16 [R]evolutions (2006)
Premiered: Eyebeam Art & Technology Center, NYC
Choreography & Direction: Dawn Stoppiello in collaboration with the performers
Videography, Music & Direction: Mark Coniglio
Dramaturgy: Peter C von Salis
Lighting Design: Susan Hamburger & David Tirosh
Costume Design: Dawn Stoppiello
Set Design: Joel Sherry
Performers: Robert Clark, Johanna Levy, Daniel Suominen, and Lucia Tong
Commissioning Partners: Arts Council England, essexdance, International Workshop Festival, Forum Neues Musiktheater, 3LD Art & Technology Center, Jerome Foundation.
Photo Credit: A.T. Shaefer
DESCRIPTION
16 [R]evolutions is a reflection on the positive and negative aspects of our animal and intellectual selves. The animal side appears brutal in its survival tactics, but maintains a pure and heightened awareness of its surroundings. The intellectual side has repressed the wild animal drives to allow social order. 16 [R]evolutions depicts the struggle of four invented characters who strive to synthesize these conflicted aspects of themselves. Live video camera tracking captures the dancers movements and generates real-time interactive 3D imagery.
ADDITIONAL MATERIALS
Watch the Full Performance Video (1h 5m)
About the technology in 16 [R]evolutions
REVIEWS
“There are other thought-provoking passages, like the opening when Suominen, Tong, and Robert Clark, bare-chested and wearing white briefs, stand staring, bent slightly forward from the hips. They walk in this apelike stance while, at the back, Johanna Levy slumps at a white table. The projections that create their environment look like striated hills made of ribcages, marked by the dancers’ shadows. The line-up-the-spine device is multiplied, and this time the lines shift on the floor, and the four have to keep up with them. One stunning (and trenchant) effect occurs: Not only do their shadows dance on a striated background, but other stripy, incomplete virtual selves fold in and out of the pattern.” – Deborah Jowitt, Village Voice (Read Full Review)
“The primary effect is vivid abstract images, black through every shade of gray to white – broken stripes, horizontal and vertical; calligraphic ribbons; thin-lined sketches of structures that look like futuristic architectural renderings. The dancers, on a large stage, perform on and in front of these projected patterns, sometimes casting black or white shadows; the stripes and lines on their bodies are so crisp that they look like flowing costumes. As they move, their bodies create fluxes in the field, strange and fascinating humanoid shapes mirroring their movements.” – John Rockwell, New York Times (Read Full Review)
“The imagery of the projections was tightly connected to the movement and helped to expand the meaning of the work. At various points a simple white line of light would appear on the floor downstage as a performer sat with his back to the audience… Danced as a solo, this duo of light and performer became a metaphor for a “line of thought” or “line of life.” As the piece evolved into an ensemble with a few performers interacting simultaneously with the light line, the separation and blending of lines questioned individuality and contact.” – Beliz Demircioglu, Dance Insider (Read Full Review)