UTOPIA: touch
AUG 21+23, 2020
Presented by:
Velocity Dance Center (WA), Design in Public Festival (WA), Freeway Park Association (WA), Risk/Reward (OR), Pro Arts (CA), The Dance Center (Canada), Dance Week (Croatia), Stanica Center (Serbia), and the US Embassies in Serbia and Bosnia & Herzegovina.
Performers:
Kara Beadle, Elise Beers, Alyssa Boone, Arlo King, Vladimir Kremenović, Erin McCarthy, Maya Tacon, Tayler Tucker, Fox Whitney
Project Manager:
Leah Crosby
Creative Collaborators:
Benjamin Kinney Harris, Tayler Tucker
UTOPIA: touch is an hour-long, live, durational performance with 9 dancers in isolation exploring the tendernesses of unity and rebellion on a virtual stage. It is the second event in UTOPIA, a series of dance performances drawing inspiration from brutalist architecture, principles of socialism and democracy, lasting questions surrounding the breakup of Yugoslavia, and Vladimir’s personal narratives about life in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This iteration is particularly concerned with exploring the geometries and heritage of Yugoslav monuments dedicated to the People’s Liberation War against Nazi Germany and the Axis Powers during World War II, while experimenting with what it means to create dance works in quarantine.
WHAT IS BRUTALISM?
Brutalism is an architectural style most popular in the 1950s through 1980s that utilizes raw concrete to create poured facades deliberately void of adornment. Brutalist architecture exposes its internal structural elements and seeks to blend accessibly unpretentious aestheticism with the functionalism necessary of our mass-production society. In Yugoslavia, brutalist architecture was employed to construct a new national identity in the post-war era – a vision of a unified socialist utopia where bourgeois delicacy was abandoned in favor of imposing monumentalism.
PORUKA OD UMJETNIKA
Predviđeno je da se ova izvedba doživi kao virtuelna instalacija: nema početak, kraj, ni narativni luk. Pridružite nam se u bilo kojem trenutku tokom izvedbe i ostanite koliko god dugo ili kratko želite.
Pozivamo Vas da pričate tokom izvedbe, razgovarate sa drugim članovima publike putem četa, napustite prostoriju i vratite se, uzmete piće, pišete ili crtate, i definitivno pogledajte prezentaciju i materijale za čitanje koji se nalaze na stranici.
Umjesto pokušaja izbacivanja mogućih tehnoloških poteškoća, izvedba uživo objeručke prihvata prirodu digitalne komunikacije koja ima kvarove i usporavanja. Ja to vidim kao mogućnost da proslavimo godine dugih pauza, izgubljenih veza, i izobličenih rečenica koje su omogućavale meni i brojnim drugim imigrantima širom svijeta da ostanemo u kontaktu sa našim udaljenim porodicama i kulturama. Ova izvedba će biti moj prvi plesni komad koji će moji roditelji i moja sestra moći vidjeti u stvarnom vremenu.
NOTE FROM THE ARTIST
This durational performance is intended to be experienced as a virtual installation: there is no beginning, end, or a narrative arch. Join us at any point during the performance and stay for as long or as little as you desire.
We invite you to talk during the show, speak to other audience members through the chat feature, leave the room and come back, grab a drink, do some writing or drawing, and definitely check out the slideshow and reading materials provided on the page.
Rather than attempting to eradicate potential technological difficulties the live performance embraces the lagging, glitching nature of digital communication. I see it as a way to celebrate the years of long pauses, lost connections, and garbled sentences that allowed me and countless other immigrants around the globe to remain connected to our distant families and cultures. This show will mark my first dance work that my parents and sister will be able to witness in real-time.