Premiered: September 13, 2018 | CounterPulse Theater, San Francisco
What does it mean that we, as a society, have gone into a behavioral retrograde at such an astonishing rate? How is it that what was inappropriate, unthinkable, cruel, ignorant, racist, and sexist… has been made acceptable, even ‘normal’ in such a short period of time? Technology has transformed the manner in which we perceive and interact with the world around us, but has it transformed us?
And yet… technology that augments an artist’s hand or a dancer’s body offers the promise of unmatched expressivity: cool blue mists fall from our forms during moments of ease, flames of red and orange shoot from our hands when we’re angered, and phosphorescent orbs of light fly to and from our hearts in moments of connection. Can we instead dance with our common humanity, enhanced by the very technology that so often is used to wedge us apart? The potential of such a technological, personal, and social transformation is what we hope to express with our performance.
InCivility Pt. 2: Outrage Machine is part of the 2018 CounterPulse Combustible Residency. Over the last 8 months, we have been working with John Fesenko, a developer, to create a real-time reactive system that reads movement and projects images to enhance the energy behind that movement.
From CounterPulse:
“Combustible is a lab for intersecting art practices from dance and technology, carving a place to be deeply inquisitive and experiment on the edge of what is known. This year we present works that confront fractured geographies, behavioral retrograde, and the digital divides in our everyday lives. In a city deconstructed, can technology help us form connections?“
More photos:
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- Photo by Robbie Sweeny
All Photos by Robbie Sweeny, Featuring Derek Harris & Hien Huynh