| LIQUIDBODY
DANCE REPERTORY |
| LiquidBody
dance uses an improvisational structure of choreography that mines the
particularly rich and exciting jewels of possibility presented by a
fluid systems approach to the body. The water we are mostly made
of is an amazingly resonant medium that is highly responsive and mutable.
The use of sound and breath is a powerful way to shape movement, leading
to a wealth of new movement vocabulary that has a deep kinesthetic impact
as well as being visually stimulating in its organic complexity and
coherency. This also leads to interactive possibilities for resonant
connection with the audience in ways that exponentially raise the bar
on the movement potential in performance. The energy and flow
of the audience is a palpable element in the mix that supports live
performance, and this can be enhanced or focused with a sound or simple
gesture. No two evenings are exactly the same (though the structure
is apparent through repeated viewings) and there is an immediacy that
is irreplaceable. Live world music played by acoustic instruments
rich in overtones, including the Indian sitar and the Aboriginal didgeridoo,
deepens the contours of the performance. Video projection adds
a magical and organic visual layer to some of the pieces. Aerial
dance segments enhance the physical dynamism in select pieces as well. |
Alchemy
is a solo multimedia dance that takes place inside powerful projected
video images of the four alchemical elements – earth, air, fire
and water. The dancer and the dance are revealed by the movement
which transforms with each elemental shift. This shift is enhanced
with the help of the audience toning on sounds that correspond to each
element. Live music includes sitar, didgeridoo, bouzouki, voice,
percussion, chimes, water drum, rainstick and water. |
Beacon
is a multimedia dance work that projects a live duet on the back wall
behind the dancers. Particularly evocative, gestural moments are
captured in freeze frame by a video artist and slowly dissolved back
to the live gestural dialogue onstage. These moments become beacons
of sculpted light allowing the viewer to experience the dance both as
the exquisite flow of dialogue between the dancers in real time, and
also as resonant sculpture beyond time. The audience voices periodic
O sounds that fall like pebbles rippling a pond to further dimensionalize
the experience of the radiance of the captured moment within a continuum.
Live music includes cello, sitar, voice and tanpura. |
| Primal
Resonance is an audience-interactive live dance work that
includes aerial dance segments and multimedia projections. The
performance takes on a ritual format to create a participatory environment
in which to experience dance as a communal event. Structured around
the primal ritual of a call and response, the audience is invited to
participate in creating a resonant field through sound which catalyzes
in the dancers deeply kinesthetic movement that the audience is encouraged
not only to take in visually, but to actually feel in their bodies.
Then during select moments in the piece, the dancers pause and
the audience is guided to explore their movement response first while
still seated with their arms, then legs, and by the end of the piece
with their whole bodies while standing in front of their chairs.
LiquidBody movers, monochords (ancient Greek instruments), and singing
bowls surround the audience and amplify and add coherency to the resonant
field. Live music features percussion, sitar, didgeridoo, crystal
bowls, singing bowls and voice. |
Meeting
in the Shimmer was created in response to the events of
9/11. It points to a place where it is possible to meet in a fundamentally
creative and regenerative way deepening the possibility of birthing
new structures that will sustain life. Working with the image
of the egg (set designed by visual artist Paul Wirhun) and the activation
of the embryogenetic field through extremely slow, qualitative, C-curve
spinal movement, LiquidBody initiates a dialogue with the audience.
A simple hand and spine movement sequence coupled with a mantra
of sounded names brings everyone into vibrational relationship. The
voiced names are recorded at each performance and added to the score
as the piece continues to grow in its relationial scope. Meeting
in the Shimmer is a multimedia stage work with a video backdrop projected
on a fabric sculpture designed by Gisela Stromeyer that visualizes some
of the nonlinear spaces referenced by the piece - the shimmer that appears
before an embryo forms, the essence of regenerative energy, totipetant
space, and the cycles of dissolving and forming organic structure. World
Music of Nana adds percussion, sitar, didgeridoo, waterphone and voice.
It is structured to grow and in addition to the accumulating recorded
audience name tones it has grown from a solo, to a duet, and is now
a quartet. |
| Haven
was commissioned by the Puffin Foundation to commemorate the opening
of the environmental art park Teaneck Creek, and featured footage of
five LiquidBody dancers interacting with the natural environment and
the cultural artifacts discovered there for Part I – Field. This
footage was sculpted live by LiquidBody’s video artist. Part
II – Pool featured a trio of dancers in a fabric sculpted pool
of water on which footage of a pond was projected creating a 3-D moving
sculpture that the audience journeyed into another room to view.
Part III – Trees began with three dancers moving within a video
panorama of LiquidBody dancers dancing amidst trees in the park which
culminated in an audience interactive sequence in which one at a time
audience members were guided to enter the space and link into the arboreal
sculpture the dancers had created. Each section had audience interactive
toning led by Nana Simopoulos whose ensemble played live sitar, bouzouki,
gongs and other world and electronic percussion. This piece can
be done with the footage gathered in Teaneck Creek, but would ideally
be created anew within other natural environments.
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After
Dark is a duet that begins with a couple in a very recognizable
social dance stance. As the music begins, they melt out of the
predetermined relational structure into movement shaped by what is happening
in the moment. Each point of contact becomes a well that receives
the vibration of the music, the resonance of the audience, and the communication
between them. The music from which the dance takes its title,
composed by Nana Simopoulos, is a duet between sitar and cello, and
is played live. |
| Invocation
is a solo dance work centered around the resonance of a Chinese gong
and the interaction of resonance between the audience as they respond
with a toned O sound to the striking of the gong. This dance can
be performed with the actual gong onstage, or can be done with a virtual
gong projected in video triggered by a video artist in response to audience
interaction. This is a work that is very adaptable to changing
stage conditions, and has worked equally well on big stages as well
as in intimate bookstore settings. |
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