Dark Matter -- Cluttered Interiors-- Minimal Interiors-- Interior/Exterior Stills--Interior/Exterior Sequences--Black on Black-- Final Sequences

Final Sequences

During one of the last two residencies the final concept emerged. After reviewing the imagery and time based sequences that we had developed thus far we are devising an idea of evolutionary arc of beauty in modern art. We follow this turn of a spiral in the context of three painting formats: a landscape, a portrait and still life, starting and returning to white canvas.

We start with a prologue - a view of infinite ocean, which is a manipulated version of the sunset on Hudson video with the skyline cropped out of the view. The prologue is intended to run while audience gets to their seats. Dancers improvise.

Landscape

The second sequence is entirely based on pastiche painting by Albert Bierstadt Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains (used with permission). The most reproduced of all american paintings this represents a common standard of beauty that is rooted in divine origin and nature. Over the course of about 10 minutes the depicted scene slowly emerges from white canvas. In the end of the sequence waterfall and clouds are animated to emphasize the pastiche. The sequence starts with a solo by Kathleen Hermesdorf. Sound incorporated recordings of Kathleens answers to questions addressing personal history, posed and edited by Ain (a cool decision on his part was this method of generating text for NB).

This is an abbreviated version of the Bierstadt sequence, which developped slowly for about 10 minutes during in the version projected during performance.

In the next transition a heavy baroque-style golden frame is fading into the Bierstadt scene. Now clearly a painting inside the golden frame it shrinks to take its place on a wall inside a neutral dark space which can be seen both as a gallery and a home.

The room turns (the wall with the painting is still) and a door is now visible. The door opens and three video realities are framed within it, one after in other, all in slow motion. Juxtaposed with now small and removed Bierstadt painting we see a parade in the streets of NYC, a beach and headlights of night traffic through the opened door.

The Bierstadt painting gradually fades to black, the frame now is a gaping hole into the darkness. Slowly the darkness penetrates projection space from the open door and the empty frame. Projected space goes to black.

In the beginning of this sequence all six dancers are present, but stage quickly empties out and leaves a duet of Cynthia and Angie in front of the open door looking out on the beach. By the time traffic video is seen through the door all dancers are back on stage and movement becomes very chaotic. It occurs to me that as the projected space submerges into black and the movement becomes more frenetic in the settling darkness, this section is a far better version of "black on black" then projection alone. Below is an abbreviated version (another 10 min sequence in performance version)

Portraits

The next projected material is video portraits accompanied by more monologues edited from discrete answers. No animation in this section. Video is slowed down and barely treated. Dancers are a small group in the corner or off stage.

Still Lifes

The final projected sequence starts in a dark quiet setting and is accompanied by a quartet of dancers on chairs. From the stillness of photos the scene comes into view gradually "thawing" from the small corner of an interior with a chair into a view of the winter woods. Another simultaneous interior and exterior this one ultimately disintegrates into white abstraction and fades to white completing the visual circle of the performance. The final solo, an epilogue, is lit with stage lights and no projections.