reception in EMPAC’s café.

DANCE MOViES COMMISSIONS 2008-2009:

Body/Traces (USA) Created and co-directed by Sophie Kahn and Lisa Parra, choreography by Lisa Parra, music by Sawako Kato, performance by Lisa Parra and Tina Vasquez, 3D scanning/animation by Sophie Kahn. (USA) Using a DIY 3D laser scanner and stop-motion 3D digital animation to track a dancer's movement through space and time, Body/Traces is a single-channel video projected at life-size. Illuminating the physical presence and disappearance of the body, this work addresses the questions: What happens to the body in motion when it becomes a still image? And what becomes of that image when it is returned to the moving body whence it came? (7 minute looping video installation) Body/Traces was supported by a three-week creative residency at EMPAC in January 2009.

Eyes Nose Mouth (USA) Choreographed and conceived by Noémie Lafrance, directed in collaboration with Patrick Daughters with music by Brooks Williams. (USA) Inspired by our physical, emotional and psychological relationships to spaces that are public versus private, “Eye Nose Mouth” follows single characters navigating through a series of changing landscapes. The site-specific choreography reacts to the urban and natural environments creating a narrative thread that evokes the characters' transforming emotional states. (10 minutes)

Looking Forward—Man and Woman (Brazil/The Netherlands) Directed by Roberta Marques, choreographed and performed by Michael Schumacher and Liat Waysbort (Brazil/Netherlands). This film is a love letter from a man to his wife at the end of their long lives, and simultaneously a portrait of a younger couple at the beach, where both the waves and time run backwards in opposition to the drift of fate. The second film in a trilogy that plays with the reversal of movement and time in video and dance to create mind-binding illusions. With excerpts from the poignant Lettre à D. by the social philosopher and writer André Gorz. (10 minutes)

Sunscreen Serenade (USA) Directed and choreographed by Kriota Willberg. Sound by Carmen Borgia. Illustration and design by R. Sikoryak. (USA) In homage to Busby Berkeley’s flamboyant kaleidoscopic style of the 1930s, scantily-clad finger puppets tackle the contemporary issue of ozone depletion. Cheerfully dancing in formation, the diminutive dancers deliver a gentle reminder that environmental and political trends come and go, much like the drift of our culture through movie fads. (5 minutes)

In this “mixtape for the stage,” the poet and hip-hop theater sensation Marc Bamuthi Joseph traces hip-hop’s evolution from a local and highly political art movement to a worldwide cultural force. Taking its lead from journalist Jeff Chang’s Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, The Break/s is a multimedia travelogue of Planet Hip-Hop, where an art form forged in the street meets the commercial and cultural stresses of globalism. Through movement, spoken word, and personal narrative, Bamuthi shows us a world where even kids in Senegal dress in counterfeit FUBU-wear and sing along with Tupac Shakur. The Washington Post calls The Break/s “a thunderous, expansive and deeply felt wrestling match with being an American in the 21st century.” Featuring live music by remarkable human beatbox/percussionist Tommy Shepherd and DJ Excess, and live video by David Slzasa. Directed by Michael John Garcés Produced by MAPP International Productions

Nuria Fragoso is a Mexican artist, dancer, and performer whose work explores the phenomenon of space as a social reality and as shaper of human relationships. A recipient of a DANCE MOViES Commission, Fragoso came to EMPAC first to research, and then to complete post-production on Anatomy of Melancholy. Shot in Mexico in contrasting environments including stark black-and-white interiors and a parched desert environment, the film uses visual metaphors about space and emotion to portray the quality of melancholy in social groups, catalyzed by the inadequacy of communication between individuals. Choreographed collectively by the performers, the film was edited in residence by Fragoso and Martha Uc; also working in residence, Antonio Russek created the film’s original sound.

