| 1/2 Life | | Print | |
|
"haunting"
Star Tribune
"channeling the collective unconscious of the 21st century"
Dance Magazine
photo Sean Smuda "The bomb is a gift, confronting us with our mortality as a species.” Physician and activist Helen Caldicott
½ Life investigates the survival of the body amidst a world of scientific research, data, and control. The performance hovers geographically at the edges of the Pacific Ocean - connecting nuclear super power USA, atomic survivor Japan and nuclear free New Zealand. A contemporary ritual to address our dormant nuclear nightmares. Dance and video artists Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad bring together an extraordinary collaborative team including composer and harpist Zeena Parkins, visual artist Emmett Ramstad, physicist Bryce Beverlin II and performer Takemi Kitamura.
"visually stunning" mnartists.org Check out the Star Tribune preview "Think globally, dance locally" + watch a preview on 3 Minute Egg + read more from TC daily Planet Thoughts on the BodyCartography Project's "1/2 Life"
photo Sean Smuda The project has been supported with residencies at the Kyoto Art Center and The Headlands Center for the Arts and funded by the Rockefeller MAP Fund, the Jerome Foundation, Public Art St Paul, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, the Archibald Bush Foundation, Arts International, Minnesota State Arts Board, Moore Family Fund and this activity has been funded, in part, by the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008.
photo Sean Smuda
Collaborater bios
Zeena Parkins is sound artist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, improviser, well-known as a pioneer of the electric harp, has also extended the language of the acoustic harp. She has received numerous awards and commissions to provide scores for film, video, chamber orchestras, theater and dance. She has collaborated and/or performed with Fred Frith, Christian Marclay, Pauline Oliveras, Bjork, John Zorn, and Yoko Ono amongst others.
Emmett Ramstad, a Minnesota native, makes visual art and collaborates as a writer, set and costume designer and performer with Morgan Thorson, The BodyCartography Project and others in addition to installing art shows at Yerba Buena and SFMOMA. Visit Emmett's website.
Bryce Beverlin II is a multidisciplinary artist and scientist residing in Minneapolis where he explores various forms of art, primarily music. Bryce is also currently pursuing a PhD in Physics at the U of M conducting research on neural network behavior. Visit Bryce's website.
Takemi Kitamura is a native of Osaka whose work has been presented at many venues in NYC where she lives. As a dancer, she has worked with numerous choreographers and companies, such as Nami Yamamoto, Sally Silvers, Sondra Loring, to name a few. She is also performs Japanese sword fighting with Samurai Sword Soul. Visit Takemi's website. photo Sean Smuda
MSP Critical mass: Sinan Goknur, Andrea Zimmerman, Becky Olson, Sophie Rog, Taja Will, Jennifer Arave, Romina Takimoto, Kimberly Lesik, Emma Rainwater, Melissa Birch, Laressa Dickey and Nick LeMere
NYC Critical mass: Sinan Goknur, Becky Olson, Taja Will, Jennifer Arave, Kimberly Lesik, Emma Rainwater, Melissa Birch, Laressa Dickey, Melissa Guerrero, Sharon Mansur, Laura Grant and Nick LeMere
Project History Since 2005 we have been developing physical, visual and aural material from locations of relevance around the Pacific specifically within Japan, New Zealand and West Coast of the USA. In the past we have built works in abandoned WWII military bunkers in NZ and the USA (Marin Headlands & Fort Worden) such as ROOM our first dance video work. These spaces are deeply evocative on all levels and are in many ways inscribed with a history of a conflict that never actually took place on NZ or US soil. Now nature is reclaiming these spaces with rust eating the metal doors and hinges and plants breaking through the cement. On a research trip to Japan in 2005 we sought locations for a possible site performance or film screening. Many places associated with this moment in history were difficult to find because they destroyed, forgotten or hidden or are still active US military bases. We found a gas weapons factory in the Seto Sea, a haunted shell of a building where many people were poisoned making weapons during WWII on an almost forgotten island. By contrast modern Hiroshima has fewer sites as gritty, but it does host the incredible Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in the middle of Peace Park and an empty white tiled hospital still stands, a place where many survivors where brought in 1945.
For the gallery installation of 1/2 Life which took place at Art of This Gallery, Minneapolis in December 2009, we probed the invisibility of radioactivity and the immortality of plastic by creating a large amorphous plastic "ocean" and an explosion on radioactive rocks from test and wastes sites and power stations from around the Pacific and USA. The work was sewn in the gallery over the course of the installation by collaborator Emmett Ramstad. This work will become part of the set design for the evening length work.
Performances
January 28-30th 2010 Southern Theater, Minneapolis co-sponsored by the University of Minnesota's Institute for Advanced Study
NYC February 10-14 2010
Documentation of additional events
Listen to an Olive and Bryce discuss the project for the Bat of Minerva Body and Knowing Symposium, Institute of Advanced Study presented a 1/2 Life talk and workshop and a link be found here.
1/2 Life collaborators talk with Zeena, Olive, Otto, Bryce, Emmett and Takemi and Arwen Wilder that took place at Southern Theater, Friday January 29th
1/2 Life collaborators talk with Zeena, Olive, Otto, Emmett and Clarinda MacLow at PS122, Friday January 12th
1/2 Life dance and physics workshop, took place at the Southern Theater, Saturday January 30th The workshop uncovered some of the physics and physical layers from the performance work 1/2 Life with co-directors Olive Bieringa, Otto Ramstad and physicist Bryce Beverlin. Short physics lectures will fed into scores for solo and group dancing. Unraveling how science and embodiment practices come together in our choreographic process.
photo Sean Smuda
Want to learn more about the nuclear Pacific and atomic history?
An interview with Dr. Helen Caldicott co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility and author of numerous books including her latest "War in Heaven: The Arms Race in Outer Space"
New Zealand's Nuclear free history
New Zealand tops the World Peace Index for 2009
France's nuclear testing in the Pacific
1998 ex-servicemen seeking compensation
A virtual tour of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum |
