The Sea Around Us or A Muse, Me Pisces and The Bottom Fell out of the Tub

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?”