The workshop gives a practical introduction into artistic uses of video motion sensing technologies. Frieder Weiss develops his own software for stage use, which mostly uses video cameras to analyse and visualize the movement of the dancers. The workshop will introduce Eyecon and Kalypso software. Eyecon links physical movement spaces with computer generated sound environments. By drawing virtual zones on screen you enable the mapping of human movement to real time sound and visual media. Kalypso software allows visual effects based on body outlines; similar to what was created for Chunky Move's Glow. In the workshop participants will be able to understand and learn the basics of the software, set up a customized interactive environment and get a chance to move and try out the experience. Experienced computer users are invited to attach systems which they are using: we will be able to interface to systems like MaxMsp, Flash, Isadora etc. A discussion about artistic implications and results will round up the workshop. Limited to 15 participants. Weiss will also be giving a talk about his participation in and observations of the ‘dance tech’ genre over the last 15 years on Wednesday December 3rd.

Dogugaeshi takes its name from a 17th century Japanese stage technique, in which sliding paper screens depicting animals, interiors or landscapes are whipped away by puppeteers to reveal new backdrops. It has been called a “wood-and-paint version of multimedia.”

Basil Twist takes the technique as a departure point for an intimate, contemporary work of puppetry influenced both by the the tradition of dogugaeshi and his own encounters with the remaining rural caretakers of this once popular art form.

Blending lightning quick sliding screens, a magnificent puppet of a white fox, trompe l’oeil perspective, and video projection, and accompanied by original shamisen compositions created and performed live by authorized master musician Yumiko Tanaka, Twist creates a magical and meditative miniature universe.

Originally from San Francisco, Basil Twist is a third generation puppeteer, who lives and works in New York. He became the only American to graduate from the École Supérieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette in Charleville-Mezieres, France, one of the world’s premiere puppetry training programs. Twist is the director of The Dream Music Puppetry Program at HERE Arts Center. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and is a United States Artists Fellow.

Tere O’Connor looks to concepts of adaptability in contemporary architecture as source for the intimate and shifting environment of Rammed Earth. Audience members are incorporated into the expanding, contracting, liquid space of this site-adaptive dance work, as they are moved into different places within the space throughout the performance. The dance unfolds around them in layers of meaning, gesture, energy and emotion.

In all of O’Connor’s works, he aims to connect the rational and the unconscious mind, so that shifting perceptions create a web of personal and historical impulses. This work was sparked by his interest in sentient architecture, in which structures form in response to temperature, climate or human interactivity. Though the title of the work refers to a building technique, it has a metaphorical resonance. In Rammed Earth there is the suggestion of force, of an environment under siege.

O’Connor’s boldly individualist approach to choreography has contributed new thought to the form and resonates throughout its theoretical discourse. He is presently engaged in a deliberate detachment from narrative with a desire to shed light on dance as a sub-linguistic area of expression. O’Connor’s astounding performers and renowned collaborators constitute a family of artists, together for over 20 years, who are dedicated to expanding the potency of dance as a serious art form for our time.

Frédéric Bevilacqua, leader of the Real Time Musical Interactions team at IRCAM — the Paris-based Institute for Music/Acoustic Research and Coordination — will share his current research in gesture analysis and software development, including real-time demonstrations of potential applications in music and dance.

Bevilacqua and his colleagues are working on new paradigms for music performance and the interaction between gesture and sound processes. His most recent research involves the development of new interfaces for music expression, gesture analysis for performing arts, and music pedagogy.

Bevilacqua works at the intersection of the scientific analysis of movement, the engineering of creative interfaces, and artistic collaboration. He is regularly invited to participate in the development of artistic projects that make use of real-time motion capture data to generate other elements of the piece, such as the movement of a dancer driving the sound.

His team created a software system called the “gesture follower,” that can learn and recall specific gestures performed live by a dancer, allowing for the system to be able to recognize and react to a learned sequence of movement. The “gesture follower” system will be demonstrated live with a dancer.

