Author: Aurélie Mathieu

Source: Lyon Capitale. fr

Propelled into a stark white set and starting with sounds suggesting the power of breath, the dancers quickly established a delicate inner world. Constructed of collective and individual upsets and moments of joy,

SCUBA gives us a look at what's going on in choreographers' minds across the country. This year's artists explore themes of science and fantasy from some mind-boggling perspectives. In "Symptom," Minneapolis-based BodyCartography Project provocateurs Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad attack "the slippage between subjective and objective understanding of the human body." The two are known for investing heady subjects with visceral theatricality.

A new work by Body Cartography Project uses dance, music and visuals to explore a dystopia world.

"They crackle with radioactivity, lurch and stagger, break into convulsive silent laughter.

excerpts from Geographies of Media and Communication
by Paul c. Adams
published  by Wiley-Blackwell

Nonrepresentational Geography

What appears as both real and problematic through nonrepresentational geography could be called a "translation landscape- (Wakeford 1999: 193) but this "landscape- cuts loose from the fundamental geographical assumptions about landscape.

Watch the 1/2 life preview

When I think of multidisciplinary performance art, I usually imagine a melding of theater, dance, visual art, and maybe some slides or video projection. BodyCartography Project's 1/2 Life, now playing at the Southern Theater, has all that, with one addition: physics.

by Lightsey Darst  

December 2, 2009
source: mnartists.org

Lightsey Darst reflects on the offerings at this year's Choreographers' Eve showcase, curated by BodyCartography Project, and on the lively (often heated) audience conversation online that has followed in its wake.

Memories of late dance icons abound

REVIEW: This year's dance sampler was dedicated to Pina Bausch, Merce Cunningham and Michael Jackson.

Curators Olive Bierenga and Otto Ramstad of the BodyCartography Project dedicated Saturday night's Choreographer's Evening performances to a trio of late, great dance icons -- Pina Bausch, Merce Cunningham and Michael Jackson -- and reminders of their legacies, intended or not, were apparent throughout the show at Walker Art Center.

Author: Gregory Scott

Date December 10th 2009

Source: vita.min

“The BodyCartography folks don’t mess around,” says Art of This Gallery artistic director David Peterson. Such praise is typical of the potent, prolific dance company led by Otto Ramstad and Olive Bieringa, who have spread their conceptual rigor to such far-flung venues as Burning Man, the New Zealand Fringe Festival and Paris’ Gare au Théâtre.

Texts from participants of the "Special Places and Choreography" Choreography Conference which took place at the University for Music and Dance Cologne, Germany in June 2009 will be published later this year and available from Amazon. The publication will include several pieces and images from the work of the BodyCartography Project.

Edited by Friedericke Lampert and published by LIT-Verlag, Germany

DANZ QUARTERLY 17

From Wellington to Lyon by Jenny Stevenson
Otto Ramstad and Olive Bieringa of The Body Cartography Project have gone from site-specific work in Wellington to choreographing France’s Lyon Opera Ballet.

To read more

author: Mette Garfield

date: 27th of April 2009

source: Terpsichore Magazine

“The American dancer and choreographer Otto Ramstad explores the nervous system in an installation with white threads hanging from the ceiling. Nerve fibres, maybe? In Hello Nervous System, Ramstad allows his audience to sense how the nervous system is a meeting point for and affects the whole body.

author: Vibeke Wern

date: 27th of April 2009

source: Berlingske Newpaper

“In his work »Hello Nervous System«, the American body-equilibrist, Otto Ramstad, who is a specialist in the method Body-Mind Centering, explores how the nervous system spreads a web of attention through the body. He continually creates new absurd movements in each body part.”

Olive Bieringa of the BodyCartography Project based in Minneapolis, talks with Eva Yaa Asantewaa on her Body and Soul podcast about plans for next month's SEEDS Festival of arts and ecology. Now set to launch its second summer at EARTHDANCE in Massachusetts, SEEDS is an international, interdisciplinary festival, forging connections between innovative artists and scientists.

