One way to describe the difference between art and architecture is that architecture is an extension of design, which exists to solve a problem. Art, on the other hand, is created out of the ether, a realization of an individual’s imagination. These loose definitions take on new life in the current exhibition at Chelsea’s Hendershot Gallery: combining multimedia artwork (dance, sculpture, photography, painting, and video) as a response to the built environment, “Architecturally…” is a collection of synapses firing between multiple artistic disciplines. We’ve got details on the closing ceremony this weekend, plus images of a massive painted installation on the roof of the gallery.
Thanks to Oprah’s “Kickoff Party Dance” the Flashmob phenomenon has arrived in North Dakota. The video after the jump features the F-M Square Dancers from Fargo, North Dakota and Moorhead, Minnesota performing to the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feelin’.”
There are a lot of good moves here including but not limited to: the down clap; recycle & row; headphones; pray; slo-mo run. What’s your favorite?
TwentyFourBit reports that comic book god Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell) will collaborate with Gorillaz on a followup to Damon Albarn’s 2007 opera, Monkey: Journey to the West. In exchange, the band will curate a few pages of Dodgem Logic, Moore’s new bi-monthly magazine.
Moore explained the mutually-beneficial deal in an interview with MustardWeb: “[Gorillaz] came down to Northampton last week because we’re planning for me to do the libretto on their next opera project. Being an opportunist, I of course asked them if they’d be prepared to contribute some pages to Dodgem Logic. Rather than just doing an interview with them, I thought it would be interesting to hand over a few pages for them to curate.”
Dance, like other performing arts, is tragically hit or miss. This beautiful clip from Cedar Lake‘s epic production of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s new full-length work Orbo Novo is the former. We saw a special press preview of the piece earlier this year, and it’s an awesome exploration of the power of the brain, placing the audience inside a woman’s mind as she’s having a stroke. Dancers squeeze their bodies through an intricately designed cube and writhe together in perfect harmony and dissonance to beautiful music marked with pointedly profound atonality.
Winifred Haun has been making dances in Chicago for twenty years. She started while a member of the Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theater, and has had her own company, Winifred Haun & Dancers, since 1991. Several Chicago companies have presented her choreography over the years, including the Chicago Ballet. From 1994 to 2001, she was the force behind Chicago NEXT Dance Festival, recognized as a top producer of new and emerging choreographers in the Chicago area. She is currently a modern dance teacher with the Hubbard Street dance studio.
In 2005, in collaboration with Dawn Marie Galtieri and Christopher E. Ellis of the arts organization, Voice of the City, she co-founded Circle in the Square: New Works in Dance Theatre. Circle in the Square became the laboratory for building her first full-length work, Promise, which premieres this weekend at the Ruth Page Theater in Chicago. We talked with Haun about how John Steinbeck’s East of Eden influenced the making of this dance — and why you won’t see any direct references in the final piece.
If you’re looking for your 15-minutes, give Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” a shot. As you’ve probably heard, it’s one of the best videos of the year (or, y’know, all time). Seemingly everyone’s doing it, and by now, you’ve seen it again and again and again. Last night, the boys of FOX’s Glee took to the field and gave it a shot. A team of football players dancing to “Single Ladies” before the snap might be the best knock off we’ve seen yet, for the sheer absurdity alone. Now we’re ready to put ‘er to bed for a while. How about you?
Huntsville is a small college town in east Texas, arguably better known for the state penitentiary (and the executions that are carried out there) than for Sam Houston State University. It’s certainly not known as a center for dance. Enter Andy and Dionne Sparkman Noble, both new faculty members at SHSU in their Dance Department. The couple met while dancing in college and have followed both individual and tandem careers. Both have danced and choreographed for Utah’s Repertory Dance Theatre, the University of Utah, and Florida State University (among others), and their individual resumes include such names as Paradigm Dance Company, Bellingham Repertory Dance Company, Tallahassee Ballet, American College Dance Festival, Joe Goode, and Stephen Koester. Read More »
If you fast-forward through commercials, you might be missing out on some of the best dancing on television. In an effort to capitalize on our current obsession with all things dance, companies like Ikea, Nike, T-Mobile, and Ford have been making spectacular use of choreography in recent years – and we think this is an excellent excuse to create a list of some of our favorites. Read More »
Yanni will always have the Acropolis, the Taj Mahal and Beijing’s Forbidden City. But when it comes to performing in the shadow of major historic landmarks, Brooklyn’s own David Fishel has the New Age pianist beat by a long shot. In the past two years, Fishel has danced at more than 50 sites across Europe and the United States, with landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum, the Golden Gate Bridge and Times Square providing the backdrop to his performances. He films all of his dances and posts them on a site called Davey Dance Blog. Read More »