The workshop will also feature the violinist/composer Mari Kimura who will demonstrate different features of the “augmented violin.” Mari Kimura will wear a custom fitted “augmented violin glove,” for easier wearability and elasticity for performance. They will explain how the “gesture follower” can be used in this scenario and Kimura will play some musical excerpts of pieces she composed using the “augmented violin.”

In Cathy Weis’ work, performers partner with technology to negotiate the boundaries between the recorded and live, the electronic and human, and real and imagined experience in surprising, whimsical, and moving ways. Two new works by the Guggenheim fellow and Bessie award-winning artist were commissioned by EMPAC and created during a two-week artist residency.

The Sea Around Us or A Muse, Me Pisces blends pre-recorded underwater footage with live performance into a dreamscape of radically shifting scale. Performer Scott Heron is in a tug-o-war battle of the great and small, proportions and power.

The Bottom Fell Out of The Tub exists in the intersection of dimensions: where the 2D image interrupts 3D space. Jennifer Monson maneuvers a rolling screen that bends shadow, light and the projected image of the live video. The merging and reemerging of these dimensions create moments of surprising disorientation and revelation. The subsequent performance included an excerpt from Electric Haiku: Calm as Custard from Weis’ Electric Haiku series. When the original series premiered in 2002, it was selected by The New York Times as one of the top 10 dance events of the year. Imbued with Weis’ characteristic inventiveness and wit, this excerpt presents four haiku from Calm as Custard and asks the question: “When technology and the human body become partners, who leads?”

In Cathy Weis’ work, performers partner with technology to negotiate the boundaries between the recorded and live, the electronic and human, and real and imagined experience in surprising, whimsical and moving ways. Called by The Village Voice “a pioneer at fusing dance and video,” Weis creates multidimensional environments that stretch the audience’s perceptions of space and dismantle habits of vision.

The two newest works by the Guggenheim Fellow and Bessie Award-winning artist, entitled “The Sea Around Us or A Muse, Me Pisces” and “The Bottom Fell out of the Tub” were commissioned by EMPAC and supported with a two-week artist residency.

“The Sea Around Us or A Muse, Me Pisces” blends pre-recorded underwater footage with live performance into a dreamscape of radically shifting scale. Performer Scott Heron is in a tug-o-war battle of the Great and Small, proportions and power.

“The Bottom Fell Out of The Tub” exists in the intersection of dimensions: where the 2-D image interrupts 3-D space. Jennifer Monson maneuvers a rolling screen that bends shadow, light and the projected image of the live video. The merging and reemerging of these dimensions create moments of surprising disorientation and revelation.

The final half of the evening is an excerpt from “Electric Haiku: Calm as Custard”, the 2005 installment in Cathy Weis’ “Electric Haiku”series. When the original series premiered in 2002, it was selected by The New York Times as one of the top 10 dance events of the year. Imbued with Weis’ characteristic inventiveness and wit, this excerpt presents four haiku from Calm as Custard and asks the question: “When technology and the human body become partners, who leads?” Like the poetic form for which the work is named, the vignettes are as rich as they are brief, full of unexpected juxtapositions, sudden transformations, and downright delight.

As a teenager, Cathy Weis performed as a soloist with the Lousiville Ballet. She went on to study dance at Bennington College, dance as a member of a touring bluegrass band and was a featured tap dancer with a group of San Francisco street musicians. She later turned from dance to other artistic pursuits — stained glass, video. Moving to NYC in 1983, she began video documentation of dance and performance artists in the “downtown” milieu, and captured rare performances of countless influential artists. Over 13 years, Weis produced a unique archival record of performances from an eclectic and proscribed period in the history of NYC art-making. In 1994, Cathy Weis began presenting her signature blend of live performance and video with what Tobi Tobias has called, her “ingenuous homemade aesthetic that allows room for both funk and fairy tale”. The Village Voice calls Cathy Weis “a pioneer at fusing dance and video” and “one of the most innovative dance and video artists we've got.” Cathy Weis received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002. She lives and works in NYC.