Listen to the interview

author: Quim Pujol
date: 01/13/09
source: http://www.tea-tron.com/quimpujol/blog/


Original Spanish version below. Here is a poor English translation

This collaboration with Otto Ramstad Olive Bieringa leaves very good taste in the mouth because it has a very personal quality.

author: Matt Peiken
date: 01/01/09

author: Marlon Solanos

date: 12/29/08

source: dance-tech.net

click the link to view the interview

Station/Stationary featured on the BBC

author: By Camille Lefevre
date: 09/14/07
source: The Star Tribune

Excerpts

The local on-site theater troupe Skewed Visions is staging the two-part "Strange Love: Device & Performance," inspired by the film "Dr. Strangelove," in the basement of the Casket Arts building in Minneapolis. And Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad,

VISITING OLIVE BIERINGA'S CLASS "IMPROVISATIONAL COMPOSITION"

07/31/08

Author: Sabina Holzer

Source: CORPUS

“Phenomenology establishes a relationship between the subject and the objective world through the body. Most of the time the bodily movements are restricted to daily actions: at other times unusual patterns of movements serve no longer the primary conservation of life but the movements transform into dance.

author: Linda Shapiro

date: 02/19/08
source: minnpost.com

Excerpts

Dance as everyday experience
Radicalizing the process involves making dance a part of everyday experience, rather than something that occurs only in isolated studios and enclosed theater spaces.

date: 02/09/08

A great publication about site specific dance practice and festivals. Features comments from the BodyCartography Project.

Download a copy here.

author: Camille LeFevre

author: Claudia La Rocco
date: 12/31/07
source: New York Times

This article discusses DTW's Fresh Tracks performance series and features Otto Ramstad discussing is participation in Fresh Tracks in January 2008. For full article click on the New York Times link above.

author: Justin Jones
date: 10/08/07
source: Movement Research

Justin Jones recently interviewed Olive and Otto about their new show Holiday House. You can listen to a longer version at the above link for Critical Correspondence.

author: Caroline Palmer

date: February 2007

source: City Pages

author: Graydon Royce
date: 10/17/06
source: Star Tribune

Melancholy mixed with mirth Wednesday as the Twin Cities dance community gathered for the second annual Sage Awards.

author: Rita Felciano

date: August 2006

source: San Francisco Bay Guardian

One of the great things about putting dance on screen is that it casts dancers into unusual environments.

author: Alys Longley
date: 05/01/06
source: Proximity

Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad's BodyCartography Project has played an important role in the New Zealand improvisation community, through their regular visits here for the development of award winning site specific performances for the Wellington Fringe Festival,

author: Otto Ramstad

date: 03/25/06

source: Contact Quarterly

The senses develop in sequence: kinesthetic, touch, smell and taste, and then vision. When our vision is developing we associate it with all the other sensations that we have that have more fully developed.

date: 11/12/05
source: The San Diego Union - Tribune

Excerpt

“ The evening's most experimental piece -- a film called "Drywash" - - came from Minneapolis-based Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad of the BodyCartography Project.

author: Olive Bieringa with Otto Ramstad
date: 06/06/04
source: Contact Quarterly

This article was published in Contact Quarterly in 2004, Vol 29, Number 2 and appears on behalf of CQ and Lila Hurwitz. Click on the PDF to download the article.

I would like to discuss the growth and transformation of our work with the BodyCartography Project since 2000 and how its core concept continues to inspire and feed our art making and our daily lives.

date: 03/18/03
source: Evening Post

It was an afternoon of glitz and glamour for Wellington theatre as the Fringe New Zealand Stellar Awards were handed out last Sunday. Big Congratulations!!! to the BodyCartography Project who were the overall winners at Fringe 2003 with their dance and music ensemble, LAGOON.

date: 12/12/02
source:

Beyond the Myth

The Myth of Unison presented by Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad of The Body Cartography Project of Minneapolis had the simplicity of a quaint children's folktale. With each performing a long solo sequence, the piece drew the audience in with its force of intimacy.

Olive Bieringa and her BodyCartography Project have returned for two performances only in Wellington, with their unique performance idiom - the charting of public spaces through dance.

It's a typical blustering Wellington weather the day I meet Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad at Brava. Hot, dusty and wearying. For once I pass on the obligatory latte and opt for a vaguely virtuous lemonade, than god. Olive and Otto arrive looking like they are poster children for a San Francisco juice bar, steam cleaned skin and bodies that have never seen the manky end of a Marlboro soft pack. The wholesome duo order a pot of green Tea and a Muffin. An hour later I'm swearing to myself that BodyCartography performances are the one unmissable experience for the Fringe 2001.