|
|
PROJECTS |
|
WELL
click to enlarge
In Well four dancers hover above, float within, and encircle a large water-filled copper pool designed by visual artist Michael Dowling. Skin, copper, light, and water captivate the eye while powerful dancing creates an elemental depiction of women as the keepers of water. |
SURFACING
click to enlarge
Inspired by the birth of her son and his environment to that point in life, Bennett continues to work with the element of water in Surfacing. Here dancers Christine Bennett and DeAnna Pellecchia dive, spin, and slide across 20-foot spans while hydroplaning. Repetition and momentum create the rippling undercurrent that powers the dancers across the surface between air and water. |
back to top
THE NET
click to enlarge
The Net relies on the use of a large rope net (18' high x26' wide) designed by Dutch visual artist Pieter Smit. The dancers navigate the web-like terrain and become entranced by its magnetic poers. Dancers swing on ropes, taking on the characteristics of giant pendulums. Strings are plucked with each intriguing movement as a dancer makes her way across the porous wall. The large rope net, at first an unknown barrier, ultimately allows the dancers to reach into transformed spaces with motion and momentum in this obscure landscape.
|
INNER HOUSE
click to enlarge
Ghosts, dreams, rooms, memories, and grandmothers are at the core of Inner House, a collaborative piece centered in, on, and around a 6 x 6 x 8-foot yellow ochre house with silver tiled interior by visual artist, Michael Dowling. The original music composition by Grayson Hugh is a rich tapestry of acoustic instruments, voice, and text The Boston Globe has called "gorgeous." Combining a time-bending, poetic narrative with athletic physicality, dancers Christine Bennett, Alissa Cardone, Amie Laster, DeAnna Pellecchia, and Ingrid Schatz reveal the personal histories within the walls of the house. |
back to top
BOUND
click to enlarge
The collaborative production of Bound integrates an exploration of multi-layered verticality. Underneath the 50-foot high glass dome of the Boston Center for the Arts' Cyclorama, five 30-foot high columns created by Beth Galston form a looming and surreal environment. The dancers (Christine Bennett, Alissa Cardone, DeAnna Pellecchia, and Ingrid Schatz) are either earthbound or bound for something higher as they utilize stilts at times to reach full height in relation to their environment. To a sometimes-delicate sometimes-fierce score by Henryk Gorecki, the dancers undergo a physical and emotional metamorphosis much like the development of child to adult. In three sections, this visually striking performance will challenge the viewer's perception of vertical limitations.
|
BRIDGE
click to enlarge
For the creation of Bridge, Choreographer Christine Bennett worked with a T'ai Chi practitioner and guest performer Leda Elliott to incorporate T'ai Chi movement into Modern Dance. The choreography attempts to bridge a public space with a performance space, Asian culture with American culture, and Chinese martial arts with contemporary dance. In Bridge, the five dancers drop like leaves from a large tree and progress through a flower garden. As they cross over a wrought iron fence and onto a brick courtyard, red fans snap and the dance accelerates. The dancers create a cultural map in their journey from the garden to the courtyard, as if they are discovering a new world. |
back to top
MOVING STILL
click to enlarge
The collaborative production of Moving Still integrates slide projections by Liz Linder with 3 dancers who are encased in life-sized frames. Linder's photographs are black and white images of the performers with the content ranging from a face pressed against glass to a full body in flight. The slide projections and the movement portray human life forming, desiring, struggling, and ultimately mastering a given environment. In response to the frames the dancers find themselves suspended in mid-air, swinging by their arms, existing upside-down and moving as if under water in an effort to navigate a progression toward wild abandon within the controlled space. At times the movement is simultaneous with the images, at times it is an outgrowth, and at times a preceding factor. The images and the movement, like pieces of a puzzle coming together, create a new world by traveling through a realm of possibilities within the four edges of the frames.
| |
