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AUDIENCE REVIEW: Lostwax Multimedia Dance | PARTICULAR
Company:
Lostwax Multimedia Dance | PARTICULAR
Performance Date:
10/26/2012
Company / Show / Event
Lostwax Multimedia Dance | PARTICULAR
Performance Date
10/26/2012
Venue / Location
RISD Auditorium, Providence, RI
A bit about you:
(your occupation, the last time you moved, your website, etc.)
Nupur Shridhar received her degrees in Creative Non-fiction and Biology from Brown University in 2011. The above review is part of an ongoing work documenting the lives of artists, urban farmers, and other activist groups in Providence. She is currently a teacher at the Wheeler School and an intern at the Providence Plan, where she is involved in several projects aiming to visualize data from the RI Departments of Education and Health.
Freeform Review:
PARTICULAR, by LOSTWAX Multimedia Dance, is an absorbing multimedia exploration of individuality in an increasingly crowded world. Inspired by the algorithms used to model the flocking behavior of birds and fish, LOSTWAX director Jamie Jewett stages a compelling, entertaining, and strikingly human narrative, derived, almost paradoxically, from data.
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| Ali Kenner Broadski -Lostwax Multimedia DanceChoreographed by Jamie Jewett Photographer Namwoo Bae |
Jewett’s choreography sharpens that edge between the individual and the mass body: his dancers swirl both together and apart, each new movement seemingly out of sync for a fraction of a second before the overarching rhythm, the shape of the entire murmuration, first becomes apparent and then beautiful. There are moments of being lost, moments of self-discovery, and, perhaps, a moment of finding love -- unique story lines skillfully spooled from the same set of tightly-wound mathematical formulas.
Interspersed between acts are clips from videographer Aaron Henderson, whose shots provide an intimate glimpse into the creative process: a dancer’s face during rehearsal, in that concentrated instance before -- a leap? A fall? Often, the camera pans to a different face, a different arm, before a movement is complete, and in this way, Henderson draws attention to each dancer’s idiosyncratic, individual form even as he maintains his focus on the larger social body.
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| Kim Solo-Dancer - Kim Johnson-Lostwax Multimedia Dance-Choreographed by Jamie Jewett-Photographer Jamie Jewett |
What gives the piece its particular edge of excellence, however, is the even-handed collaboration between Jewett and composer R. Luke DuBois, who also synthesizes real-time visualizations of his electro-acoustic sounds. DuBois’s score includes everything from a catchy wobble bass to the chaotic sounds of a kitchen drawer emptying onto a tiled floor. Yet far from detracting from the choreography, the hypnotic soundscape illuminates each phrase: feet hitting the stage at the same time as a pulse of white cuts through a dark screen at the same time as the beat drops, bounces, and finally rolls into a corner of the room.
In this light, PARTICULAR becomes a multidimensional performance-organism, larger and more compelling than each of its individual collaborators. Its curiosity with the intersection of emerging technologies, the body, and communication pushes toward something new, and arguably truer and more relevant, to this, our information-dense age.
PARTICULAR premiered at FIRSTWORKS, October 26th - 28th at the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. See a trailer or the whole piece on their website www.lostwax.org
