This piece, inspired by our Summer improvisation in Ft Tryon Park, will eventually be fused into The Seasons Project. This first showing, an sectional outline, if you will, (...of Paradise) is a holographic image of the mating worlds of birds and humans in preparation for love. We are inescapably human, but how much of what we do to get ready to woo is mirrored elsewhere in the natural world? The Birds of Paradise preen and clean themselves and their homes to charm their mates. Don't we humans do the same? Through the lens of the multitude of colors, smells, sounds, and tastes that summer offers us, let your senses brim with the ripeness of the season and its excitements.
Performance at Under Minerva, 656 5th Ave, Brooklyn, NY. 8pm, tickets are $6.
Thank you friends who joined us in Ft Tryon Park on August 3! It was great to see friendly faces and meet some new folks. And thank you dancer friends (young and old) who surprised us with your willingness to jump right in and participate along side of us. We had a beautiful day for it, and our setting overlooking the river was gorgeous. For the improv, Dawn guided us through noticing the sounds (lots of birds, rustling leaves, an ice cream truck, and the occasional airplane overhead). A guitar player nearby inspired us with Flamenco-like rhythm and melody. Other highlights were a red-light/green-light inspired improvisational game and a wind-blowing-trees study. We spent a lot of the time exploring bird-like movement, something Dawn is focusing on in the studio with the dancers right now. She is working this fall to cull that material from our Summer improv into a dance section to be shown at Under Minerva later this month and then ultimately as part of the larger project. We were also able to capture these sounds for our future sound score. Stay tuned for more details, and for our Fall improv date.
This year we will be holding an outdoor improvisation to coincide with each season of the year, each in a different Manhattan park. After the initial park improv we will be heading into the rehearsal studio to cull our days' discoveries into a distinct section of a larger dance work, with a seasonal section choreographed under the direction of a different key VIA choreographer. At the end of a years' time we will have a full dance with movement and score based on our reflections of the changing seasons. We want you to contribute to this project: In addition to being invited to each seasons' outdoor event, we'd love for you to join in online here. More info on VIA Dance Collaborative is always available at www.viadance.org.
Funding for The Seasons Project
The Seasons Project is made possible, in part, by The Fund for Creative Communities and the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, funded respectively by the New York State Council on the Arts and the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs, and administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. And of course, by the generous support of people like you.