MCLA Presents, Kinodance Company from Boston
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| Arts Gallery 51 Annex Thursday, September 24, at 6 p.m., 7 p.m., and 8 p.m. |
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. - The summer-long DownStreet Art exhibition The Refractive Kinescope by Boston-based Kinodance Company culminates with three multi-media dance performances in the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts Gallery 51 Annex Thursday, September 24, at 6 p.m., 7 p.m., and 8 p.m.
This event is part of DownStreet Art Thursday, an evening of gallery openings and activities at numerous downtown venues.
Inspired by silent film, The Refractive Kinescope includes dancers who move throughout the gallery and slides illuminated by model trains.
The steam locomotives transport projector bulbs that illumine over 200 celluloid film frames selected from films made between 1910 and 1928. The frames form a ribbon spooling between two reels, spanning the entire space.
Kinodance leader Dedalus Wainwright says the idea began with the notion of what it is like to sit in a movie theater and look over one’s shoulder at the light as it comes out of the film projector, which he represents sculpturally in the installation.
“The idea is that you are in the interior of a film projector,” he says. “I was thinking about the film and the light being the most important parts. Because it made sense to present the images to the audience horizontally, it required the light to move instead of the film.”
Choreographer/dancer Alissa Cardone spent much of the summer in the MCLA Gallery 51 Annex, experimenting with the installation.
“It’s sort of evolved from working with particular films in that particular space,” Cardone says. “It’s really about relationships. It’s almost vaudevillian in how the dance relates to the images in the space.”
The performance involves two characters.
“It’s an interaction between a man and a woman,” Cardone says. “It eventually moves into a union, and then the final sequence of images is the power of the female character in these movies and the incredible silent film actresses. They were a huge influence.”
The dancers reconstruct the embellished gestures, zealous eye movements, exaggerated postures, and dramatic spatial pathways of the films with manipulations of speed, focus, and movement quality influenced by Butoh and contemporary dance forms.
Kinodance Company is an artist collaborative founded in Boston in 1999 by Wainright, Cardone, and filmmaker Alla Kovgan out of a passion for the kinetic arts, experimentation and a strong belief in the power of interdisciplinary collaborations.~ Since 2004, core members include choreographer/dancer Ingrid Schatz and lighting designer Kathy Couch. The Company was selected as one of Dance Magazine’s “25 To Watch” in 2008.
The Boston Herald says Kinodance Company viewers are “surprised and refreshed by every event,” calling their work “lush and sensual, mysterious and vivid.”~ The Boston Globe describes Kinodance as “a breathtaking synthesis of live and filmed dance.”
Cardone says The Refractive Kinoscope, which was commissioned by DownStreet Art, is different from anything Kinodance has done before.
“It was really exciting to work with an installation space,” she says. “The piece was really made for the installation. And the luxury of having the space there since June and through October has been great. The proximity of the audience is great because it really adds to the intimacy of the piece. You kind of can’t keep your eyes off it.”
Tickets for Thursday’s shows are $7 general admission, $5 for MCLA faculty and staff and non-MCLA students with valid id, and free for MCLA students and MCLA Presents! members. Call the box office at (413) 662-5204 for reservations. Seating is limited.
For additional information and a complete listing of the MCLA Presents! season, visit www.mcla.edu/presents. To become a member of MCLA Presents! and receive free tickets to all shows, call (413) 662-5229.
MCLA Presents! brings to North Adams and the MCLA campus some of the world's finest performers in music, dance, theatre, and spoken word.~The series includes performances by Alex Torres and His Latin Orchestra, Watcha Clan, and Emeline Michel.
MCLA Presents! and DownStreet Art are projects of MCLA’s Berkshire Cultural Resource Center.
