The BodyCartography Project: ½ Life
February 10, 2010
photo by Sean Smuda
From tonight through Sunday, PS122 presents The BodyCartography Project’s ½ Life. The description of the piece, created by dance and video artists Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad, sounds harrowing and mesmerizing:
“This evening length work investigates the survival of the body amidst a world of scientific research, data, and control. The performance hovers geographically at the edges of the Pacific Ocean – connecting nuclear super power USA, atomic survivor Japan, and nuclear free New Zealand. Performers from these three countries team up with a physicist to pursue experiments in objectification, understand the physics of nuclear power through interpretive dance, build contemporary folk dances, translate data into movement, and distill reality into a series of marks on a chalkboard.”
Tickets to ½ Life can be ordered online, and you can learn more about The BodyCartography Project at their website. Here’s an excerpt from their intriguing mission statement:
“Our site-specific work invites participants to enter their animal-like appetites and childlike curiosities for physical investigation through engagement of the sensorial body. We activate space and challenge social and perceptual limitations of physical freedom and imagination. We investigate the relationships between body systems and earth systems as a way to build empathy and understanding of the planet and to build movement with meaning for individuals and communities.”
