THE SPACE MOVEMENT PROJECT & THE LEOPOLD GROUP COME TOGETHER FOR A SHARED CONCERT AND A NEW TWIST ON A FAMILIAR VENUE.
The Space Movement Project and The Leopold Group share the stage with the audience in "Witness." The two companies were both independently founded in 2005 and have grown up side-by-side within the Chicago dance scene, each establishing a unique choreographic style. "Witness" brings these two voices together to explore themes of spectatorship, seating the audience on stage to highlight the act of watching.
Interested in exploring questions of spectatorship, "Witness" offers on-stage seating in addition to regular general admission tickets. The back curtain of the Ruth Page Center for the Arts stage will be pulled back to reveal an elevated black box space. With audience members on two sides of the theater staring back at one another, "Witness" promises to be a stunning, visually layered performance event as all participants tackle questions about the aesthetics and politics of watching bodies move.
ABOUT THE DANCES:
The Space Movement Project will present "The Dismantlers," an examination into the intrusion of the natural world into manmade environments and the absurdity of their coexistence. The new work features collaborations with Chicago designers Amanda Lee Franck (costumes) and Shelly Stevens (sound). The Leopold Group will present remount "Lips of Their Fingers," a mash up of "Lips of Their Fingers" (2010), called "a rollicking good time, a keenly distilled mix of pop and art, alluding to sex and politics without ever blatantly going there," by Sid Smith for SeeChicagoDance, and new work "White Light Motif," commissioned by Northwestern University. "Lips of Their Fingers" is a collaboration with lighting designer Joshua Paul Weckesser, as strands of Christmas lights become integrated in the choreography.
photos by Matthew Gregory Hollis
