BodyCartography Project Presents Lagoon
The BodyCartography Project Winners of Fringe NZ 2002
Best Dance and Best Outdoor Production in association with
Lambton Harbour Management is proud to present: Lagoon at
the Frank Kitts Lagoon, Wellington, 7.30 pm, March 7, 8 & 9,
2003 rain date March 10th, 7.30pm
The BodyCartography Project is proud to present LAGOON, an event that will reveal the vast space, life and beauty of Frank Kitts Lagoon and the city that surrounds it. We will dance on bridges, hills, in the water, in the air and in boats with powerful imagery and physicality interwoven with playful musical compositions. The Wellington air will be filled with sounds from the Pacific, colours from traditional Maori instruments, Latin percussion, contemporary and electronic instruments which will naturally intersperse with the sound of the environment of Frank Kitts Lagoon.
Lagoon is
built from the success of The BodyCartography Project’s last
Fringe show in 2002 which was seen by over 1200 people. It
is directed by Olive Bieringa (NZ) and Otto Ramstad (USA)
with music composed by Michelle Scullion (NZ) and will be
developed in collaboration with NZ and Australian dance
artists, musicians, media artists, non-dancers, students and
children.
The dancers will include Gabbi Deighton,
Levity Beet, Vicky Kapo, Val Smith, Sarah Campus, Wilhemeena
Gordon, Lynne Keary, Jade Tyaas Tungaal (Aus), Alyx Duncan,
Geoff Gilson, Maria Wortman, Olive Bieringa, Alyx Duncan,
Otto Ramstad and many others.
Musicians involved include
the composer Michelle, playing flutes and Koauau, with an
electronic score from her studio. Others will include Andres
Leper playing his extensive percussion rig, Pati Umuga on
electric bass, Joe and Ronnie Moe with Lee Hodgeson on Cook
Island drums (Pate) vocals and additional percussion. The
score will be amalgamate these instruments and musicians
with the dancers and the natural sound of the city. The
music will be a blend of prepared score and improvisation
moments reflecting dialogue with the dancers throughout the
performance.
Commissioned by Lambton Harbour Management
this new work will be a celebration of Wellington's
wonderful waterfront and the tenth anniversary of the NZ
Fringe Festival!
What is the BodyCartography
Project?
The BodyCartography Project is a movement and
dance ensemble that performs in public spaces, creating a
physical dialogue between ourselves and the environments in
which we work. Through focused research and playful
exploration the BodyCartography artists utilize movement to
explore the relationship between public life and artistic
expression across landscapes, communities and
countries.
The political nature of creating free dance events in public spaces is unique to the BodyCartography Project. Using dance as a tool to engage people in their physical reality as opposed to offering dance in the outdoors as a form of escapism or fantasy. Working with many improvisational dance and music techniques offers openings for new kinds of choreographic and compositional investigation and creation. Community interaction and participation are vital to their work. All of these distinctive features make this work unique to NZ, both to the dance community and the community at large.
Watch out for independent Lagoon artists performing in the BodyCartography Benefit at the BoatShed on February 21st at 8pm till late. Performances with a focus on new and improvisational work will be followed by a dance party. Keep us on the street- Support Public Art!
"BodyCartography :
Eye¹s equivalent of a
haiku"
Jennifer Shennan, Evening Post, 2002
"Dancing in
public is fighting for freedom"
Eric Fink, participant
1999
"the response was electric"
Apollonaire Scherr, SF
Weekly, 1998
"The nature of BodyCartography's work is
inherently political...Judging by the looks of sheer
exhilaration of participants and onlookers in past
performances, this is what 'art' is all about."
Sarah
Kinsman, City Voice, 2001
Since 1997 we have created
over one hundred and ten performance events internationally
with more than four hundred participants and reaching an
audience of tens of thousands. Performance highlights
include events in the ruins of Sutro Baths in San Francisco,
in a dump truck in Minneapolis, the Wellington harbour in
New Zealand, and the Burning Man Festival in the desert of
Nevada.
Images of our work have been seen in the NY Times, Chicago Tribune, Forbes Magazine and a feature article in Contact Quarterly.
Support for BodyCartography comes from Larsen Interactive, Moving On Center, Intermedia Arts, The Boston Foundation, Creative New Zealand, Forecast Public Artworks, The Vancouver Foundation, Zellerbach Family Fund, Hewlett Packard Foundation, Wellington City Council, Lambton Harbour Management among others.
to find our
more
http://www.bodycartography.org