UNTITLED, Video Dance Performance, 2008

7 Looping DVDs

Each dancer generates sounds and movement from the same five-part score written, and timed from behind the camera, by the choreographer. The last part of the score was indeterminate in duration, causing the videos to fall in and out of phase with each other with each loop.

Each monitor is a portrait. The score includes a section where the dancer borrows melodic, lyrical, rhythmic or timbral qualities from a pop song. And the brass nameplate affixed to each contains a lyric from this song chosen by the dancer, and the corresponding dancer's name.

With this project, I am interested in emphasizing process, distance and mediation to expand definitions of choreography in an age of electronic communication and physical displacement. The studio process for this project consisted of working with dancers on improvisational scores and vocal exercises, and the evidence of our labors is the content of the videos. How is this mediated experience of dance a live performance?

In Untitled, each performer is present via a video monitor whereas the performers were never in the same room together during the composition process. The performers activate the space through their televisual presence and sound. Even when the dancer leaves the frame of the camera, the sound of their voice and physical activity is audible, foregrounding the production of presence through sound despite visual absence.

Dancers who participated in the process:

Sally Im
Christine Elmo
Chase Granoff
Frances Rosario
Deborah Karp
Cathy Richards
Sarah White
Sari Nordman
Biba Bell
Anna Sperber
Jacqueline Fritz

Choreographed by Nancy Garcia

Screenbased still

Untitled, Monday, March 10, 2008. Movement Research at Judson Memorial Church (NYC)

This performance was an experiment arising from a larger body of work encompassing issues such as the intersection of dance and sound, "live" vs. "mediated" experiences of dance, as well as expanding definitions of choreography in an age of electronic communication and physical displacement.

Performers: Biba Bell, Christine Elmo, Sarah White, and Nancy Garcia

Choreography: Nancy Garcia

Sound: Biba Bell, Christine Elmo, Sarah White and Nancy Garcia (based on an adaptation of a score by Pauline Oliveros)

Score used by the performers for the 3/10/08 Judson performance.

Click here for PDF of score.