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May 17, 2006

@ Beyond Dance Film: Physical Expression

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Wear + Tear

@ Beyond Dance Film: Physical Expression and Visual Media, Hammer Museum Courtyard, Saturday, June 10, 8 - 11pm. Beyond Dance Film is a unique installation of 25 international short dance films that explores the body and movement as a means of expression through all kinds of electronic visual experiments projected continuously on multiple screens and surfaces throughout the Hammer Museum Courtyard.

Wear + Tear; Interactive Performance; USA 2005/18 min; Director: Eric Koziol; Choreographer: Mei Yin Ng--Inspired by the quest for perfection, the degradation of a dancer’s body over time, medical imaging, and robots, Wear + Tear presents the dancer as a newly created robot. A series of repetitive physical tasks akin to a self-diagnostic are augmented by the sounds of mechanistic limbs and joints as body-mounted surveillance cameras permit the audience to adopt the perspective of the robot-dancer’s wrist and knee.

As the robot-dancer malfunctions, another series of tests uses rays of light to mimic an internal diagnostic as video projected directly onto the body reveal its inner workings. Making visible the normally invisible aspect of dance, these interior views of the body are synthesized from animated sources that include machine part, graphic depictions of the Chakras, Japanese anime, time-lapse photography, and “cellular animation.

As the robot-dancer begins to sputter, spin, and fall, the viewer’s perspective shifts to beneath the floor. Nearly exhausted, it drags itself across the floor as an awareness of its own deficiency conjures up a mental image of a body trapped inside a bubble. The restricted movement mirrors the body’s own limitations, revealing that perfection is impossible to achieve and that, from its inception, this bio-machine is destined to break down.

Wear + Tear was co-produced by the LEAP Festival 2005 Liverpool, UK

Eric Koziol: A founding member of the media collective H-Gun Labs, director Eric Koziol has collaborated with musical artists such as Nine Inch Nails, Public Enemy, Sound garden, De La Soul, Diamanda Galas, as well as television personalities Howard Stern, Roseanne Barr, and Michael Moore. His film and video work encompasses both experimental single screen works and multi-screen interactive video environments for theater, music and dance. His films have screened in the Dance on Camera Festival in New York, American Dance Festival, Cinema Museum Moscow, Fillmore Far East in Tokyo, and TTV Festival in Riccione, Italy. His live multi-media works have been showcased at PS 122 in NYC, Ontological Theater NYC, The Leap Festival in Liverpool, Rotterdam International Film Festival, and Boston’s Cyberarts Festival.

Mei Yin Ng: Chorographer and dancer Mei Yin Ng has collaborated with Remote Control Productions/ Michelle Laub in Europe, Nyo-Ba & Dancers in Malaysia, AMEYE in New York City, and choreographers such as Sally Gross, Bryan Hayes, Manuel Alum, Karl Hoass/ Damage Control & Maureen Fleming. The founder of the interactive artists collective Mei-Bee Whatever Company, her work has been presented at Dance Theater Workshop, La Mama Etc., PS122, Movement Research, The Construction Company, Italy’s Fabbrica Europa, and the International Choreographer’s Platform in Almada Portugal. Her work with Mei-Bee whatever has been funded by the Manhattan Community Arts Fund & a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship.

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Posted by jo at May 17, 2006 08:37 AM

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