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Container or music series
Closer
Wellington 2021
Body Cartography Project
closer lays bare the power of physicality and presence through a series of one-on-one performances, for one dancer and one audience. Together we play with how the meeting between performer and audience generates the possibility for something new. Quotes: “They’re using real dance skills of sensing, paying attention, and examining perspective to redefine engagement.” Emily Gastineau, mnartists.org
“I found closer(solo) to be, a socially engaged, thought-provoking, movement-making, sensational performance art work.” Anna Bate, Theatreview
“closer(solo) animated our whole festival space with the frenetic act of spectatorship and performance.” Sam Trubridge, director of the Performance Arcade
“They are feeling. They are feeling their bodies. They are feeling their bodies awake. They are remembering the life of their bodies. We forget, and need each other to remind ourselves of our own beautiful, unfolding presence.” Karl Kronin
“The BodyCartography’s closer” will rave your soul. Through the idea of community it threads the spectator into a formlessness of pure sensation to re-emerge as a body newly felt and intentioned.” Sean Smuda
“As the dancer’s audience of one, I have choices to make, real agency in determining how this work is realized: Where do I stand? Do I dance along with him? Do I watch every second, or turn away? When he runs, do I race to follow or lag behind? May I make eye contact? Should I smile? Can he feel the support and solidarity of my attention? How are we connected in this space, in this movement?” Susannah Schouweiler, mnartists.org
Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad collaborate as the BodyCartography Project whose work began in public spaces across the Bay Area, San Francisco and Wellington, New Zealand.
BodyCartography’s mission is to engage with the vital materiality of our bodies to create live performance that facilitates a re-enchantment of embodiment, relationship, and presence. We create dance in urban, domestic, wild, and social landscapes. Our work is rooted in contemporary dance, somatic and socially engaged practice, and public art.
They have created performances, installations, films, workshops, talks, festivals and curatorial projects around the world presented by institutions such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, Walker Art Center, Performance Space 122, American Realness, Movement Research, TBA/Portland Institute of Contemporary Arts, Lyon Opera Ballet, Lyon, Performance Arcade, New Zealand, Cinedans, Amsterdam, South East Dance, UK, Polish Public Television amongst others. || Footnote New Zealand Dance is Aotearoa’s longest-running contemporary dance company. Founded in Wellington in 1985, Footnote is a national arts organisation that extensively tours dance works around Aotearoa and internationally: the company has performed in the United States, China, Germany, the UK, Belgium, Switzerland and France in recent years. Footnote is known for creating and commissioning bold new work by New Zealand artists.
This work was originally developed and made possible with support from Minnesota State Arts Board, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, Composer Forum’s Live Music for Dance Minnesota, Doris Duke Creative Exploration Fund, American Dances Abroad, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, National Performance Network Residency support from the Soap Factory, Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota and Festival Warsovie, Warsaw, Poland. Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Dorothy Daniels Dance Foundation. As part of the original Aotearoa presentation of closer in 2016, Footnote is delighted to collaborate again with Body Cartography this year in producing and performing closer.
